August 2010 Archives

You say you want some evolution?

On my shelf is a treasured 1973 paperback copy of "Football: Learn It, Watch It, Enjoy It," by Troy Winslow, forward by Frank Gifford, by Crescent Publications in L.A. Winslow was the former Inglewood High star who became, as the back photo says, a "record-holding University of Southern California quarterback, former professional football player, now head coach at Long Beach Polytechnic." Actually, he was now my typing teacher at Hawthorne High. He signed the book for me in class one day and wrote: "The sequel will be out in about 10 years!"

I don't think that ever came, unfortunately.

His record, by the way: An 11-for-11 passing day against Washington in 1965. He got the Trojans to the 1967 Rose Bowl as well. Post-Garrett, pre-O.J. Look him up.

Wrote Gifford in the forward: "There has long been a need for a football handbook written not for the use of coaches, players and others with an intimate knowledge of the game, but for the use of the average fan who likes to watch football but finds many aspects of the game hard to understand ... Winslow is unquestionably qualified to write such a football handbook."

And Troy -- a name perfect for USC, given to him by a father who also played at the school -- did it in 110 pages.

For years, that was my go-to book for backup information on why things happened, if they had to be explained to someone, somehow, in some awkward situation.

How much easier could it be to learn the game?

In 1997, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Football" arrived, authored by Joe Theismann (linked here), with co-author Brian Tracy. Theismann, whose picture is on the cover twice, kept it to 328 pages, with 29 chapters. We actually found it available on eBay.com for $1, plus $3.99 shipping and handling (linked here).

But really. Did we need to be called a complete idiot?

In 1998, "Football For Dummies," authored by Howie Long (but probably more written by John Czarnecki) rushed the audience (linked here). On the cover were a bunch of girls apparently playing flag football. Chased by a guy in a yellow tanktop. It looks like the opening to "Three's Company." And not afraid to think that more is more, Howie pushed the attention span of the readership with 407 pages.

Again, calling us a dummy wasn't so endearing.

In 2001, the second edition of Theismann's "Idiots" (linked here). Joe, in his Redskins' jersey, is still on the cover. But he's limited it just one action shot. And he pushed it to 360 pages.

Here comes the sneak: A fourth edition of something called "Football Made Simple: A Spectator's Guide," by Dave Ominsky (linked here). Just 129 pages. Just $11. Call us dumb, but this makes more sense. Even if Dave never played the game.

In 2003, the second edition of Howie's "Dummies." It raised the bar to 432 pages, got rid of the girls and put a football up on a tee.

In 2005, another reprieve. Rodney Peete's wife, Holly Robinson Peete, came out with "Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game: A Women's Guide to Loving Pro Football" (linked here). Her definition of tight ends was a bit different than Howie or Theismann. But at least we weren't called stupid.

In 2007, the third edition of Howie's "Dummies" managed to keep it to 432 pages, but the cover changed again -- it was just a green gridiron, with the yellow goal posts. This issue was necessary, the publisher said in their blurb, because, since edition two, "new stadiums have been built, new stars have ascended, and records have been broken. .. new rules ... new stadium technologies .. a revised list of greatest players ... new advice on training ..."

(By the way, somehow through all this, the K.I.S.S guides (Keep It Simple Series) has managed to do a book related to golf, fishing, weight loss, pregnancy, photography, child care, home improvement, feng shui, massage, raising a puppy, guitar, kama sutra, planning a wedding, gardening, wine and the paranormal, but nothing about football. Yet.)

This leads to what landed on the doorstep this week: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Football," 334 pages by Mike Beacom, a "veteran pro and college football editor and writer" with Football.com and ProFootballWeekly.com.

Did we learn anything flipping through it? In the list of words in the glossary, there's no listing for "muff." Where does that get us?

The publishers of this one are asking $18.95. And it's paperback. Easy to recycle. Even easier to use as a wedge under the old TV back in the den that still tilts a little to the left no matter how we try to fix it.

With the 2010 version of football now having blindsided us -- Can anyone explain the BCS again? Has the NFL figured out its overtime rule? -- we're more puzzled than ever.

What does this digression of football primers say about our need to be informed? Are there that many people around us who still don't get it?

To make it more illogical, the Amazon.com listing for this book poses the question: What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item? Three percent, they say, also buy "U is for Undertow," a Sue Grafton mystery novel.

Maybe we're caught in the undertow of this, not smart enough to figure any of this out. We just know that, had we spent the cash every other year to have someone else tell us how little we knew about the game, we'd probably just give up on trying to keep up with it.

It can't be the complicated, can it?

Paging Troy Winslow.

"I hope it's Bucky Gunts, 'cause I didn't know you could say that on television. ... Let's face it, we're all Bucky Gunts here."

Ricky Gervais' tribute to NBC Winter Olympics director Bucky Gunts for winning an Emmy for his outstanding performance in a variety, music or comedy special was more comical for a variety of reasons.

It was on Gunts' network, NBC, where his name was being mocked by Gervais, the executive producer and creator of NBC's most popular show, "The Office."

Gunts also came off as the most rigid during the video question: What did your mom want you to be when you were growing up: "First choice, a Baltimore Oriole baseball player. Second choice, the TV business, like my dad."

As he walked up to accept the award, John Houseman said over the music: "Bucky Gunts majored in hotel management at Cornell but changed to television after his thesis on ice-making machines was deemed wildly speculative and wildly dangerous. That name again is Bucky Gunts."

Who is Bucky Gunts?

Those of us who've known of him in the sports TV business didn't realize we'd been sitting on a punch line all these years.

NBC's bio of the man made a running joke at last night's Emmys:

The Vancouver win was Gunts' fourth Primetime Emmy, having previously won for directing the Opening Ceremony for Salt Lake, Athens, and Beijing.

Gunts, who has been with NBC Sports since 1983 and has worked nine Olympic Games, has directed every Olympic primetime program since 1996 and every Opening Ceremony since 2002.

For his Beijing work, Gunts also won a Director's Guild Award and the Opening Ceremony won a Peabody Award. He has also won 20 Sports Emmy Awards.

Gunts was promoted to Head of Production, NBC Olympics in 2002 after serving as Coordinating Director of NBC's Olympic coverage beginning with the 1996 Atlanta Games. As the Head of Production, Gunts' day-to-day responsibilities include supervising all broadcast and cable production units. In particular, Gunts is at the forefront of NBC's continued evolution of the use of new technology to enhance its coverage of the Olympic Games.

In June of 2010, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol announced that Gunts would lead the newly formed "NBC Olympics Production Group," which is responsible for overseeing all production elements for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Gunts has played an integral role in NBC's Emmy Award-winning Olympic coverage, directing NBC's primetime show for every Olympics since the 1996 Atlanta Games. He also directed every Opening Ceremony since the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics and won a Director's Guild Award, Peabody Award and a Primetime Emmy for the Beijing Opening Ceremony.

Gunts has directed "Football Night in America" since 2008, and directed the Super Bowl XLIII pregame show in 2008.

He returned to NBC Sports from NBC News in February 1994 when he was named Coordinating Director for NBC's 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In addition to his Olympic duties, Gunts has served as the lead director for NBC's Emmy Award-winning golf coverage. He also worked on NBC Sports' coverage of the NBA and NFL. Gunts has directed NBC Sports' U.S. Open Golf coverage since 2005; the 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2002 Ryder Cup; and handled directing duties for the 1994-97 NBA and NFL seasons. This is Gunts' second stint with NBC Sports--he had previously served as an NBC Sports Staff Director from 1983 through 1990, before directing NBC News' "Today" show from 1990 through 1993.

During Gunts' first run with NBC Sports, he served as a key director of NBC's Emmy Award-winning coverage of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. In 1988, he directed the studio portions of both the late-night coverage and the telecast of the Opening Ceremony of the Seoul Olympics, for which he also earned an Emmy. Additionally, Gunts directed NBC's NFL pre-game show "NFL Live" for six years, as well as the Super Bowl pre-game shows in 1986 and 1989. He also directed coverage of numerous Major League Baseball games--including the 1987 National League Championship Series.

Gunts began his career in his hometown, Baltimore, Md., as a Staff Director for WBAL-TV from 1972-78. He later worked at KPNX-TV in Phoenix, Ariz., and directed newscasts at WNBC-TV.

Gunts graduated from Cornell University in 1972 with a degree in economics. He was a member of the school's 1971 NCAA-champion lacrosse team. Gunts and his wife, Dennyse, live in Wilton, Conn., with their two children, B.J. and Kate.

At least no one was confusing Bucky Gunts with Temple Grandin.

Next up on ESPN's "30 For 30" documentary -- a film that seems to find blame in how TV and fame made live miserable for a bunch of 12-year-olds from Kirkland, Wash., nearly 30 years ago.

This latest cautionary tale, which ESPN actually ran over the weekend during its Little League World Series programming and re-airs it Tuesday at 4 p.m., goes back to the 1982 LLWS that featured Cody Webster and his buddies upsetting Taiwan for the national title.

This wasn't very long after the U.S. hockey team knocked off the USSR in Winter Olympic hockey to become national heroes. Yet these kids from Kirkland obviously weren't ready for their close up. Today, it's still painfully obvious.

Back then, Taiwan had won 31 in a row at Williamsport, Pa. This was when just four U.S. and four international teams qualified for the finals.

Webster, now 40, is again the focal point of how he never wanted to be the center of attention, but ended up as such because he was, well, the biggest (5-foot-7, 140 pounds) and best player. There's the clip again of ABC's Jim McKay putting a mike in Webster's face after the team beat Taiwan and asking him if he could explain the magnitude of what just happened.

Webster, of course, couldn't.

"Innocence -- as valued as it is vunerable," says the voice over.

Webster's dad holds up a copy of the local paper with his son's photo from the parade the city had upon the team's return. "He's not quite sure what's going on," dad says.

There's a clip of Webster and his coach on ABC's "Good Morning America," when the host Joan Lunden asking: "What are his chances of becoming a professional baseball player?"

There's a clip of Bob Costas as part of NBC's MLB World Series from St. Louis, tossing to an interview with Tom Seaver and the kids live in the stands. Webster had pretty much nothing much to say to Seaver, either.

"I just wanted to be teammate," Webster says today about all the attention heaped on him back then. "I wanted to be the offensive lineman, not he quarterback. I've always been uncomfortable. It's bothered me. It's not fair."

Too bad. As the end of the documentary points out, ABC used the Little League World Series celebration of Webster and his teammates as the "thrill of victory" clip on the "Wide World of Sports" introduction from 1983 to 1988.

What this doc does -- again, ironically since it has been ESPN and ABC leading the charge in televising the LLWS -- is question again how intense fame is for kids 11- to 13-years old, no matter how media savvy you assume they might be.

One of the things brought up is how much abuse Webster took in his baseball career from that point on, quitting the game several times because he couldn't handle the taunting (jealousy) from the opposing players' parents.

"It was the parents, (the) adults," Webster says today, almost incredulously. "If it was kids, I could handle that my own way."

Adds Webster's dad: "It's a sick thing when grownups swear at a 13-year old kid."

Webster's teammates actually tear up thinking about how he was treated, and how those unrealistic expectations put him in such a horrible position.

Webster ended up winning a state baseball title with Juanita High (a team that included six others from that Kirkland Little League team). Webster also won a state football title. He ended up playing college ball at Eastern Washington less than a year, a shoulder injury from football forcing him to quit.

"My heart wasn't in it," Webster says now.

So, what do the Kirkland bunch -- Webster, Erik Jonson, Shawn Cochran, Bill Cook, Mike Adams, David Keller , Brian Avery and Mark Peterson -- want America to know now about them that they didn't before?

"Today, parents, kids, they all think that the college scholarship is the way to go (for success in baseball)," says Avery. "I personally think you play sports for the fun of it and you can't put that kind of pressure on little kids."

"I tell parents, 'Give 'em a chance. Let 'em succeed. I can guarantee if you push 'em too hard, they'll be done in a year or two'," says Webster, who now coaches baseball in the Seattle area (linked here) (a story linked here in the Seattle Post-Intellegencer wrote in 2001 that Webster was working in a warehouse for a container story). "I've seen it. It's just not worth it. It's a game ... always will be."

== The Sports Illustrated story on Webster and Kirkland, Wash., winning the Little League World Series, written by Steve Wulf (linked here).

We caught wind of this indie sports comedy, "The Winning Season," when it was circulating in 2008 (linked here) at Sundance, but for some reason, it never hit theatres -- until we spotted an ad touting its "exclusive engagement" starting Friday at the West Hollywood Laemmle's Sunset 5 and Culver City's Plaza Theatre.

A PG-13 flick about a guy hired to coach a rag-tag girls basketball team doesn't look like it'll have some "Coach Carter" results, but there seems to be a laugh or two already evident from the trailer (above).

Writer and director James C. Strouse ("Grace Is Gone") doesn't stretch too far with this storyline, so it's up to Sam Roswell (as coach Bill) and Rob Corddry (as principal Terry) to make it work with the girls.

"Hilarious!" says someone at Variety.

We'll be the judge of that. Starting Friday.

The story the other day about how Anthony Amalfitano has reopened an old-school bakery back on Western Avenue in Rancho Palos Verdes (linked here) brought us to wonder: Whatever happened to former long-time Dodgers third base coach Joey Amalfitano -- who undoubtedly is related to Anthony, since the Amalfitanos are an institution in the San Pedro area.

A story in Sunday's New York Times (lined here) answered the later question.

While Anthony may be working on his bundt cakes, the 76-year-old Joey, the Dodgers' coach under Tommy Lasorda from 1983-'98, has been teaching San Francisco Giants' farm system players the art of the bunt.

Highlights of the week ahead in sports, both here and afar:

MONDAY

Tennis: U.S. Open in New York, opening rounds, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tennis Channel; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., ESPN2:

Vera Zvonareva, you're too good to be true. Still can't take our eyes off of you. Check out the New York Times magazine website (linked here) about this year's U.S. Open women's power tennis game. It's powerful.
Meanwhile, going back to last year's event -- fourth-round match against Flavia Pennetta. Second set.
Vera did the following:
= Cried on the court during the second set tiebreak,
= Hysterically cried in the locker room in between the second and third sets,
= Ripped off a portion of the medical tape that was wrapped around her thighs,
= Complained to the chair umpire that the remaining tape around her thighs prevented her from playing,

= Screamed an obscenity at the chair umpire when she wouldn't give her a medical timeout to fix said medical tape,
= Loudly yelled a compound word/profanity after hitting an unforced error,
= Continued to rip the tape off her leg,
= Smashed her racquet into a post and,
= Spent the final changeover sitting in her chair with a white towel draped over her head.
Then she lost the third set 6-0.
We wish we could have been there to console her.
This year's event will have Vera seeded seventh, but It'll go on without women's top-seed Serena Williams, who, like last year's men's finalist Juan Martin del Potro, isn't participating because of injury. Venus Williams, seeded third, sprained her left kneecap in early August, forcing her to withdraw from hard-court tournaments at Cincinnati and Montreal. She hasn't played for more than two months. ESPN's coverage this week runs through Friday; CBS takes over Saturday and Sunday, while Tennis Channel has coverage every day.
Vera could face Coco Vandeweghe in the second round if the niece of former UCLA and NBA star Kiki Vandeweghe can get past her first-round opponent, Germany's Sabine Lisicki. A meeting again with Pennetta couldn't happen unless both made it to the final.

Basketball: FIBA World Championship: U.S. vs. Brazil, 11:30 a.m., ESPN:

Sultan Kosen, a 27-year-old from Turkey who holds the world record by standing 8-feet, 2-inches, was in Southern California the other day, visiting a San Clemente dentist who gave him $50,000 worth of free work. At 300 pounds, he wears a size 28 shoe. Shaquille O'Neal only wears a 23. That said, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Lamar Odom and Eric Gordon are in Turkey for awhile, playing in the basketball world championships, and hardly drawing the same attention that Kosen might. The U.S. games for the rest of the week: Wednesday (vs. Iran, 9 a.m., ESPN), Thursday (vs. Tunisia, 6:30 a.m., ESPN2), and a country to be named later either Sunday or Monday.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Philadelphia, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

We've lost interest in whether the late, great Gary Coleman was or wasn't divorced in a creepy way. The trial to determine who'll could be the future owner of the Dodgers -- McCourt, or McCourt -- is supposed to start today. Rendering a decision in this L.A. rematch of the last two NLCS series as, perhaps, anticlimactic. Even with Roy Halliday scheduled to face the Dodgers. With the newest wild-card implications, and Manny Ramirez's future, here's where some damage can be done.

MLB: Angels at Seattle, 7 p.m., FSW:

The Angels and Mariners have been somewhat hopelessly spinning their wheels in the AL West race -- enough to where Seattle finally eliminated manager Don Wakamatsu was fired a few weeks ago, along with pitching coach Rich Adair, bench coach Ty Van Burkleo and performance coach Steve Hecht. The Mariners' performance since then: Just about .500. Which is just about the record Seattle star Felix Hernandez brings in (10-10) to tonight's game, even after winning his last two starts, beating both the Red Sox and Yankees on the road. He still leads the league in Ks (192) and innings pitched (204 1/3) with a 2.47 ERA. His ERA in games he's won -- 0.87. In his other 18 starts (10 losses, eight no decisions), he's 3.55. Still in the ballpark.

TUESDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Philadelphia, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

A cooler-bag giveaway, to the first 20,000. Pretty cool if you ask us. It would also be cool if Dodger scheduled starter Carlos Monasterious could keep his hit-batters total (it was three last week in Milwaukee) lower than his hits-allowed total (two, in the same game against the Brewers).

MLB: Angels at Seattle, 7 p.m., FSW:

Any thoughts of taking custody of Chone Figgins while up in the Emerald City? While he'd still be eligible for the team's post-season roster?

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Philadelphia, Dodger Stadium, 1 p.m., Prime:

September arrives, and it should play out as a bright, sunny L.A. day. We hear it's always sunny in Philadelphia. After Roy Oswalt faces Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers are having an event where - we kid you not - they'll allow "pre-registered" senior citizens to run the bases. "Seniors Stroll the Bases" is for those affiliated with AARP, Sunrise Senior Centers and Leisure World. For more info: www.dodgers.com/aarp. Or ask Brad Ausmus.

MLB: Angels at Seattle, 7 p.m., FSW:

Jeff Weaver, scheduled to start for the Angels here, is 19-9 lifetime in games he's pitched in September and October, and he's 10-3 against Seattle over his career in 17 starts -- the most victories against any team in the big leagues, by a wide margin. He only has 62 wins total in four-plus seasons.

THURSDAY

College football: USC at Hawaii, 8 p.m., ESPN:

The extended Labor Day weekend begins with a trip that USC booked years ago to give its followers a nice, relaxing, end of the summer vacation. Now, it's about as close to a bowl excursion as they'll get (unless you want to count a trip to Minneapolis in a couple of weeks). Lane Kiffin's watch begins without heralded freshman tailback Dillon Baxter, who was also third on the depth chart at quarterback.

That kind of sums up how this post-Pete Carroll, post-NCAA probation era will begin -- unless someone else wants to strip USC of previous titles. Pass the poi and pick your poison. Who else of note is starting the college season tonight? Ohio State (hosting Marshall, 4:30 p.m., Big Ten Network), South Carolina (hosting Southern Miss, 4:30 p.m., ESPN) and Utah (hosting Pitt, 5:30 p.m., on Versus). Also on this day: The NFL has planned 16 exhibition games, with no one having a bye, in the last tuneup before the regular season starts.

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Francisco, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

Fireworks are promised after the game. During the game, that's up to the players. The team leading the NL wildcard race must stand its ground with extinguishers ready. It's brushfire season. And Barry Zito is carrying the roman candle in the opener.

MLB: Angels at Oakland, 7 p.m., FSW:

The Slumberin' A's are actually ahead of the Angels in the AL West. A road swing through Oakland could change it. Maybe.

College football: Arizona at Toledo, 4 p.m., ESPN:

Take Toledo and the 15 points. The Wildcats' defense ain't what it used to be.

Golf: PGA's Deutsche Bank Championship, first round, noon, Golf Channel:

Once Phil Mickelson missed the cut at last week's Barclay's event, he lost any mathematical chance of taking Tiger Woods' top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings. That's nine events in a row in which Mickelson had a chance to become No. 1 in the world for the first time in his career. When they meet again here, it'll be even more difficult, based on Woods' finish unday. The start of this event is pushed back a day to finish on the holiday, the second leg of the Fed Ex Cup playoff event ends with the final two rounds on NBC.

SATURDAY

College football: UCLA at Kansas State, 12:30 p.m., Channel 7:

The Bruins' Pistol-packing offense goes to Manhattan, Kansas already is a few bullets shy as the season opens. The offensive line goes without center and captain Kai Maiava (broken ankle), Jeff Baca (academically ineligible) and Mike Harris (suspended). Quarterback Kevin Prince may or may not show, either. Who left the floodgates open? Kick it away, Kai Forbath.

College football: Purdue at Notre Dame, 12:30 p.m., Channel 4:

If NBC can manipulate the commercial breaks to satisfy new coach Brian Kelly, maybe new Irish QB Dayne Crist, who replaces that Clausen kid, can scramble around and get enough time to make everyone's debut big-show-worthy.

MLB: Angels at Oakland, 1 p.m., FSW:

When does "Moneyball" plan for its release? Brad Pitt was just asking us the other day.

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Francisco, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

How did Matt Cain go from a Cy Young candidate a year ago to a .500 pitcher this season? He signed a three-year contract extension in March that bumped his salary from $2.9 mil last year (14-8, 2.89 ERA) to $4.5 this season. Yet, if you look at his career stats, he's seven games under .500 in more than 160 starts. He beat the Dodgers 2-0 on Aug. 1 with seven strike outs and 13 ground ball outs (versus six fly ball outs). On June 4, he lost 4-2 to the Dodgers when had 12 fly ball outs, just four ground ball outs and six Ks.

MLS: Galaxy at Chicago, 1 p.m., Prime:

You may be one of the few asking: What's happened to the Galaxy since they started the season 11-0-2? Losing four of their last nine (before Saturday's game against KC ....

SUNDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Francisco, Dodger Stadium, 5 p.m., ESPN2:

The Dodgers still have a promotion with Claim Jumper: If the team scores 10 runs or more in a home game, everyone can get a plate of free wings at the pile-it-high restaurant. It's only happened twice this year, though. The first: April 16 against the Giants, in the fourth home game of the year. Todd Wellemeyer was the victim for the Giants. Two weeks ago, the team released him.

MLB: Angels at Oakland, 1 p.m., Channel 13:

Only three more against the A's after this. Not that we're counting on anything happening.

College football: SMU at Texas Tech, 12:30 p.m., ESPN:

The last pro football-less Sunday of the year also has Delaware State vs. Southern (ESPN, 9 a.m.) and Tulsa at East Carolina (ESPN2, 11 a.m.).

More from today's column (linked here) on National College Players Association executive director Ramogi Huma - that's Ra-MOE-gee WHO-ma - and what else he has to say on the state of college athletics:

== On the pending passage of AB 2079, the Student-Athlete Right to Know bill:

"Many people are shocked to hear the type of misinformation student-athletes get during the recruiting process, and the public really isn't informed, either. There is a lot of deception and omitted information and a lack of equality nationwide as athletes struggle to get by. It wasn't until after I was injured as a player did I realize the NCAA capped scholarships. The totals are even below the price tag of the school's academic scholarships. I don't think that's an accident. They know what they're doing. The players aren't met to get by. But they sell it as a full scholarship. It's very tough to navigate through this system.

"(Our organization) has a lot of goals, but this one is to create a very powerful transparency and honesty in recruiting. It's obvious when you talk about this issue, no one really knows all that's involved. Maybe they know one or two pieces, or some of the pitfalls, but not all of them. I've talked to lawmaker after lawmaker and finally go the support in California, and I hope it continues forward."

== On Huma's college experience arriving at UCLA - in 1995, he was the Bruins' co-defensive rookie of the year, redshirted in '96 with a broken foot, started in '98 as a junior but sustained a career-ending hip injury in the second game against Houston:

"When I went through the recruiting process, I made four visits and had a horrible time. They all seemed like cookie-cutter schools. They were competitive teams, with huge promiment campuses, great coaches. It's hard to make a decision. Had I known that some of them wouldn't take care of my medical expenses or other issues, I could have made a much more informed decision.

"I had been offered scholarships from nine of the 10 Pac-10 schools, plus Colorado, took four trips, and everywhere I went, they said I would be given a 'full scholarship.' I'd go on these trips - to UCLA, Colorado, Washington and Arizona, and I passed on going to Stanford - and there'd be food for days, and you'd think, 'wow, college is great.' I was a light linebacker, just 250 pounds. When I was a freshman, I lost 15 pounds because I couldn't get enough food to maintain my weight off of what we were given to live off. I was used to five big meals a day. Now I was on the campus meal card, getting one a day, and no extra money at all.

"(When All-American Donnie Edwards was suspended), we started that season 5-0, we beat Miami, and we were on our way. But that changed and Donnie was in trouble. But as mad as we were about the issues, there was no one to address it with anyone. We'd have team meetings, and they'd tell us, 'The NCAA runs the show.'

"Later, in my first summer, we had a new coach, Terry Donahue left, and a new conditioning coach. The players wanted to get better, so we wanted to do the conditioning program. And there was a lot of pressure to go. But in the middle of our first meeting, an NCAA compliance officer told us, 'Just to let you know, the NCAA considers this voluntary, so we're not allowed to pay your medical expenses if you're injured.' The players thought he was joking. Then when we realized he was serious, we turned very upset. Some of the players said, 'My parents don't have coverage, so what do I do?' All we could do is shrug out shoulders. It became clear that every other school in the country had to deal with this. At that point, I was ready to do something about it. If we all could join hands, the NCAA would have to hear us and we should have more influence."

== On the pitfalls many recruits face in the recruiting process:

"Recruiters have to win at all costs and it may not be convenient for them to give all the information they know. It's all about verbal agreements. Nothing is in writing. To record the conversation with the recruiters, they'd have to agree to it. The recruiters have free reign. Their incentives aren't the same as the schools. It's not good for them to disclose information that isn't going to help them land a recruit. I know they're in a tough spot, but you have to sleep at night knowing the truth. They compete. I'm not saying every recruiter is deceptive, but the term, 'full scholarship' is very deceptive. All of the recruiters are responsible for that myth. It's a deep-rooted lie."

== On how he would do as a parent trying to help his kids deal with recruiters (Huma's children are now aged 2 and 1 years old):

"The scary part is, I can help them with as much as I know and still can't guarantee the schools will do as it says. Even if you give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt, who's to say the coach won't honor their promises.

"Part of this bill is to disclose scholarship renewal. If a player is in good standings, and a new coach comes in, he can do what he wants - even get rid of existing players. The huge myth in college sports - you have a four-year scholarship. The NCAA caps it at one year, but the schools can verbally guarantee a four-year deal if you keep good grades. But that whole line is against the NCAA rules. There is no outright guarantee. The NCAA is complicit with that - you can't guarantee it. Sometimes, a school will retain 51 percent of their scholarship players. So they can tell a recruit their policy to normally keep a player. And they're in the clear.

"It's very easy for schools to post all this information on a reliable Internet site, straight from the school. But most don't."

== On the NCPA's backing of the current lawsuit that former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon has against the NCAA for allowing EA Sports to use the likeness of players in video games (story linked here):

"We're supportive of the case. Obviously, when I was playing the 'NCAA College Football' video games back then, you'd see the background, height, weight of each player, and it was obvious that it was us. And it was fun and exciting to see it. Even then, the technology was amazing. But for EA to pretend they weren't using us ...

"We are about advocating equality and fairness. Is it fair for these companies to mandate players sign over their rights? We had no choice. I don't even remember what part of the paperwork package or what actual document we signed to allow them to use us. But there was so much hypocracy. The NCAA is supposed to protect the athletes from the forces of commercialism. They not only condone it here, but they facilitate it. So then the question is: Who is the NCAA protecting? The players are being used in the process without compensation. If the NCAA is my friend, I'd hate to see my enemy.

== On the NCPA's website that grades schools on how much medical assistance information they give to recruits - from an A to an F, if there's no participation in the survey:

"We explained to every school what we were trying to achieve, and followed it up with phone calls, faxes, emails. Now, it's a bill. Some of the schools may not want to jump through the hoops of wanting to give our their information, but the medical policies, above all, are most important. For 90 percent of the schools to refuse to give information is ridiculous. It just underscored the need for bill.

== On how his own school, UCLA, was one that didn't disclose the information (as well as USC and Cal State Northridge):

"I was hopeful they'd participate and disappointed, just as I was with every other school. Even with my alma mater not wanting to give, I had to find other points of leverage."

== More information:

== The NCPA website (linked here)
== On the state's movement on AB 2079 (linked here)
== A story from June, 2009 on AB 2079 (linked here)
== A story from Yahoo.com (linked here)
== A story on NPR: (linked here)

www.osulibrary.oregonstate.edu
Oregon State shorstop Steve Lyons throw to first in a game against Washington in 1981.

We'll spare most of the mundane, but let you know there's a link here on the Fox Sports West website (linked here), and the next-to-last paragraph reads:

I think this may be the longest and most boring blog I've written to date. I'm not exactly sure why I thought anybody would want to know what I do for any length of time, let alone four days.....but this is it.

And of his performance on the Thursday afternoon game for Prime Ticket:

Of the three games, Thursday was my worst broadcast. The game felt slow and kind of boring, and after three straight games against the same team I always feel like I'm repeating the same stuff about the players that everybody's already heard. But in my business they say the audience changes about every 20 seconds.... so i guess it's O.K.

And how the trip started Monday:

Then, at the front of the coach section, it's all the grunts like me. Announcers (Vin and Jaime, the Hall of Famers, sit in First Class) the production people and others.

Even more from the media column today (linked here) on John Brenkus and "Sport Science," which will have an episode to air on ESPN Saturday prior to the James Toney-Randy Couture boxer-vs.-MMA battle in UFC 118 (above, and linked here):

Question: Factoring in performance enhancing drugs into the equation as to who can perform the best feats of athletic achievement is something you've addressed as well in your book. Is that the X-factor that you have to weigh that you may wish you didn't have to?

Brenkus: I really do take the approach that: Assume everyone's doing everything they can to get an edge. Steroids aren't a black and white issue, but really just a big shade of gray. And for anyone to take a different stance, in my opinion, doesn't understand the business of sports. It's not the athlete who's doing it, it's the machine that demands it be done. People want to crucify athletes for doing this, but the truth is, Advil and caffeine are enhancing performance as well. When you talk about baseball players taking steroids, was it legal or illegal? That wasn't the question. They weren't banned at the time. And then there are arbitrary numbers that come up for things like testosterone levels - these nice round numbers that everyone can get their heads around easier.

Q: How has the relationship with ESPN helped move "Sport Science" into this new direction after such a succesful run on Fox Sports Net?

Brenkus: ESPN's people have also been very collaborative in this process. It's been very organic. We'll ask them: What do you wonder about?
And what's smart about that from ESPN, you'll never get 15 million people to watch a "Sport Science" show, but you have 15 million people glued to the set when a "Sport Science" segment is on during a game on Monday Night Football. And now, having a standing set here (in Burbank), it's much easier than having to jam everything into a three-week window like it was before with a temporary set. When we moved to ESPN the only way to run the show was having a standing set because never know who an athlete is available. We're wired to go live to air from this facility if we needed to. We're all fibered up and can feed things directly. And L.A. is a great place to get people. Everyone passes through here, if not for training, then for a photo-shoot or a commercial.

Q: If you're taking this from the approach of what makes good TV - you've been a director, producer, editor, all that - how does your background in science come in?

Brenkus: I was always a good student in physics and biology and the foundation of having gone to the University of Virginia. I only read science stuff -- I don't read anything fiction. And the book I've done is the kind of book I'd want to read. You dive into something, learn something. And you look for arguments.

Q: So the point is also that the species can change and all your arguments, based on current information, would make your predictions look far different?

Brenkus: Ten thousand years from now, people could be eight feet tall and fast sprinters.

Q: Did that make registering a prediction 20 years ago harder to do without today's technology? Could you say when you first started this that no one will run a 9.5 in the 100 meters, not knowing that Usain Bolt would come around, or how to even measure that possibility?

Brenkus: I never really postulated numbers back then, but what I did was really wonder. In most cases, there really was no way to get the answers back then. But then again, a number is meaningless without something to back it up. What I want to do is give something that's not so scientific that it makes everyone's eyes glaze over, but enough information so that you can buy into the argument that this is the real answer.
Even when you watch an instant replay, the reason why you're fascinated is because you're getting more information. You're asking yourself, "How in the world did that happen?" The replay brings up far more questions than answers. So we want to tap into that, even if you're not a sports fan but are someone who has marveled at a human's ability to walk - how is that engineering feat even capable?

Q: What's the feedback from viewers? Is there an idea some viewer has submitted that was too good to pass on?

Brenkus: Someone asked about doing the Ironman -- can the average person do it? I ended up doing it and it came off well. I did finish it but I blew out my right hip and had to pedal the last six miles into a 40-mph headwind with one leg. The guy who won it, Chris McCormick, actually finished the entire race just as I was starting on the bike part of it. But it also shows how 20 years ago, the top time was about 12 hours. Over two days. Now they're finishing it in eight hours. That's staggering about how humans will run the gauntlet when it's thrown at them.

Q: How expensive can all this get with a single experiment?

Brenkus: It's not just a matter of throwing out numbers. It really depends on the experiment. We have a large, robust machine with every piece of scientific gear, motion capture equipment, animation, the best camera equipment and a giant staff of researchers, writers, scientists ... It's hard to compare (to even a reality show) because it's so different. We travel sometimes -- one time, we had to go to Indianapolis Motor Speedway because we couldn't replicate it in the studio.

Q: Final question: Do you have any idea what flubber is made of?

Brenkus: The actual chemical composition, I don't actually know. But I do know it's a property that is bounding up against the laws of perpetual motion -- energy that's exerted equally wil be energy that's returned. Most people think of Flubber as a liquified Super Ball. That's not an actual product. Even in theoritical conversations, physics will say, "Don't you realize how silly it sounds making a perpetual motion machine? But with movies like "Back to the Future," some think it's a real thing.

Q: Maybe Flubber could help someone duink the ball on a 14-foot basket (in his new book, "The Perfection Point," Brenkus theorizes that someone who is 7-foot-2 with a 51-inch vertical leap could be the first to dunk on a basket that high).

Brenkus: That's the absolute top (actually, 14-feet, 5-inches). You think someone the size of Yao Ming could get a 51-inch vertical. I think it can happen.

AND FINALLY:

== Brenkus says it's the most-discussed video he get asked about -- Drew Brees, going 10-for-10, over at the new Ed Roybal Charter School facility near Dodger Stadium:

Denver Post sports columnist Dave Kreiger is tired of being singled out as working with a bunch of idiots.

So here's a dumb idea: Strength in numbers. Odd, even or prime.

In his latest column (linked here), he suggests starting a new media organization called "Dumbest Guys in the Room."

"This organization is open to men, women and any other primates capable of composing an e-mail. Applications for membership should be sent to dumbestguysintheroom@gmx.com."

Why?

"The mission of Dumbest Guys in the Room will be to restore sports media's good name. Or give it a good name for the first time. Whichever.

"It will not be an easy task. The media in general already rank down there with mortgage brokers, politicians and Lindsay Lohan in public esteem. On the bright side, the fact that I just mentioned Lindsay Lohan should improve the search-engine optimization of this column.

"The deterioration of our reputation is easier to figure out than the solution. To stem declines in readership and viewership, we embraced provocation and sensation because provocative and sensational sell better than considered and correct. Political parties are discovering pretty much the same thing."

It concludes, for those too dumb to click on that link above and read it for yourself, thus giving the newspaper another click on its website so someone counting beans and quantifying current Internet ad revenue possibilities will have something to do:

"It's a zoo out there. There are shrill, self-righteous arbiters of human behavior such as ESPN's (Jay) Mariotti; thoughtful, self-conscious judges such as (Miami Herald columnist Dan) Le Batard; and thousands of writers and editors doing their best to be considered and correct. It is little different from the sprawling range of behavior among doctors, lawyers and, yes, even Internet entrepreneurs.

"It is, in short, the spectrum of human nature, from glorious to hideous. I think I can report with a fair degree of certainty that this variety is not unique to our business. But it is true that provocative and sensational get a disproportionate share of the attention.

"We can do better. And even if we are the Dumbest Guys in the Room, we aim to try."

Not a dumb idea at all. Who but us to clean up our image?

Maybe we should start by issuing Smart Phones to all the smart alecks out there who have remained in this profession rather than thrown in the towel, or started a bed and breakfast somewhere in Oxnard-annex.

What else you need to know in the media world aside from today's column (linked here):

== Derek Fisher is the guest host today on ESPN"s "Jim Rome Is Burning" (1:30 p.m.) and his in-studio guest: Kobe Bryant.

== John McEnroe, speak (linked here).

== CBS' NFL broadcasting lineup includes paring Lakers radio play-by-play man Spero Dedes with former Crespi High and UCLA star Randy Cross on regional games. Dedes' first three assignments: Cleveland at Tampa Bay (Sept. 12); Buffalo at Green Bay (Sept. 19) and Oakland at Arizona (Sept. 26).

The rest of the CBS teams: Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf, Ian Eagle (replacing Dick Enberg) and Dan Fouts, Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots, Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker, Bill Macatee and Rich Gannon, and Don Criqui with Steve Beuerlein.

== Pam Ward and Doris Burke will call the Sparks' WNBA playoff game against Seattle (Saturday, noon, Staples Center, ESPN2).

== Showtime confirmed that "Inside the NFL" will return with James Brown, Cris Collinsworth, Phil Simms and Warren Sapp, starting Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 10 p.m.

== NBC's coverage of the U.S. Amateur golf championship from Washington goes Saturday and Sunday from 1-3 p.m. Dan Hicks, Gary Koch, Roger Maltbie and Dottie Pepper will do it. As the leadins: NBC also has the highlights from U.S. Open of Surfing championship from Huntington Beach on Saturday (noon, Channel 4) hosted by Pat Parnell, while Paul Sunderland is joined by Ato Boldon, Lewis Johnson and Dwight Stones on the taped coverage of the Diamond League Track and Field event Sunday (noon, Channel 4) from Brussels, Belgium.

== CBS has Bill Macatee and Mary Carillo at the final of the WTA's Pilot Pen Tennis event from New Haven, Conn. (Channel 2, 11 a.m., Sunday), the final women's tournament before the U.S. Open.

== The Baseball Hall of Fame will begin posting candidates for its 2011 Ford C. Frick Award given to a broadcaster. From Sept. 1-30, fans can vote through the museum's Facebook page (www.facebook.com/baseballhall) to pick three candidates that will be included on the final 10-name ballot for the award, which is voted on by a 20-member panel that includes Vin Scully, Jaime Jarrin and Jerry Coleman and will be announced in December.

== Fox goes with Philadelphia at San Diego (Saturday, 1 p.m., Channel 11) with Josh Lewis and Eric Karros as its MLB Game of the Week. ESPN's Sunday game: Boston at Tampa Bay; TBS takes N.Y. Yankees at Chicago White Sox at 11 a.m. Sunday.

== A reminder: A celebration of the life of former Kings colorman and L.A. radio legend Dan Avey will be today in the Empire Room at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City from 4-7 p.m.

AND FINALLY:

AOL's FanHouse announced Thursday morning that it has suspended columnist Jay Mariotti indefinitely following his weekend arrest on suspicion of felony domestic assault.

FanHouse told Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch (linked here): "We are continuing to gather all the facts. In the meantime, we have suspended Jay Mariotti and are not featuring any new work from him."

Also, Mariotti won't be on ESPN's "Around The Horn" ianytime soon. The show has been thankfully off the air this week with the Little League World Series coverage, and an ESPN spokesman said Mariotti is "not scheduled" for next week. Mariotti had also been subbing on local ESPN affiliate, KSPN-AM (710) in the last few weeks. Not that we know much more than that, because whenever we heard his voice, we'd switch to NPR.

Earlier this week, Deitsch examined the sort of glee that some blogs are experiencing in "reporting" on this Mariotti story (linked here).

On our radar, like Glenn Beck, we've tuned Mariotti out months ago. Nothing gained, nothing lost. Not even the irony of this whole mess, and its message, is amusing enough to muse about. Except to say: Karma.

Friday's media column sends us to a warehouse near the Bob Hope Airport runway in Burbank, to BASE Production studios, where Calabasas' John Brenkus breaks it down on how his "Sport Science" works.

You've seen him act as his own crash-test dummy, first in the weekly series that started (and still runs) on Fox Sports Net, and now in the speciality-made segments that ESPN finds a way to get into their live-game action or on "SportsCenter" hits.

Check out the video above of the 5-foot-8, 160-pounder getting pounded from all angles in the name of science.

In actuality, it's like a more scientific verson of "Pros Vs. Joes," where Brenkus acts as the better-than-average weekend warrior, but when put up against the professional, his lack of necessary abilities are painfully exposed. And it puts everything, hopefully, into better context.

Like, what would it be like to be hit off the line by Ndamukong Suh? Or, be taken into submission -- literally choked out -- by an MMA star like Gina Carano? Or have an attack dog attack him, simulating what Evander Holyfield may have felt having his ear chomped on by Mike Tyson?

A baseball to the gonads may not be as pleasant as G-forces taken in a fighter jet, but you get the picture. It's pain.

One of the experiments you can see on tonight's ESPN Indianapolis-Green Bay exhibition game at halftime is a breakdown on how Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney puts his spin move on an opponent (linked here).

With Brenkus along for the ride.

"It's really counter-intuiative to see a 270-pound guy not just doing a spin move and turning his back on the opponent, but then he leaves his feet -- two things a coach will tell you to never do," said Brenkus of the Freeney piece. "We found out that when he's spinning, based on his weight and angular velocity, he's going as fast as an Olympic ice skater doing a double-toe loop. And that's what that creates his space. It's hard enough for a blocker to keep Freeney in front of him. But then he leaves his feet, and you ask, 'Why?'

"We sensored him up to measure his spin and then we figured out the force of his hit -- on me. It was pretty outrageous."

Brenkus also has a new book coming out next week, "The Perfection Point: Sport Science Predicts the Fastest Man, The Highest jump and the Limits of Athletic Performance" (Harper, $26.99. 242 pages), which can be pre-ordered online before its Sept. 1 release (linked here).

== Brenkus' ESPN "Sport Science" website (linked here)

== More background on the "Sport Science" show (linked here)

== Brenkus' BASE Productions website (linked here), which also produces programming for many other TV networks, and is responsible for the New Year's Eve extreme sports programming on ESPN.

The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. -- A fan has been banned for life from Richmond Flying Squirrels home games after a foul ball he threw back onto the field hit the opposing team's pitcher as he stood on the mound.

The ball thrown from the upper deck along the third base line struck Reading Phillies pitcher J.C. Ramirez in the left leg Tuesday night.

The Double-A game was stopped briefly and the unidentified fan was removed. Ramirez remained in the game but gave up RBI singles to the next two hitters before leaving.

Flying Squirrels spokesman Anthony Oppermann declined to identify the fan.

"One of the ground rules for the stadium is you can't throw objects onto the field at any time," Oppermann said. "He threw a ball onto the field, and worse yet it struck a player."

Ramirez, a 22-year-old prospect in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, said he hadn't decided whether to press charges.

Todd Parnell, the Squirrels' vice president and chief operating officer, said the fan told stadium security he'd seen balls thrown back on the field following opponents' home runs at Chicago Cubs games and that he wasn't trying to hit anybody.

"But the bottom line is the field is sacred," Parnell said. "That shouldn't happen, and it won't happen here. We won't tolerate it."

An e-mail apology was forwarded from the fan to Reading's manager, Parnell said. The Squirrels didn't disclose the fan's identity and Reading spokesman Tommy Viola didn't immediately return a telephone message.

In addition to the lifetime ban, the fan also cannot attend any other event at the Richmond ballpark.

"Our fans have been tremendous," Oppermann said. "I think they realize that was just poor judgment by one fan. I don't think in any way it embodies what our fans are like here in Richmond."

Director of broadcasting Jon Laaser suggested that if fans are lucky enough to catch a foul ball, "put it in your pocket and cherish the souvenir."

Richmond, an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, is in its debut season.

AP Photo/Danny Moloshok

First two words that pop into your allerative head with describing the Dodgers' Matt Kemp?

Alphabetically, potential and perplexing rank below heart and hustle, but they can easily be transposed.

The Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association begs to differ.

That group, according to a press release that landed in the in-box, is "pleased to announce" that Kemp is the winner of the Dodgers' "Heart and Hustle Award," which will be presented to him by Maury Wills in a pregame ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 4.

Directly, again, from the MLBPAA press release about how they will honor Kemp:

"This esteemed award honors active players who demonstrate a passion for the game of baseball and best embody the values, spirit, and tradition of the game. The MLBPAA formed 30 committees, comprised of Alumni players with established relationships to each team. One player from each Major League team is chosen by the committees based on the passion, desire, and work ethic demonstrated both on and off the field. These players will be recognized prior to an upcoming home game. As the season draws to a close, all Alumni and active players will vote to select the final winner from the 30 team winners. The previous overall winners are David Eckstein (2005), Craig Biggio (2006, 2007), Grady Sizemore (2008), and Albert Pujols (2009)."

The final winner will be announced Nov. 5 at the 11th Annual Legends for Youth Dinner in New York.

Please, let it be Kemp.

We come not to bash him, but ...

Did you see him the other night in Milwaukee square around to bunt, flinch backward, have the ball hit the bat and actually put the bunt down, but Kemp took one step toward first, apparently felt stupid, and didn't run it out while the pitcher fielded the ball, then threw to first to record the out. Not that the pitcher could have overthrown it and allowed Kemp the free base. It was too late. Kemp had already picked up his helmet, felt embarassed, and was talking back to the dugout.

The next night: Kemp, in the batter's box, decides the pitcher has taken too long to deliver the pitch, so he waves to the ump to call time, then steps out of the box. The umpire takes some offense to this. And takes his mask off. He explains to Kemp: You can request the time out, but I have to grant it. If the pitcher stops like he just did, that's a balk, because I never called time out. Understand? After Kemp flied out -- recording a sacrifice fly in the process -- he had words again with the ump on the way back, leading to Joe Torre to come out and discuss the situation.

Oh, and Kemp homered in the game to give the Dodgers the lead. The ball, in fact, lodged in the center-field scoreboard:

AP Photo/Morry Gash

The love of HRs conquers all.

== More on the MLBPAA: www.baseballalumni.com.

Once upon a Time Warner Cable, we knew who are enemies were.

Time Warner Cable, for one. ESPN, sometimes. Depending on how much either is trying to throw their power plays around.

A week from now, we're told, your ESPN channels can disappear from the said cable company because of another dispute. You're being asked, again, to "roll over or get tough."

We've heard this sad refrain before. Like, last fall. TWC, remember, was supposed to never again air "The Simpsons" when it was in a dispute with Fox. And your Fox Sports Net channels would go away, too. It was a Homer call. It didn't seem to work.

It's Burr vs. Hamilton. Except no one's willing to pull the trigger.

One of the donkeys always give in. And all is calm.

With Disney as the target this time, we're just getting goofy all over again.

TWC, which had a reported net income of more than $1 bil last year, says it will pull the plug on all Disney-related channels when the contract expires on Sept. 2. That's the same day USC opens its football season with a game in Hawaii -- ESPN, 8 p.m.

Other cable (Verizon FIOS) and satellite (DirecTV, Dish) services love this. They run full-page ads putting fear into TWC subscribers, with the tag line: Come to us. We wouldn't think of doing such a thing.

Not now, at least.

We've read up on the arguments about subscriber fees, channel designations, transmission fees, basic cable costs, premium tiers, revenue streams, customer service, video on demand, pay-per-view, fiber optics, FCC petitions, retransmission guidelines, consumer advocats, blackouts, net neutrality, preferential treatment, natural competition, broadband influence, monopolies, duopolies and triple casting.

That last one, not really. We just miss the old TripleCast that NBC tried with the 1996 Summer Olympics.

So, what if TWC really did go ahead and follow through with a threat? What if, in the name of consumer watchdogging, it told Disney, sorry, but we're not going to share this huge pile of money with you this time? We'll wait it out until you blink.

Not good business? It could be.

There's a cable system in Indiana that's been running ads that go this way:

"You've probably heard rumblings that ESPN may remove its channels from our lineup. We can think of a few other highly-publicized channel negotiations where the same threats were made. The end result -- the channels stayed on, with no interruption for viewers."

Made you blink.

Over at ihavechoices.com (a site run by Disney), it reads: "It is in the best interests of consumers, as well as both companies, for us to successfully conclude these negotiations before the deadline to avoid interrupting service."

C'mon. Follow through on this.

If Disney disappeared from TWC, who'd be the real bad guy? Would the consumer care? Would it rebel agains both Disney/ESPN and TWC -- switching to a new service, and then boycotting Disney/ESPN?

Makes too much sense. But as a DirecTV customer -- happily, for many years -- I can say that when the system took away Versus, then brought it back after a long stretch without NHL regular-season coverage, my life wasn't all that better or worse.

The Associated Press

Washington Nationals TV analyst Rob Dibble will take some time off two days after making comments critical of rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

MASN spokesman Todd Webster said Dibble would not work tonight's game against the Chicago Cubs and is "taking a few days off." Webster said Dibble requested the time off but did not say whether the absence was related to the comments about Strasburg.

Dibble on Monday lashed out at the young pitcher, who has been placed on the disabled list twice in the last month. Dibble said on Sirius XM Radio that "You can't have the cavalry come in and save your butt every time you feel a little stiff shoulder, sore elbow."

The Nationals have been protective of Strasburg, removing him from games when there has been any sign of a possible injury. He is scheduled to have an MRI on Thursday to determine the extent of his latest injury.

Dibble, a former major league reliever, has become known for his off-the-cuff style since joining the MASN booth at the start of last season. He recently apologized for making comments about two women he saw talking nonstop in the stands during a game.

"There must be a sale tomorrow going on here or something," he said, pointing out the women. "Their husbands are going, 'Man, don't bring your wife next time.'"

Again, with the help of John Brenkus' "Sport Science" show, we wanted to get more on the background of what went into the episode last year when former UCLA star Kevin Love set what is considered the longest basketball shot ever -- a 90 footer, in the airplane hanger set up in Hawthorne.

The show was trying to explain how duplicating Baron Davis' actual made shot in an NBA game -- a throw from nearly the end of the 94-foot court -- is almost impossible.

The odds: 1,500-to-1. And Love, after hundreds of attempts, over four hours, he hadn't done it. He proved the theory right. Despite his power and finesse.

"Normally, you have to create some drama, but literally this was the last shot," said Brenkus. "He shot over and over and over. I had to tell him: 'You're costing me so much money. I have to pay all these people. We've gotta move on.' And he says, 'One more shot.' And I'm on camera: 'This is it.' Go ahead, shoot your little shot, it's never going in.

"He shot it and made it. We're like, 'Oh, my God.' It was amazing."

"A shot that long doesn't go straight. The ball curves. Like every other ball. You can't throw a ball 90 feet and have it go straight. The force it took him to throw a ball that far -- I can only get it past half court. He finally hit it on the last shot. That's when I knew this show was going well. I want to continue."

Thanks to Roberto over at VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com (linked here) for fishing this off YouTube:

The 2010-11 NHL national TV schedule schedule came out today, with the Kings receiving much more favorable attention than in seasons past.

The team from the league's second-biggest TV market has two appearances on NBC and five more on Versus. The schedule for local cable channel Fox Sports West will come out later.

As it stands now:

Sept. 25 at Minnesota: Versus, 5 p.m.
Dec. 13 at Detroit: Versus, 5 p.m.
January 3 at Chicago: Versus, 6 p.m.
January 17 at Dallas: Versus, 5:30 p.m.
Feb. 13 at Philadelphia: 4 p.m., NBC
March 13 at Dallas: Noon, NBC
April 4 at San Jose, Versus, 7 p.m.

On Canada's CBC, TSN2, RDS he NHL Network, the Kings will appear Oct. 9 at Calgary, Nov. 12 vs. Atlanta, Oct. 25 at Minnesota, Nov. 11 vs. Dallas, Nov. 15 at San Jose, Nov. 24 at Montreal, Dec. 2 vs. Florida, Dec. 13 at Detroit, Jan. 15 vs. Edmonton, Jan. 17 at Dallas, Feb. 2 at Calgary, Feb. 28 vs. Detroit andch 29 at Edmonton.

Versus will carry 78 games this season (13 more than 2009-10) in year six of its contract with the NHL, starting with nine games in the first seven days. It starts with a triple-header on Thursday, Oct. 7 -- Carolina-Minnesota from Finland at 9 a.m., Philadelphia-Pittsburgh at 4 p.m. and Colorado-Chicago at 7 p.m. Versus will also do the NHL Hertiage Classic between Montreal and Calgary from McMahon Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 20 at 3 p.m. -- the first outdoor hockey game in Canada since 2003.

Mike "Doc" Emrick will return as the lead play-by-play man.

Defending-champion Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh and the N.Y. Rangers made the most appearances on Versus -- 11. Buffalo, Minnesota and Philadelphia are on nine times.

The Anaheim Ducks are on just once -- Dec. 20 (at Boston, 4:30 p.m.).

Because we spent the afternoon yesterday with John Brenkus, the creator of "Sport Science" for ESPN's programming, and we see that the episode he did a couple of years ago for Fox Sports Net trying to prove (or disprove) that Kobe Bryant could actually jump over a speeding Aston Martin, we thought it worth a revisit.

And not just to see Rony Turiaf get another laugh out of it.

After the Bryant Nike commercial went viral in April, 2008, Brenkus' "Sport Science" team tried to replicate it. Were they successful, or did they trick the audience?

"The way we played it was we pretended that (our test athlete) made it, then we pulled back the curtain and showed everyone, this is how we did it (by hooking him up to cables for his own safety)," said Brenkus.

"In the Kobe example, there was probably no cables at all - just have him jump and make it composite of the car driving by, it's very simple. We didn't have to have cables here, but we wanted to take it to the next level.

"He absolutely could have done it. Kobe could have done it. Our athlete (a Hollywood stunt man) could have done it. But the timing is so improbable, literally one hundreth of a second margin of error. It's extraordinary unlikely to do."

So why risk someone's life for the sake of proving something on TV?

Find the episode today if you have the package of FSN channels -- it's on at different times on different parts of the country. FSW plans to reair it Saturday at 4 p.m.

The Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- If you go to the refrigerator for a snack or drink this season, you could miss a Notre Dame touchdown. That's how quick coach Brian Kelly's offense plans to be. It'll be hurry-up with no huddle.

Kelly doesn't want anybody or anything slowing down the Irish or his spread formation -- one that worked so well in his previous stop at Cincinnati -- and that includes NBC, the network that's had a contract with Notre Dame since 1991.

Kelly said he and athletic director Jack Swarbrick have had conversations with NBC officials about how coverage plans will work with the Irish's up-tempo style.

"We've talked to NBC about the way we like to play the game versus maybe how it was played in the past," Kelly said Tuesday. "There is certainly a need for us to address it and I think we're working with NBC to make certain that they get what they need from an advertising standpoint. But, also as the network that carries Notre Dame, that we're able to do things we need to do as well."

Kelly said he's convinced a middle ground can be reached, though he wouldn't go into specifics about the conversations. Notre Dame's contract with NBC is reportedly worth $15 million annually for football.

"All we've tried to do is address the model that we think would work well with us," Kelly said. "And there's got to be a meeting somewhere halfway. And I'm very confident that we are going to be able to do the things that we want to do in terms of pushing the tempo and doing the things without having to go to a commercial break."

NBC plans to have five shorter breaks per quarter this season rather than four longer ones.

"Over the years, we have reassessed the structure of our commercial breaks numerous times to improve the experience for our viewers and the fans in the stadium," NBC vice president of communications Chris McCloskey said. "The commercial load this year will be identical to last year. The slight change to the commercial structure is the result of a number of factors done to improve the broadcast, not one single reason."

== More from USA Today (linked here)

The Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Just a bit outside.

A U.S. Army skydiver was left dangling on a flagpole at Rangers Ballpark after his parachute got entangled during a pregame jump Tuesday night.

The Rangers said the unidentified jumper was uninjured after he unbuckled himself from the chute and dropped a few feet to a work platform on top of the scoreboard, the highest point of the stadium. The jumper could been seen walking away while his parachute whipped in the wind for several more minutes before being removed by stadium workers, who arrived quickly.

The skydiver was among several members the U.S. Army Parchute Team known as the Golden Knights who jumped on the breezy night. The rest landed on the field.

Among the storylines that comes to light during Ron Shelton's "Jordan Rides the Bus" documentary that will air as part of ESPN's "30 For 30" (Tuesday, 5 p.m.) is Sports Illustrated reporter Steve Wulf's admission that he wasn't happy with the way his employer marketed his story on Michael Jordan's attempt to play professional baseball in 1994.

After he quit playing for the Chicago Bulls in the fall of 1993 following the death of his father, Jordan went to spring training with the Chicago White Sox -- having not played baseball since high school. As Shelton explains, Jordan's father had always wanted him to play baseball, and Jordan was at a point where the NBA wasn't much fun any more. With baseball, he could honor his father, and get away from the intense spotlight.

Not really.

The skeptical media was all over Jordan for a) taking away our enjoyment of watching him play basketball and b) thinking he could just walk onto a baseball field and become a pro. Aside from that, rumors circulated that it was Jordan's gambling problems that led to the NBA to suggest he take a few years off, then come back if he felt like it -- a story that Shelton addresses in full as well, without letting it dominate the purpose of the documentary.

Wulf says in the piece that the story he wrote on Jordan's '94 spring training wasn't very complementary, but it was hardly worth a March 14 cover story that read: "Bag It, Michael! Jordan and The White Sox are Embarassing Baseball." The story, entitled inside as "Err Jordan," is linked here.

Wrote Wulf:

"Granted, he looks good in a baseball uniform. Granted, he is the greatest basketball player who has ever lived. Granted, a few weeks of batting practice, an intrasquad game and two exhibitions against the Texas Rangers are not a lot to go on. But this much is clear: Michael Jordan has no more business patrolling rightfield in Comiskey Park than Minnie Minoso has bringing the ball upcourt for the Chicago Bulls."

Now, says Wulf in the doc:

"It wasn't the story I wrote (as it related to the cover headline)... When I look back on the story, I was a little smarmy and a little wise ass and I kind of regret reading it now. Personally all hell broke loose for me. I knew a s---tstorm was coming but I had no idea how much of a blizzard it would be."

While that became the opening blast of the media coverage of Jordan's experiment, the real s--tstorm was the reporting about the gambling.

Shelton gets into all that about 18 minutes. Chicago Tribune writer Sam Smith, also author of the book "The Jordan Rules," is quoted as saying that reports of the NBA forcing Jordan out is nothing short of "ludicrous."

Jack McCallum of Sports Illustrated also quoted on how media ran off with wild speculation: "When people in the press - I'm not taking myself away from it - start to at least raise that issue, I'm certain that if it was not the breaking point, then it almost was for Jordan."

Wulf reenters the piece when he says he wanted to go to Birmingham, Ala., to see Jordan play for the Double-A Barons -- in part because of the guilt he felt from how that first story was presented by SI.

"I went down to Birmingham and that's where my eyes were opened," Wulf says. "I was blown away. He was totally different player at in spring traiing and he had dturned himself into a baseball player and I was astrounded. I say, 'My God, I was wrong, we were wrong, Sports Illustrated was wrong - Michael Jordan is actually being a baseball player.'"

But the story that Wulf wrote saying all that didn't run. SI killed it, not wanting to back down on the stance it took months earlier.

When watching this, also pay attention to the quotes from Jordan's minor-league hitting coach Mike Barnett, who now works for the Houston Astros' farm system and is interviewed wearing a Lancaster JetHawks cap. Barnett explains how he changed Jordan's approach to hitting, squaring up his stance, stopping him from lunging at pitches, and getting him take extra batting practice nearly every morning, noon and night to prove he could hit breaking pitches.

"His worth ethlic was unlike anything I'd ever seen," said Barnett, the Barons' hitting coach under Terry Francona from 1993-'95.

Jordan's statistics actually improved month to month, and he played in the Arizona Fall League in '94 and did even better than expected. Maybe with a couple hundred games under his belt in the minors ...

Could Jordan have ever made it to the big leagues with the White Sox:

Jerry Reinsdorf, who ran the Bulls and the White Sox, claims that if it wasn't the MLB strike of 1994, "he'd have kept playing and made it to the majors." Instead, Jordan felt he was put in the middle of the labor dispute, wasn't having fun playing any more, could have been forced to be a scab player (he wouldn't do that), and was refreshed enough to join the Bulls again after two seasons away.

For those of us who as media members went through this surreal story as it unfolded, and couldn't help but wonder what would make someone at the top of his profession suddenly pull away for a strange reason and try something completely difficult on so many levels, this gives much more missing context, and, in retrospect, gives us something to think about.

Check it out.

Photo by Jon SooHoo

Vin Scully peers out of the door in the Green Monster at Fenway Park during a tour in 2004, when he traveled with the Dodgers to do a series from Boston.

Click here and enjoy the rest:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1008/vin.scully.rare.photos/content.1.html

Most tedious item we saw in today's USA Today media column, surprisingly by Michael Hiestand:

"Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully announced Sunday that he would return next fall for a 62nd season as the team's announcer."

An ounce of discretion would have prevented the word "announcer" to be use more than zero times.

Scully, as well as everyone who does play-by-play on TV or radio, is a broadcaster, not an announcer -- that would be the person who delivers the lineups over the public-address system, or introduces the guests on a talk show.

The decision was sent out in a team press release; it really wasn't announced, but if you had to use the word there, so be it.

And, third, Scully is returning thankfully returning to broadcast games, not to announce them.

We just announce 'em as we see 'em.

From Saturday's Red Bull Flutag, an entry from Valencia honoring the Dodgers' Manny Ramirez seemed to crash and burn before it could even get off the flight deck ... how very appropo:

Highlights of the week ahead in sports, both here and afar:

MONDAY

MLB: Angels vs. Tampa Bay, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

An AL East-leading Devil Rays are not only winning comfortably, but looking sharp while doing it. On this current road trip that started with a sweep in Texas and continued through Oakland last weekend, Tampa Bay manager Joe Madden got the players and coaches to buy into brazenly wearing these things he's called "BRaysers." That's a plaid blazer with the Rays blue and white colors, including a sunburst on the pocket. Think Ted Baxter doing the news in Tampa. Maddon picks a theme for each roadie, and this is what he came up with. "It's high-end stuff. You could see that at Hugo Boss, absolutely; with my fasionista sense, there it is," Maddon said of the BRaysers, which kind of sounds more like something Kramer would have come up with on "Seinfeld." Earlier this season, the Rays wore hockey jerseys when they traveled to Toronto and wore all white to Miami. The Angels just got the OK from Mike Scioscia to keep wearing white at home after Labor Day.

NFL exhibition: Arizona at Tennessee, 5 p.m., ESPN:

In theory, Matt Leinart against Vince Young has intrigue. In practice, like here, it's still worth watching at least for a quarter. By the way, last Monday's game on ESPN -- the Giants and the Jets, at the New Meadowlands in Jersey -- was seen in more than 4.1 million homes (5.6 million viewers). Some can't get enough of this fake stuff.

TUESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Milwaukee, 5 p.m., Channel 9:

Why would Hiroki Kuroda even trust that his teammates will score more than one run against a Brewers team that pounded Kershaw and Billingsley during their only other series this year back in May?

MLB: Angels vs. Tampa Bay, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., Channel 13:

Don't try grabbing Evan Longoria's hat. He'll chase you. We've seen him do it.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Milwaukee, 5 p.m., Prime:

It'll be Ted Lilly, current veteran lefthander in the Dodgers' rotation, coming off a two-hit shutout against Colorado, facing Randy Wolf, former veteran lefthander from the Dodgers' rotation that, had he stuck around with a more reasonable contract proposal, could have prevented the team from going mid-season shopping for another lefty. But then again, who's better off?

MLB: Angels vs. Tampa Bay, Angel Stadium, 12:30 p.m., FSW:

This date in Angels history: In 2004, Jeff DaVanon became the first Angels player in 13 years to hit for the cycle in a 21-6 rout of Kansas City. It was also the first time in Anaheim's 44-year history that it swept an AL opponent in a season series. Wonder how that feels. Dan Haren, 1-4 with a 4.93 ERA in his six starts since the Angels picked him up, gives it another shot. And one last look at Rays outfielder Carl Crawford before the Angels try to chase him down in the offseason.

Golf: USGA Amateur Championship, first round, 3:30 p.m., Golf Channel:

Them hot-shot graphite-shaft whipper snappers. A year ago, Byeong-Hun An, a 17-year-old high school senior from Florida, went to the head of the class and won the 109th amateur championship with a dominant 7-and-5 victory in South Carolina, becoming the youngest ever to win this thing. That broke a record that stood for only a year -- in 2008, 18-year-old Danny Lee set the mark, breaking Tiger Woods' standard, set in 1995.
Now a freshman at Cal, An will try to defend his title in a field that includes Valencia's Max Horna, Sherman Oaks' Greg Moss (College of the Canyons, Loyola Marymount, who recently won the Pasadena City Amateur Championship at Brookside), Pacific Palisades' Brad Shaw (USC) and Santa Monica's Maxwell Cohen.
An, by the way, missed the cut at the recent British Open (shooting a 7-over 72-79 after the first two rounds) but still finished better than Nick Faldo and David Duvall.
Golf Channel has rounds two and three (Thursday, 3:30 p.m.) and the quarterfinals (Friday, 9 a.m.); NBC has the semifinals (Saturday, 1-3 p.m.) and the final (Sunday, 1-3 p.m.)

WNBA playoffs: Sparks at Seattle, 8 p.m., ESPN2:

Does the final regular-season matchup between these two matter? (The Sparks lost by a point, in Seattle). Game 2 of the best-of-three is Saturday at noon, Staples Center. If there's a Game 3, it's back in Seattle on Tuesday, Aug. 31.

THURSDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Milwaukee, 11 a.m., Prime:

Even with Manny Ramirez back on the active roster, count him out for the Weiner Race. And with Vicente Padilla still on the DL -- too many soap bubbles -- Carlos Montaserious will make the start again. Which leads us to asking: Whatever happened to John Ely? He's 4-3 at Triple-A Albuquerque with a 5.98 ERA in nine starts since getting sent down last month. He was 4-7 with a 4.68 ERA when the Dodgers shipped him back, having lost five of six decisions from June 12 to July 10.

NFL exhibition: Indianapolis at Green Bay, 5 p.m., ESPN:

No snow in Lambeau? Then we're a no-show.

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, 6 p.m., Prime:

In last week's series of "Hard Knocks" at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers actually took two of three from the Rockies, but literally threw away the middle game of the series with three wild pitches in the top of the 10th. But the hairiest part of that series was Vin Scully's investigation into the mullet of origin sported by Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Scully said he always thought a mullet was just a fish. "So we went on the computer, and it's both," Scully said during a Dodgers-Rockies game last Wednesday. "It's a hairdo and a fish." More: "Is the mullet another word for a ponytail? I mean, I'm trying to look at him ... where's the mullet?" Scully then had the camera follow Tulowitzki to the dugout after his at-bat, hoping he'd take his helmet off so he could determine if his mullet was really a ponytail. "So, it's just a lot of hair, the mullet ... hmmm," Scully concluded. "One away ..."

MLB: Angels vs. Baltimore, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

Under the Orioles' team hitting statistics, pitcher Brad Bergesen (4-9, 5.80 ERA) leads the way with a .333 average -- 1-for-3, that is, when he was forced to hit in an NL park as the Orioles played at Washington, and he was the starting pitcher. In fact, he's the only Oriole with a batting average better than .300 this season. He's the starting pitcher on schedule to face the Angels in the first of three here. Still 30-something games out in the AL East, the Big O's have shown some life with Buck Showalter, as they swept the Angels two weeks ago to improve their record from 32-73 to 35-73. And you know how the Angels have been doing, in general terms, against AL East teams.

NFL exhibition: San Diego at New Orleans, 5 p.m., Channel 2:

Drew Brees plays for ... right, the Super Bowl champs. We remember when ...

SATURDAY

Horse racing: Pacific Classic, Del Mar, 4 p.m., TVG:

Respected horse racing writer Bill Finley was trying to make heads or tails out of the decision to race Zenyatta in the $300,000 Clement Hirsch race at Del Mar a couple weeks back instead of the $1 million Pacific Classic today. Aside from the fact Zenyatta should have gone to Saratoga to face Rachel Alexandra to give everyone the race they've been waiting to see. "Maybe (owner Jerry) Moss doesn't need the money," wrote Finley. "Must be nice." Richard's Kid, the defending champ, is supposed to be back with Mike Smith aboard to defend his title in the 1 1/4 mile event, the 20th running of the signature face of Del Mar's summer season. Smith hasn't ridden Richard's Kid since the 2009 Classic. In one of his two starts this year, Richard's Kid was third in the Hollywood Gold Cup on July 10. Also on this card: The Del Mar Mile and the Pat O'Brien

Mixed martial arts: UFC 118, 7 p.m., PPV, $44.95:

Former middleweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight James Toney has weighed his options and will still get in the Octagan with MMA legend Randy Couture for a "fight" that, for some, highlights this card and could settle which is the better-trained athlete -- the boxer or the wrestler-turned-kickboxer? "In (MMA), you have people like Randy Couture who are scared, and will try to hold me like a girl," said Toney, who is 72-6-3 in his pro boxing career. "I'm going to make him pay for that. Everybody knows that if you're inside on me, one mistake and that's your ass. Did y'all tell Randy Couture that I'm wearing smaller gloves? What do you think is going through his head right now? 'How am I going to stay away from his hands?' That's what he's thinking." What are we thinking?

MLS: Galaxy vs. Kansas City Wizards, Home Depot Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

It was reported last week that David Beckham, who hasn't played this year for the Galaxy, remains the top-paid MLS player at $6.5 mil, according to the latest MLS Players Union salary list. The New York Red Bulls' Thierry Henry ($5.6 mil) and Rafael Marquez ($5.54 mil) are second and third. And they actually play.

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, 5 p.m., Channel 9:

We've still got concerns about this humidor that the Rockies use to keep their balls cooled off because of the altitude adjustments. Because, as the team found, their balls can shrink if they're just put in a closet. They've done this since 2002. Obviously, the team isn't using small-ball to get through this season so far.

MLB: Angels vs. Baltimore, Angel Stadium, 6 p.m., FSW:

They're giving out a baseball-shaped ceramic candy jar to everyone who makes it into the park. Tootsie rolls optional.

NFL exhibition: Dallas at Houston, 5 p.m., Channel 2; San Francisco at Oakland, 6 p.m.:

A geographic rival will find a way to make it interesting, even if it's just a practice game.

SUNDAY

Little League World Series championship, Williamsport, Pa., noon, Channel 7:

The Little League's mission statement (linked here) says that its a program that "assists youth in developing the qualities of citizenship, discipline, teamwork and physical well-being ... by espousing the virtues of character, courage and loyalty ... to develop superior citizens rather than superior athletes." With that, ABC completes its coverage of the Little League World Series Presented by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes Reduced Sugar.

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, noon, Channel 9:

Even after the Dodgers have played the Rockies six times in the last nine days, they still have nine more against each other in the Dodgers' last 31 games.

MLB: Angels vs. Baltimore, Angel Stadium, 12:30 p.m., Channel 13:

Cal Ripken Jr. turned 50 the other day. The streak continues.

NFL exhibition: Pittsburgh at Denver, 5 p.m., Channel 11:

Who's a bigger deal in Denver today: Ubaldo Jiminez or Tim Tebow?

MLS: Chivas USA vs. D.C. United, Home Depot Center, 7 p.m.:

Kids get in free with a paid adult ticket (as low as $7.50). Some day, they'll let adults in free, too.

Without dragging Shakespeare through any of this, Vin Scully tried to say in so many words that what transpired Saturday night and into Sunday morning was much ado about nothing.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

== Dodgers TV producer Brad Zager: "I understand what an honor it is to work with him every day and the amount of things I've learned over the last seven seasons is immearsurable. It's rare to work with someone who's unanimously the greatest broadcaster of all time, but he's a much better person than broadcaster. And that's not just around me, but with other broadcasters and players and production people we see in every city. The phone calls I got from everyone asking over the last few hours about his decision just shows how many millions of people he affects. (The thrill of working with) is an understatment. It's pretty cool. It's especially authentic to what he says when he refers to the 'old days.' That's something he's lived through, not just read about. That's what makes him today so captivating."

== Dodgers Spanish-language Hall of Fame broadcaster Jaime Jarrin: "I'm the happiest person in town right now. I'm so pleased Vin is coming back. He's been a blessing for me to be near him all these years (Jarrin is in his 53rd season) in the growth of my career as an announcer. I respect him immensely."

== Reds Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman: "There's never been a better broadcaster in our profession than Vinny, and there never will be. He represents our fraternity better than anybody because he's without ego, he's nice to everybody and he's always got a smile on his face. We're all known as play-by-play guys. Vinny's not a play-by-play guy. Vinny's a storyteller."

== Dodgers radio broadcaster Rick Monday: "It was a lot like being a kid in a neighborhood and you're kicking on the door asking Vinny's wife Sandy: `Can Vinny come out and play again?' And we're all delighted that he's going to come out and play next year. In my life, Vin Scully has always been Dodger baseball."

== Dodgers owner Frank McCourt: "I'm as thrilled as our fans that Vin will be returning. He is not only the greatest broadcaster of all time, but also a wonderful friend."

== Dodgers manager Joe Torre, a former Angels broadcaster: "Aside from all the things we know about him is just the enthusiasm that he has day in and day out. He describes it like no one else has ever describe it. If you listen to a lot of broadcasts you can tell who's winning and losing by the tone of the voice. Vinny is one of those announcers for the ages who appeals to both sides of the deal."

== Reds manager and former Dodgers outfielder Dusty Baker: "He did confide in me and say he was (coming back) but I couldn't say anything other than, 'If I was Vin, I think (he'll) stay.' I'm so glad he's staying. I grew up a kid (in Riverside) listening to Vin Scully every day. To me, that's the voice of baseball. I look forward to coming here and I see him."

== Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, on his Twitter account: "I love you Vin. Thank God we have you for another year. The Dodgers and MLB wouldn't be the same without you."

(The Associated Press and Fox Sports West contributed to this posting)

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Vin Scully shares a laugh with Cincinnati Reds broadcaster and fellow Hall of Famer Marty Brenneman before the start of Sunday's game at Dodger Stadium.

Vin Scully tried to be as discrete as possible as he snuck into his TV booth Sunday morning, about 15 minutes before a press conference had been somewhat called late with a group of reporters awaiting with cameras, tape recorders and Twitter-ready cell phones to chonicle the plans of the Dodgers' Hall of Fame broadcaster.

He already had a rather sheepish look, that much had already been made of something that wasn't going to happen. If he were Scully-enough about all this, he would have quoted Shakespeare and said all this was much ado about nothing.

All the assembled media had already been told of the official decision about 45 minutes earlier, when the team sent out a press release that the 82-year-old planned to come back for his 62nd season in 2011.

So, no, he wasn't retiring.

Not now, at least.

But because there was no more a fear of the unknown, even after ESPN Radio had started running a retrospective of his career, the reporters seemed more relieved than Scully by the time he finally came out to clarify everything.

On Saturday night, Scully had told a Los Angeles Times reporter that there would be a decision announced the next day about what he'd planned to do. He didn't think it was proper to let out what the decision would be, nor did he think he should do it, but it would be proper for the team to disclose it.

"I got halfway through the (Times) story and thought I'd retired," Scully said with a laugh as his TV crew joked with him about it when they saw him Sunday morning, a group of close co-workers whom he'd already informed days ago, in some cases. Scully said he'd have thought it would be released in a one-sentence statement at the end of the team's daily press notes Sunday, and that would be that.

But things aren't that simple when you're talking about the most talked-about person in Dodgers history.

Once things start to take a life of their own in the media, no matter who or what starts them, Scully was the only voice in all the noise calm enough to put it into perspective before more than a few dozen media members waiting to hear the official decision from him.

"First of all, I'm terribly embarrassed, this is the last thing that I wanted, though I see you ever day, and it's nice to see you every day, I am very embarrassed," he started in a rather quiet voice.

"It was a long, thoughtful process with my wife, the family, and the end result was that we'll do it again. So here I am, humbled by all this attention, believe me when I tell you that, and grateful I still feel as good as I do, thank God, and with continued health we'll be here next year.

"And after that, there was a (headline) in the paper that said 'Only Scully knows (future),' but that's incorrect, only God knows just how long I'll continue to work. ...

"The last thing I need is attention. I'm not kidding you when I tell you that I'm really overwhelmed. ... I apologize if I put anyone through a ringer, wondering 'Is he, isn't he,' It is the nature of the situation, but even so I'm very uncomfortable with it."

Scully said his wife Sandy told him: "'You love it, do it,' and so I love it and I'm going to do it."

With that will, for now, be the same schedule: All home games and those road games involving games west of Denver. All nine innings alone on TV, a simulcast with the radio broadcast for the first three innings.

As fans were driving to Dodger Stadium to attend Sunday afternoon's game, they could have listened to the entire Scully press conference on the team's flagship station, KABC-AM (790), during the pre-game show by Ken Levine and Josh Suchon.

If fans were home and tuned into the pregame show on FSN, they'd have seen Patrick O'Neal open the show explaining how the city "held its collective breath" as word of the ambiguous announcement got out. Jeanne Zelasko did a one-on-one with Scully in the booth and asked him to repeat what he'd said to reporters earlier: "I will be back, God willing, and I hopefully I can continue to do the job." Zelasko asked him to say it again. "I will be back ... it's starting to sound like General McArthur."

They even ran a snippet of the interview later in the half-hour program in case anyone missed it the first time.

Scully, in true character, then took blame for how the message was delivered.

"I guess it was my fault, really," he said. "I made a remark to a writer who said, 'Well, perhaps 2010 will be your last year,' and I said, 'that probably makes sense.'"

Scully was referring to a conversation that led to a panicked column by the Times' Bill Plaschke late last summer that led to speculation that Scully had all but decided to retire.

"I shouldn't have said that," Scully continued with Zelasko. "And then from then on, eveyrone said, this might be his last year. And I felt embarassed that somehow I had caused all this ruckus, emotion, whatever. I wanted it to be very simple, yes I am coming back, thanks very well for asking. The press has always been extremely kind to me, but just the fuss and feathers made me very uncomfortable."

As for whether he heard reports on the radio coming into the stadium Sunday that he was all but retired, Scully said that he hadn't heard it, but that "I guess it was Mark Twain who said rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. I guess you could say that about the retirement, or whatever."

Scully, a 1982 Hall of Fame inductee, has done 25 World Series, including all eight that the Dodgers have been involved in, going back to 1953. He's also called 19 no-hitters (three perfect games) and 12 All-Star Games for the networks.

"I'm not looking for personal accomplishments in any way, shape or form," he told the reporters again. "I just love it so much, it's like a very good marriage, and when push came to shove, I just did not want to leave.

"I've had a love affair with this game since I was 8 or 9 years old and I tried to play it (he was an outfielder at Fordham University) and I realized how hard it was to play on the level of the major leaguers. And I've been intrigued by their ability. That, and the love of the game still produces goosebumps. And that's my barometer. The other night, the kid at second base (Colorado's Eric Young Jr.) threw the ball behind his back. I mean, I had goosebumps like it was the first big-league game I'd ever seen. I'm thinking, 'Holy mackerel,' it's still deep inside of me.

"I'm just blessed. I'm going to try to do the best I can. Please don't ask me anything about after next year. I'm lucky to look for tomorrow morning."

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

And in true Scully fashion, that was the last we'd hear about it -- there was nothing mentioned of any of thisl during the Dodgers-Reds telecast.

Following up on today's column (linked here):

Without the flip scoreboards at each court, the fans weren't all up to speed on who was winning during the early matches at the retro-Manhattan Beach Open on Saturday morning.

"What's the score?" someone yelled out at Sean Rosenthal and Aaron Wachfogel as they were battling to win a second-round match.

Rosenthal turned to the fan sitting on the baseline.

"It's 11-3," he said. "It's been 11-3 for a long time."

The sideout scoring will do that to you. You take the awesome with the bad. And the awesome element to this year's tournament can't be denied. We've gone old-school, old-rule. And old school rules. Sometimes.

Without the AVP's rules, the CVBA and the Manhattan Beach Parks and Recs department had run of the beach this weekend for the 50th anniversary of the first MB Open, back in 1960, when Mike Bright and Mike O'Hara won the first of their five in a row.

The event actually took place before '60, according to the Artie Convillon book, "The Manhattan Beach Open: The Wimbledon of Beach Volleyball: 1960-2006." He writes about how there were unsanctioned events in '58 and '59, but "since its onset, this event has been regarded as the most prestigious beach volleyball tournament on the circuit."

And, even before the 2010 version, there were issues, Convillon notes.

Not just when the sun would go down, it'd be dark, and tournament wasn't finished.

In '86, the AVP decided to hold an event in Cape Cod, so it send half of the best players there instead of Manhattan Beach. In '88, none of the top 32 AVP players were in the MB Open because they were on the national Olympic qualifying tour.

In '96, the AVP put pressure on the city to start charging for tickets. In '97, the MB Open was actually moved to Hermosa Beach, because of the same problem. In '98, it was actually not held, but the city decided to hold its "old-school" event. AVP players weren't allowed to play -- so former AVP legend Tim Hovland got together with Brandon Teliaferro and nearly won the the thing, losting to Pepe Delahoz and Sean Scott.

From a fan's perspective, it's not so much win-win. You don't get the high-end players, but there's no sensory overload, with just a few pop-up tents from some local sponsors.

One was from John Elway's car dealership. Fill out a form, put it in the hopper, and you could win an autographed football from the Hall of Famer. That is, if the autograph didn't fade from the ball sitting in a glass case right in the sun's glare all day.

As a result of the thin field, we can get 47-year-old Brent Frohoff and 45-year-old Scott Ayakatubby back on the beach, drawing some of the biggest cheers on the day.

"This is just awesome," said 51-year-old Kevin Cleary, who formed the AVP back in 1983 and was competing in his 34th consecutive event.

So was the talent all over the beach.

== An Easy Reader story on how the AVP fell apart financially (linked here)

We tried to check out the Chargers-Bears exhibition game from San Diego last Saturday night. The local listings had it on at 6 p.m., KCBS-Channel 2. But it didn't air until 11 p.m. that night instead.

What were we thinking? Trying to watch practice football on a Saturday night. We're talkin' about practice.

The reason for the delay, of course -- the Chargers didn't sell out the game. It was just the Bears. They still control the NFL's L.A. TV market, or at least have enough claim to it that, geographically, we're going to do this dance again as to who gets priority viewing in NFL's kingdom.

Thursday at about 6 p.m., the pronouncement came down that the Chargers' exhibition game this Saturday against Dallas had sold out -- therefore, KCBS-Channel 2 could show it live. And it will.

And as a result, the Oakland Raiders' home practice game against the Bears has been bumped from live at 5:30 p.m. to midnight (with replays Sunday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.) on KTLA-Channel 5. Even if it had sold out, it wasn't going live here against the Chargers.

A loyal Simi Valley reader emailed this morning, having been through this year after year but confounded that it could actually take place in the exhibition season, and inquired: "Do you have the names/number of anyone at the NFL office in Manhattan to whom we might complain about the NFL's annexation of Los Angeles by San Diego?"

It'd start with pestering the NFL Network offices in Culver City first. Save yourself the long-distance charge. Surely, someone there could explain more ...

Set your jaw, and your Tivo. The NFL season is here, to mess with your time-slip.

More after today's media column (liked here) ... hurry, the weather's finally nice and the beach is calling:

== More from Mark Sandulli, the ESPN senior coordinating producer of baseball -- both MLB and Little League -- on how replay could be implimented in big-league games should someone see the value of it as it's presented in the Little League World Series over the next week:

"We're getting to a place where it'll just be a matter of who pulls the trigger first on this to get us there. You won't have to huddle up and go into a room to see a replay - we could give it to them on PDAs. It's very easy.

"Major League Baseball has its concerns, but I don't see any downside on supposed delays it will bring."

Little League president and CEO Steve Keener, in explaining the decision to expand replay, said in a statement: "Our volunteer umpires do a terrific job as it is, and always have, in their one and only opportunity to umpire in the world's greatest youth sporting event. So we let them know this is just another tool to help them do their job. This retains not only the human element in the process, but the volunteer element."

When televising the Little League World Series as part of "Wide World of Sports" in the 1980s, ABC started miking managers and using an umpire camera. In 2002, every LLWW game was televised by ESPN. This year, up to 65 games of the tournament, both baseball and softball, will be televised.

Here's the full text of the Little League Baseball World Series Video Replay Rule (linked here).

== Doug Mann, the Thousand Oaks-based stat man extraordinaire for Bob Miller and Jim Fox on Kings' games (among other things), passed along another story that Dan Avey told him about at a recent get-together at Miller's home:

On one road trip, Kings public relations man Mike Hope was allowed to travel, which was somewhat rare in those days. The team was staying in Chicago.

"Dan decided that Mike deserved to have a good room and changed the rooming list, giving Hope the room assigned for General Manager Jake Milford, which happened to be a very nice suite," Mann explained.

"Dan did not stop there. He then had quite a bit of very expensive food and drink sent up there, billed to the room. Then he had Jake Milford accompany him to the room and watched as Milford could not believe that Hope got such a great set-up and he was left with a lousy single room.

"Dan still had to explain the bill for room service which later showed up at The Forum."

== A baseball schedule: Fox sends us the Angels-Twins from Minnesota on Saturday (1 p.m., Channel 11, with Angels analyst Jose Mota teamming up with Fox Sports North's Twins play-by-play man Dick Bremer and reporter Ken Rosenthal , only going to 19 percent of the country. Most get Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver for Atlanta-Chicago; ESPN also has Angels-Twins on Sunday night (5 p.m., with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan). TBS has San Francisco-St. Louis on Sunday (11 a.m., with Ernie Johnson, Ron Darling and David Wells).

== Vin Scully, on Troy Tulowitzki's mullet, has made the rounds (linked here)

== The Angels' Victor Rojas is one of only two full-time baseball broadcasters who can be classified as a minority? Hmmm. We never even looked at it that way. But this guy at BizofBaseball.com did (linked here). But that doesn't count Spanish-language broadcasters. "(One) explanation could be that once play-by-play announcers gain their position, they don't leave. Jon Miller (Giants) and Vin Scully (Dodgers) are prime examples; both have been calling games longer than most players have been alive," writer Matthew Collier adds. ... "Nonetheless, other major sports leagues have achieved gains in minorities in prominent play-by-play and color-analyst positions."

== More discussion on whether tweeting is actually reporting (linked here). Hint: If you have to ask, then it's not.

== How do you view Jim Gray at this cruddy point in his power-tool career? Check this out (linked here). "He's a great interviewer but he also rubs people the wrong way sometimes," says Howard Deneroff, Westwood One's executive producer of sports.

== Antonio Cromartie, you're on HBO "Hard Knocks" ... can you name all your children, and remember their ages? How many kids do you have aged 3?

So, was it restaged? (linked here)

== Fox's broadcast teams announced for the upcoming NFL season: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman & Pam Oliver; Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston & Tony Siragusa; Dick Stockton, Charles Davis, Jim Mora Jr. (new addition) & Laura Okmin; Thom Brennaman, Brian Billick & Charissa Thompson; Sam Rosen, Tim Ryan & Chris Myers; Ron Pitts, John Lynch & Nischelle Turner; Chris Myers/Chris Rose & Kurt Warner (new addition). Warner's first game: Oct. 10, when Arizona plays host to New Orleans.
Fox also notes: Buck and Aikman, who'll call their third Super Bowl on Feb. 6, 2011, in Dallas, surpass Pat Summerall and John Madden as the network's longest tenured broadcast team. Stockton, Pitts and Albert are the only three to be play-by-play guys full time for Fox since it started in 1994.

== NBC arranged for Al Michaels do interview Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre to air at halftime of Sunday's Minnesota-San Francisco exhibition (Channel 4, 5 p.m.) NBC will add Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison to the booth with Michaels and Cris Collinsworth to get viewers through the second half of the game.

== If ESPN's Jenn Brown is trying to be the next Erin Andrews, she's off to a spectacular start (linked here).

== On that note, the USC Center for Feminist Research did another look at slanted coverage of women's sports in the media (linked here). Here's more on it (linked here).

== CBS College Sports hired recently fired Texas Tech coach Mike Leach as a game analyst, working with Roger Twibell on telecasts this season. Also, ESPN says that analyst Craig James, who was involved in Leach's eventual firing, won't be covering any Texas Tech contests this season. James' son, Adam, who remains as a wide receiver at Tech, filed a complaint last season against Leach about how the coach handled James' post-concussion symptoms.

== ESPN is going to revive its 12-games-in-24-hours tip-off marathon to start the college basketball season on Tuesday, Nov. 16. It'll actually be 20 games live (including one women's game) over ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. The schedule:

Tuesday, 9 p.m.: Miami at Memphis (ESPN)
Tuesday, 11 p.m.: St. John's at Saint Mary's (ESPN), Steve Lavin's first game at St. John's.
Wednesday, 1 a.m.: Central Michigan at Hawaii (ESPN)
Wednesday, 3 a.m.: Stony Brook at Monmouth (ESPN), with a 6 a.m. tipoff local time.
Wednesday, 5 a.m.: Robert Morris at Kent State (ESPN), with an 8 a.m. local tipoff.
Wednesday, 7 a.m.: Northeastern at Southern Illinois (ESPN)
Wednesday, 9 a.m.: Oral Roberts at Tulsa (ESPN)
Wednesday, 11 a.m.: La Salle at Baylor (ESPN)
Wednesday, 1 p.m.: Virginia Tech at Kansas State (ESPN)
Wednesday, 2:30 p.m.: NIT Season Tip-Off (from Villanova): Marist at Villanova (ESPNU)
Wednesday, 3 p.m.: Ohio State at Florida (ESPN)
Wednesday, 3 p.m.: Women's Tip-Off Classic (from Hartford): Baylor at Connecticut (ESPN2)
Wednesday, 4:30 p.m.: CBE Classic (from Durham): Miami (Ohio) at Duke (ESPNU)
Wednesday, 5 p.m.: Butler at Louisville (ESPN)
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.: NIT Season Tip-Off (from Knoxville): Belmont at Tennessee (ESPNU)
Wednesday, 7 p.m.: South Carolina at Michigan State (ESPN)
Wednesday, 7 p.m.: CBE Classic (from Spokane): San Diego State vs. Gonzaga (ESPN2)
Wednesday, 8:30 p.m.: NIT Season Tip-Off (from L.A.): Nevada or Pacific at UCLA (ESPNU)

== NBC follows up (Saturday, 1-3 p.m., and Sunday, 1-2 p.m., on Channel 4) with a wrap of this week's Pan Pacific swimming championships from Irvine. Ted Robinson, Rowdy Gaines and Alex Flanagan call it.

AND FINALLY:

== Save the date: For the next ESPN "30 for 30" documentary -- Ron Shelton's piece on Michael Jordan's journey into minor league baseball during the mid '90s, debuting Tuesday at 5 p.m. on ESPN -- Shelton ventured to the Lancaster JetHawks home field to interview Mike Barnett, Jordan's hitting coach with the Double-A Birmingham Barons and currently the hitting instructor for the Houston Astros, the major-league affiliate for the Cal League's Jethawks. That'll be Barnett, wearing a JetHawks cap during the interview.

Shelton also went on the air with JetHawks' play-by-play man Jeff Lasky for the pregame show and said he used to come to the Antelope Valley to write, and many of his screenplays were done at an old hotel in Lancaster.

A further review of the doc coming next week.

By Jay Reeves
Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Forty years ago, Alabama football fans watched USC and a black running back named Sam Cunningham trounce coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's Crimson Tide in a game widely credited with helping start the integration of Southern football.

Fans weren't the only ones watching Alabama football back then.

The FBI, apparently with the approval of then-director J. Edgar Hoover, was secretly keeping an eye on a civil rights lawsuit filed by blacks against the legendary coach during the same period.

Documents released to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act show that for almost two years, agents tracked the suit filed by a prominent black lawyer against Bryant, the University of Alabama and others to make Bryant recruit black football players.

Building a file, agents followed the court docket and snipped stories from newspapers about the case, sending the findings to the agency's office responsible for investigating civil rights crimes.

The FBI won't explain why it was interested in a civil lawsuit by a black student organization against a prominent white football coach. The agency kept track of possible civil rights violations and often monitored public figures and civil rights leaders under Hoover.

But one of the FBI forms in the Bryant file is marked twice with a handwritten capital "H'' -- a clear indication that Hoover both saw the document and approved of the snooping, said author Curt Gentry, who wrote "J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets," a definitive biography on Hoover and the FBI under his leadership.

"He was the only one in the bureau allowed to use the 'H' initial," Gentry said. "It means he saw it, and he obviously approved it if he didn't do anything to stop it. He didn't personally approve everything, but something like that he certainly would have known about."

Bryant, one of America's best-known sports figures at the time, already had won three national championships with the Crimson Tide. The black lawyer who sued him, U.W. Clemon, right, had made a name for himself by taking on Alabama's all-white establishment in numerous court fights over desegregation and police brutality. He later would become the state's first black federal judge.

Clemon said in a recent interview that he never knew of the FBI monitoring until informed by AP. He had his suspicions about why it was authorized, however.

"Bear Bryant was a god in Alabama in those days; maybe it was just a matter of keeping up. And you have to recall the thinking of some of the Southern FBI agents at the time," Clemon said. "Maybe they thought I was doing something illegal. Maybe they just wanted to pursue it because black people were suing Bear Bryant."

The agent who sent notes on the Bryant case to Washington died years ago. A retired agent who once worked in the FBI's Birmingham office, Larry A. Long, said in an interview the bureau likely monitored the Bryant case because it claimed violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The current issue of L.A. Weekly that came out today contains a very thorough, yet even sadder account of the final days of former Los Angeles Times sports writer Mike Penner, whose live as transgender Christine Daniels apparently left him heartbroken over the life he felt he threw away and led to his suicide in 2009 at age 52.

The "tragic love story" (linked here) by freelance writer Steve Friess (linked here) takes more of the angle that Penner, after changing to Daniels for about a year, became depressed and confided with friends that the breakup with his wife, Times sportswriter Lisa Dillman, left him far more damaged and depressed than he'd imagined it would be.

"Christine died of a broken heart," a friends is quoted in the story. "She wasn't confused about whether she was meant to be a woman. Any other reading of the situation is disrespectful to her memory."

This account follows one that Times staff writer Christopher Goffard wrote for the paper in March of this year (linked here) that was the first to reveal the means by which Penner took his own life, explaining in more detail about his private torment despite his public appearance.

The L.A. Weekly story also tries to get an explanation as to why Penner's "Woman In Progress" blog had disappeared from the Times' website. A story last June in GQ magazine (linked here) impiled that the Times took it down upon Penner's request. L.A. Weekly reports that the Times policy of preserving its records prevented it from being erased, but "at some point the archives vanished. We have been unable to retrieve the posts or determine who deleted them."

By Rachel Cohen
The Associated Press

With each victory on the way to starting 9-0 in 1996, Army's football players and coaches were convinced this would be the one that launched them into the polls.

It took until that ninth win for them to slip into the AP Top 25.

"Week after week, we'd think we were going to get into the rankings, but you'd have some ESPN guy saying, 'West Point, they're playing a powder-puff schedule,'" recalled New Mexico coach Mike Locksley, an assistant on that squad.

Passionate fans will always bristle when they feel the talking heads on TV are disrespecting their favorite team -- that's part of the fun of sports. But the topic is especially prickly in college football, where human voters help determine who plays for the national championship.

For fans already fretting that some commentators may hurt their beloved school in the BCS standings, a new wrinkle arrives this season. ESPN, home to endless hours of college football debate, takes over the broadcasts of the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls and the title game.

It's just more fodder for the great American tradition of conspiracy theories: Get ready for insinuations that ESPN is hyping particular teams that it believes would draw higher ratings in the BCS contests.

"Any time you have the human element involved, that's a possibility," ESPN senior coordinating producer Dave Miller said of voters being swayed by the analysts on TV. "But we don't have any directive or any goal of trying to influence that we need to get this team in or that team in."

The BCS games were previously on Fox, which wasn't likely to be accused of conflict of interest because of its lack of other college football programming. ESPN's contract gives it the package for the next four years; it already had the Rose Bowl on partner ABC.

"You always have to be careful," Miller said. "Perception can be reality."

Consider new analyst Mike Bellotti's take on his hire: "I think in some ways they're bringing me on with the intent to even off the perceived East Coast bias," the former Oregon coach and athletic director said.

But to Bellotti and his new colleagues, the difference between perception and reality is simple.

"The No. 1 thing is your credibility," he said, and obvious bias would instantly undermine that.

By Anthony McCartney
Associated Press Entertainment Writer

Jamie McCourt's attorneys said today they have located a document showing she has an equal stake in the ownership of the Dodgers and that the revelation will dramatically alter a bitter struggle for the team amid McCourt's divorce proceedings.

The attorneys filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking to allow a 2004 property agreement as evidence during a team ownership hearing scheduled to begin Aug. 30.

Jamie and Frank McCourt remain locked in a hard-fought divorce, with the ownership of one of baseball's most storied franchises hanging in the balance.

Today's filing contends that newly discovered documents correctly spell out the team's ownership, granting Jamie McCourt a stake. The agreement was located after a forensic analysis of other documents in the case revealed that another copy of the 2004 agreement improperly included an exhibit designating Frank McCourt as the Dodgers' sole owner.

"I think that this motion is going to blow the case out of the water," said Dennis Wasser, one of Jamie McCourt's attorneys.

Frank McCourt's attorney, Stephen Susman, downplayed the filings' significance.

"Jamie and her lawyers have truly become desperate and are now using their court filings as press releases," Susman wrote in a statement. He said all versions of the agreement should be considered by the judge.

The story goes that Dan Avey had never seen a hockey game before he got on the air and analyzed live Kings contests with play-by-play man Jiggs McDonald in 1969, the third season of the team's existence.

"I had heard that, but I'd have never thought that by the time I started working with him," said Kings current Hall of Fame play-by-play man Bob Miller, who teamed with Avey from '73-'76 (that's Miller on the right, Avey on the left, from the Forum back in the day).

"He was always so knowledgeable and well prepared. He was a professional broadcaster, and back then, if you were a good salesman, he could have sold himself (for that job)."

Avey, a longtime San Fernando Valley resident who died last Sunday at the age of 69 after a five-year battle with cancer (story linked here), didn't have to sell himself on the Southern California radio community after the resume he built, leading to a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.

>(As some remember, the Walk of Fame didn't get it right the first time. They had his name in stone as "David Avey" until it was noticed before the ceremony, and then altered to make it correct).

A well-rounded sportscaster, newsman and co-host, Avey, who lived in Studio City and Sherman Oaks for most of the last couple of decades, will be best remembered in sports circles for the six seasons spread between 1969 and 1976 he spent on the Kings' radio and TV broadcasts, at a time when hockey was still new to the area, and breaking Miller into a position to where he's now into his fifth decade.

"He was so helpful, and it was so easy to rely on someone like Dan when I got here, to really explain how things were done," said Miller, who had Avey at his home in West Hills just two months ago to help celebrate Miller's 50th year in the broadcasting business. "He was a lifesaver in the booth."

Miller actually started his first season with the Kings having Thousand Oaks resident Jim Minnick as his colorman, but that lasted less than three months. Avey, who left the colorman job to get off the road and run Forum operations for owner Jack Kent Cooke, returned to the booth in Dec., '73 and stayed with Miller until he got a job at KNX-AM doing sports updates. Rich Marotta replaced him in 1976 on both the Kings' radio and TV coverage.

David Courtney, the Kings' public address announcer and sports update man on KSPN-AM (710), remember being a 14-year-old gofer for the Kings when he met Avey doing games with McDonald in 1971. Getting to sit next to Avey on the broadcasts, Courtney says he was able to get up the nerve to ask questions about the business.

"It was very easy to understand now what a good teacher Dan would become at Cal State Northridge and USC," said Courtney. "there was never a stupid question, and his guidance was plentiful."

Years later, Avey helped Courtney segue into a job as a traffic reporter on KNX, a company that Courtney has remained with for the last 18 years.

Miller also still laughs about the time Avey started a fire in on a team bus in Vancouver -- started with a practical joke.

The account of it is on page 62 of Miller's book, "Bob Miller's Tales from the Los Angeles Kings" (2006):

"One Sunday morning in 1974, when the Kings' charter bus was leaving the Vancouver airport, Don Kozak was sitting in the front of Kings radio and television color commentator Dan Avey, engrossed in reading the newspaper. Kozak had pulled out one sectio nand lef teh rest of th epaper in the aisle between his seat and the seat of Kings trainer Pete Demers. While Kozak caught up on the news, Avey took a matchbook from his pocket, got out amatch and lit it. As quick as lightning, Avey reached between the seats and set the bottom edge of Kozak's paper on fire. The little flame grew and bgan spitting out smoke, but Kozak was so wrapped up in his reading that he didn't notice.

"A few moments later, his eyes zeroed in on the flames and the smoke; and he tossed the paper across the aisle -- and onto Demer's head. Demers, who is jittery even in the best of times, let out this blood-curdling scream and dropped the section where the rest of the Sunday paper sat, setting it ablaze, and ran to the front of the bus. The fire grew, reaching the armrests as the furious driver pulled to the side of the road and searched for the key to unlock the fire extinguisher. I wasn't going to stand around; I got off the bus and waited with assistant trainer John Holmes on the side of the road.

"Back on the bus, Avey, who started the whole escapade, jumped on the paper and stomped out the fire with his feet. Meanwhile, Holmes and I were enjoying a smoke-free environment when coach Bob Pulford leaned out of the door.

"'Get the hell back in the bus,' he ordered gruffly.

"'Pully, the bus is on fire,' I started. 'I think I'll stand out here if you don't mind.'

"As we returned to our seats, I heard the team laughing hysterically. The driver got up in the front and began to chew them out."

Miller added in a phone conversation: "When Dan was stomping out the fire with his feet, it burned holes in his socks."

It's Miller's remembrance of the story that the bus company sent an itemized bill to the Kings -- listing the fire damage as part of it. Kings GM Jake Milford was upset that the bill wasn't just one single charge, knowing that if owner Jack Kent Cooke had seen the itemization of fire damage, he'd have gone crazy.

And one more: Miller recalled what he still calls the "worst rejection letter" he'd ever heard.

Avey, who was living in Spokane, Wash., sent an audition tape to KFI in Los Angeles. He got a letter back from the general manager that read:

"Dear Mr. Avey, It is obvious that your path and KFI's will never cross."

Not long afterward, Avey got the job as the Kings' color man -- and the games were aired on KFI.

Don Barrett at LARadio.com says a memorial service for Avey is being planned for Friday, Aug. 27, at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. Hollywood Walk of Fame photos above from Barrett's LARadio.com (linked here)

Avey, by the way, said at his 2006 ceremony: "As I told Doug McIntyre the other morning, it feels like you're going to your own funeral. Everybody's all dressed up and they say nice things."

Becoming a sports-talk show host must be easy.

Qualifications: Consume mass quantities of "5 Hour Energy." Yell. Loudly. To sound assertive. And drown out any other voices that might contradict your knee-jerk opinion.

Sorry, must be listening to Steve Hartman too much lately.

Because Chris "Mad Dog" Russo has his run of the park at Sirius XM Radio, and he's got channels to fill, it only makes sense that he hold a contest to see who could be filling slots for him.

The grand prize in a "So You Think You Can Talk Sports?" contest, which will be decided Sept. 7, is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to host his or her own national sports talk show this fall" on the so-called Mad Dog Radio (Sirius Channel 123/XM Channel 144).

Friday, the five semifinalists, picked by Russo and his staff from entrants received from across the country, will get their live auditions.

"Lots of people think they can talk sports," said Russo in a press release. "But arguing with your friends about sports and hosting a professional show for millions of listeners are two very different things. Nearly 600 people have taken their best shot at their dream job. These five emerged as the best and they are about to be given the spotlight. We'll see who shines the brightest."

Friday's auditions (hear from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Russo's show) include:

== Nick Vella of Denver, originally from L.A., who spent most of his career in the restaurant management business before moving to Colorado to pursue his dream of being a sports talk radio host. He has hosted for a local web-based radio station.

== Josh Bertaccini of Aberdeen, South Dakota, a N.Y. native who has been a sports radio host in Syracuse, North Dakota and Arkansas and currently works for a station in South Dakota.

== Jim Murray of Wakefield, Mass., who has an off-air role for a Boston area radio station.

== Joe Pisano of Sugar Land, Tex. who has worked in standup-comedy and acting, growing up on Long Island, N.Y.

== Lindsay Sullivan of Louisville, Colo., the only female in the bunch, who works "in the restaurante business" these days.

Clips of the finalists will be on www.sirius.com/maddogradio to be voted upon. Two of these five will be back on the air Aug. 31, to co-host with Russo, before the winner is chosen.

Following a week of on air training with Russo, the winner will get his (or her) own show -- eight three-hour shows on Mad Dog Radio this fall.

That's it? All that work, for eight shows?

Because Russo fears they'll be better than him?

Meanwhile, why Pat O'Brien feels he's suited these days to co-host a sports-talk show with Hartman and Vic "The Brick" Jacobs without a proper tryout (linked here).

The book: Historic Photos of USC Football

The author: Steve Springer

The essential info: Turner Publishing (linked here), 216 pages, $39.99

The lowdown: Springer, the former Los Angeles Times sportswriter and author of seven books, including one on USC-UCLA football history, was forwarded an email from a friend who saw a posting on Craigslist recruiting someone to help put this book together. All the photos had been acquired by the publisher, through various sources. Now, all it needed were some identifications, context, and history.

Springer was apparently the right man at the right time. And with extensive help from USC sports information director Tim Tessalone, this comes out as a great coffee-table book for Trojan fans to take with them to Hawaii for the season opener over Labor Day weekend -- and then, perhaps, use as a boogie board while enjoying the rest of the vacation.

Some of these pictures, you've seen before. But in larger-scale presentation, on high-stock paper, the photos are more like pieces of art, with the detail stunning in some cases.

Remember Turd, the mascot dog? "Gloomy Gus" Henderson, smiling? "The Wild Bunch" in full costume? Those cheesy publicity shots, of guys running, jumping and diving into the camera -- without padding to land on.

On page 126, there's a stock photo of head coach Don Clark, taking a knee, with is staff surrounding him. Springer notes: "The key figure in this shot, however, is the man second from right, first year assistant John McKay, who replaced Clark a year later." True enough. But how about the other guy, second from left. It's Al Davis.

On page 140, there's running back Mike Garrett, going through a gauntlet of well wishers, most likely during a senior day celebration. See the kid down on the bottom right with his arm stretched out? Pete Arbogast? The current Trojan play-by-play man has said that's actually him.

On page 179: There's Sam "Bam" Cunningham, diving right at you, from the 1973 Rose Bowl.

Of course, many of these shots have been in color, and those watercolor-like prints that have been published before are pieces of art unto themselves. But here, in black-and-white, it looks more like a visual documentary, the first 100 years of USC football, coming up to a shot of Paul McDonald in action in the 1980 Rose Bowl.

What Springer came away from this after working on this: "It seemed, after looking at these pictures, that they had much more fun back then. They were just guys on a Saturday afternoon playing football. Sure, there was pressure, and it was USC, but the photos especially from the '20s and '30s, it was a whole different time."

Springer said Tessalone was invaluable in identifying people and teams in the photos -- many which came to them without any information.

"We're looking at a game from 1952, and there's an arm trying to tackle a USC running back," said Springer. "It looks like it could be a Notre Dame player. But Tim would say, 'See that stripe on the uniform, that's Florida.' There were a couple of photos we couldn't use because it was just impossible to tell who they were playing."

Springer also became resourceful thanks to the Internet. USC dropped football, from 1911 to 1913, and one of the photos was of Trojans playing rugby, with just the ID: USC vs. St. Mary's. Springer did a Google search and found a 1914 Spaulding Collge Rugby guide, which helped him pinpoint more information about that photo -- it took place at Manual Arts High School, near the USC campus.

Classic, classy stuff.

Like Marion Morrison (top).

Did you know: Turner Publishing has done similar books about the football history of LSU, Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

Post script: Springer's next book, coming out in November, is with Jeanie Buss, called "Laker Girl: From Pickfair to Playboy to Purple and Gold" (linked here)

On Oct. 10, 1951, the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson, left, and the Brooklyn Dodgers' Ralph Branca meet before the World Series at Yankee Stadium in New York. Thomson's homer in the ninth inning seven days earlier off Branca put the Giants into the World Series against the Yankees. Thomson died Monday. He was 86.

"Bobby fulfilled his dream, more so because he wound up being a hero, forever and ever. Amen. And baseball thrives I hope -- on heroes. Not on goats. On heroes. So I think it's a moment to look back on with great joy for Bobby, and tremendous respect and admiration for Ralph Branca. ... When I think of Bobby Thomson, I think of Ralph Branca. You see, the two names are like the two sides of a coin. One cannot exist without the other."
-- Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, who was in the booth working for the Dodgers when Thomson homered, but was not on the air that day

"I was sitting at home watching it on television, giving a play-by-play on the phone to my sister, who was at work. I screamed when Bobby hit the home run, and we got cut off -- which really aggravated me because she worked for the telephone company. So that shouldn't have been the case. It was exciting for me that day because, living in Brooklyn and being a Giants fan, I was able to go out there and brag about it."
-- Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who was 11 years old when Thomson's home run broke hearts all over Brooklyn.

"Bobby was a great ballplayer. And I think if anybody had a chance to enjoy the fame that he enjoyed, I'm glad it was Bobby Thomson."
-- Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe, who started for Brooklyn on the day Thomson hit his famous home run

"If Thomson was going to hit that home run, you could have brought Cy Young in and he would have hit it. Nobody expected Thomson to hit that shattering home run."
-- Former Brooklyn pitcher Carl Erskine, who was warming in the bullpen when Branca was summoned

"I never thought it was going to be that big. Hell, no. When we went into the next season, I thought it'd be forgotten."
-- Branca

"It lasted forever because it happened in New York. I've often thought, in retrospect, there are a lot of home runs that were just as important, like Ozzie Smith's home run against the Dodgers in St. Louis, or Jack Clark's home run here, or Gabby Hartnett's homer for the Cubs in Pittsburgh, which they called the 'Homer in the Gloaming.' But they did not occur in New York. But because this one was in New York, it was pumped up year after year. And they've been fanning the embers since 1951."
-- Scully

"Bobby Thomson will always hold a special place in our game for hitting one of the signature home runs in baseball history. 'The Shot Heard 'Round the World' will always remain a defining moment for our game, illustrating the timeless quality of the national pastime.
"Bobby's baseball career was highlighted by that long drive at the Polo Grounds on Oct. 3, 1951, but 'The Flying Scot' was an accomplished, three-time All-Star in a 15-year major league career. A true gentleman, Bobby was a perfect choice to have earned one of the game's most memorable moments."
-- Baseball commissioner Bud Selig

"Bobby and I saw each other in later years at car shows and baseball reunions, a real gentleman and as much as I hated the Giants, or we did, we had great respect for each other, I think. We look at those orange and black uniforms, there was professional hatred going on then, but in real life there was great respect for people on the Giants and I think it was the same way."
-- Erskine

"While Bobby was so well known throughout the world as the man who hit the most famous home run in baseball history, he was also a true gentleman who showed the respect for the game and carried himself with dignity that is so important to baseball."
-- San Francisco Giants managing general partner Bill Neukom.

Elise Amendola/AP Photo
Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, foreground, speaks at his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction with Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Pat Riley present at Springfield, Mass., last Friday.

Following up on last week's piece (linked here) about how Dr. Jerry Buss was ahead of the curve with launching the Prime Ticket cable channel in Southern California 25 years ago -- it may have been his greatest contribution to the Basketball Hall of Famer who was inducted last Friday as a "contributor" to the NBA -- we caught up with the Lakers owner at a press gathering at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens today to try to get more from him about the long-term effects of that business decision.

On how that Prime Ticket venture started and how it holds true today as a visionary business model:

Well, at that time, a lot of people were beginning to say there should be a sports network, a sports station, and certainly it would start in the big cities first. My trick was ally myself with a particular person. We got bidders and people who wanted to do that but I choose Bill Daniels (pictured right) because he was very experienced in the whole cable business and shelf space was really the important thing at that time. ...

(At this point, Lisa Estrada, the head of the Laker Girls, comes by to plant a kiss on Buss' cheek, resulting in him giving praise to her squad ... "Boy your squad is unbelieveable. I'm so proud of you I can't even tell you ..." As Estrada leaves, Buss whispers: "The Laker Girls look so much better than any other dancers ...")

I took a big gamble because what I did was put in my rights (for the team). That was pinned on whether the team was successful or unsuccessful. I did not put up the money, he (Daniels) put up the money and I put up my teams (for programming). Without those television rights it would have been very tough for me to get by at that time (1985). It could have ended up as a failure, but fortuntately, I choose the right man, he got us on the air and the rest is history.

On whether there could be a time when the Lakers owned their own channel, like the Yankees and Mets do in New York:

I suppose so. I'll tell you, I'm the wrong person to ask about that now. (Daughter) Jeanie (who runs the business side of his teams) is the one. Like with any business you look at every opportunity. Whether you're serious about it or not is another story. Certainly I'm sure she has looked into this very thoroughly.

Consider how cable TV has exploded in the last 25 years, on how cool it must have been to be in on the ground floor for launching Los Angeles sports into this new venture:

It was. It got me a star in Hollywood (on the Walk of Fame), so that makes me very, very happy.

Andy Holtzman/Daily News

Included in Buss' Q-and-A with the assembled media, he also expounded on these topics, questions posed by Joe McDonnell:

On if he could have imagined in 1979 the Laker dynasty that he was about to embark on over the last 31 years:

I couldn't ever imagine that, but you know, right from the beginning, when I saw Magic Johnson play, I thought he was going to be very special. And when I say special, I'm not gonna answer that question whether he's the best player in the world, but I will say this, I think he's the best team player that ever existed. So in saying that, I always felt we were going to have a great team but no one could have imagined this type of thing. This is beyond belief. The whole game now is to see if we can keep it going. I don't ever think we've made a move specifically for money. We've always tried to keep the public trust, so to speak, and if you're willing to pay the big dollars for your tickets, we're willing to turn those dollars over to the talent.

On how long he expects to stay active as an owner:

Well, I still talk to my son Jimmy at least twice a day. Some of those phone calls are as long as an hour, and those phone calls largely is basketball, what we should do, what we're doing. So I think I'm pretty active. but I would say in terms of the decisions, I'd say 80 percent goes with Jim and I throw in my two cents worth here and there, but pretty much I'm on the receiving end of a lot of things.

On whether he's still the bottom line when it comes to decisions:

I'm still (pause) ... they still have to kiss the (new Hall of Fame) ring.

Dan Avey, who during his 30-year-plus run in Southern California as a radio personality spent six years as a colorman on Kings' hockey game broadcasts in the 1970s, died Sunday after a five-year battle with cancer. He was 69.

Avey, born in Spokane and reared in Whittier before graduating at Gonzaga, won 15 Golden Mike awards in his career that started at all-news KFWB in 1976, and continued at KFI and KABC as a news and sports anchor.

He was a colorman on Kings' radio and TV broadcasts, from 1969-76, working with the only three men tho have ever done play-by-play for the team -- Jiggs McDonald ('69-'70, '71-'72), Roy Storey ('72-'73) and current Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller ('73-'76). Avey, the second-ever analyst on Kings games (after McDonald worked with Ed Fitkin the first two seasons of the Kings' existence) was replaced by Rich Marotta.

His biography on the Kings' website (linked here) notes that Avey's duties "were the analysis of the play, comments on the players and strategy being used, player interviews and film features. In addition, Avey wrote a scouting report on each Kings' opponent. During summers, he conducted a series of hockey clinics sponsored by JC Penney's. He also served as NBC-TV's hockey expert in the production of the widely acclaimed "Peter Puck" series for the NHL Game of the Week."

Highlights of the week ahead in sports, both here and afar:

MONDAY

WWE Monday Night Raw, Staples Center, 5:30 p.m., USA Network:

Naw, we didn't pay the $44.95 for WWE SummerSlam over the weekend, which was also at Staples Center. But here's the leftovers -- a 21-man battle royal, and that includes scheduled appearances by Chris Jericho (above), Sheamus, Kane, John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge, John Morrison, CM Punk, R. Truth, Jack Swagger, Big Show ... most of the guys you can still see on Slurpee cups at 7-Eleven. That's the truth.

MLB: Dodgers at Atlanta, 4 p.m., Channel 9:

Already drowning in their own tears, the last thing the Dodgers need here is a rain delay. They have to fly home all night after this one, probably land as the sun is coming up, then take a nap and face the Rockies on Tuesday night. Joe Torre can't overthink this - even thought it'll be his last head-to-head meeting against Bobby Cox. Unless either of them is smart enough to get thrown out.

NFL exhibition: New York Jets vs. New York Giants, 5 p.m., ESPN:

The new Meadowlands Stadium, still not in New York, has already staged its first big-time football game -- did you miss the U.S.-Brazil kickball match last week? That didn't count, and this one doesn't either, if you're keeping track. Green Day is supposed to play at halftime, if that adds value to the ticket.

TUESDAY

MLB: Angels at Boston, 4 p.m., FSW:

Trying to inch their way back into the AL West race with about 40-some odd games to play, the numbers this week don't favor the Halos. These Red Sox, who've beaten them in all seven meetings this year, send out Clay Bucholtz, who has won five of his last decisions. The Angels, by the way, are below .500 against the AL East (see their last series against Toronto?), so it's not a great way to try to make up ground in your own division.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

It's a Matt Kemp bobblehead giveaway -- where do we start? Last year, the bobblehead depicted Kemp celebrating a home run. This time, he's making a catch next to the wall. After he took a couple steps in at the crack of the bat? Ned Colletti will collect all the extra ones to line up on his desk.

WNBA: Sparks vs. Phoenix, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

The Sparks have lost to the defending champions three times already this year -- but twice by just a point. Despite a sub-.500 record, the Mercury is second in the Western Conference standings.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Angels at Boston, 4 p.m., FSW:

John Lackey has pitched 14 1/3 inning against his old team this season, giving up just three earned runs and collecting two victories. But the win he collected over the Angels on July 27 was the last he's had since the end of June -- to go with four losses and three no-decisions.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

It's been pointed out that Dodgers starter Hiroki Kuroda -- 0-for-38, a .000 average -- has yet to connect on a base hit this season. Yeah, that's the problem with the Dodgers' offense. He'll start again tonight, registering just one win in his last eight starts -- although last Friday's 1-0 loss at Atlanta is hardly worth fretting about. (Except Kuroda struck out twice on nine total pitches in that game). The Rockies start Jason Hammel, who has given up 135 hits in 130 innings this year.

THURSDAY

NFL exhibition: New England at Atlanta, 5 p.m., Channel 11:

Have you seen Tom Brady's cool new head of hair? When is cut-down day?

MLB: Angels at Boston, 4 p.m., FSW:

Josh Beckett has been banged around in his last two starts -- giving up a combined 13 earned runs (four homers) and 22 hits in 9 2/3 innings, against the Yankees and Rangers. That's pretty different from the guy who beat the Angels, 7-3, at Anaheim in late July, then followed that with eight Ks and only one earned run in eight innings while beating Cleveland.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

Ubaldo Jimenez, at 17-3, was actually 2-2 in his last four starts heading into Sunday's game against Milwaukee. The Dodgers are still responsible for pinning him with his first loss back on Mother's Day. As it turns out, the Cy Young candidate will miss seeing the Dodgers on this trip on the day this three-game series comes to an end -- De La Rosa, Hammel and Francis drew the lucky numbers.

FRIDAY

Little League World Series, at Williamsport, Penn., four games, ESPN and ESPN2:

The New England vs. Northwest and Midwest vs. Southwest games are the openers, on ESPN; Japan-Mexico and Caribbean-Europe start their International bracket, on ESPN2. Welcome to America.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Cincinnati, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

Is Johnny Cueto's suspension over by now? The Reds come kicking and screaming into L.A. If Brandon Phillips taps Brad Ausmus on the shinguard to lead off the game, don't take it as an invite to fight.

MLB: Angels at Minnesota, 5 p.m., FSW:

The Angels may not have targeted this date as the first time they'd finally play at Target Field in Minneapolis, but it has finally arrived. The Twins' new home park -- RIP Metrodome -- across I-394 in downtown seats 39,504 without any roof over their heads. And the locals seem to really like it. Those who weren't fond of trash-bag home-run fences and balls that got lost in the white puffy ceiling.

WNBA: Sparks vs. Minnesota, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m.:

The two teams trying to clinch the final spot in the Western Conference playoffs. The Sparks pulled out a one-point win at Minnesota last week.

Series: "Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town," 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., IFC:

Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson are back with the start of an eight-episode series. It starts with a storyline about how their town, Shuckton, is waiting to hear an answer on their bid to host the Olympic Games. OK, who gets to dress up like a girl in this one? And where's the Chicken Lady?

Movie: "The Tillman Story," Hollywood Archlight (Sunset and Vine) and West L.A. Landmark (Pico and Westwood) theatres:

A limited engagement of the documetary that seeks to find out why the Army covered up the death of former Arizona Cardinals linebacker Pat Tillman, who left the NFL to fight the war in the Middle East. Josh Brolin narrates it.

SATURDAY

Red Bull Flugtag, Long Beach's Rainbow Harbor at Shoreline Aquatic Park, 1 p.m.:

We believe you can fly. We believe you can touch the sky. In something you create. Then jump over the water. The Flugtag record was set last July -- 207 feet -- when a team at the event in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area went airborne down the Mississippi River, smashing the previous record which had held for more than 10 years. Among the entry names here: Manny Wood (from Valencia, a giant Dodger helmet with dreadlocks coming out of the back); Auto Club Speedway (from Huntington Beach, a giant red racecar with an even bigger foil for easier flying), and Band of Bruins (from Newport Beach, featuring a giant UCLA mascot chasing a USC man toward Seattle). More info: redbullflugtagusa.com

MLB: Dodgers vs. Cincinnati, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

The dog days of summer have officially arrived. The Dodgers attempt to stage their "Bark in the Park" promotion -- bring your dog to the game, buy yourself a $25 all-you-can-eat right-field pavilion seat, buy your dog a $25 right-field pavilion seat (they aren't allowed in any other section of the stadium), and try to enjoy the game. We're not sure if you're allowed to take doggie bags home with you, loaded up with half-eaten Dodger Dogs. It starts with a pre-game "pup rally" in the parking lot, a parade around the warning track, and then the contest. Note: All dog owners must bring a copy of a current rabies vaccination document from a licensed veterinarian. The dogs must have an ID tag, and, if you're buying a ticket for someone else to come with you, they have to sign a waiver that relieves the team from any sort of nasty accident. Without the proper documentation, you won't be allowed in. More info, click here.

MLB: Angels at Minnesota, 1 p.m., Channel 11:

The Twins' chances of winning the AL Central depend on getting first baseman Justin Morneau back, but he's been off and on since suffering a concussion on July 8. The former AL MVP is hitting .345 with a team-best 18 homers and 56 RBIs.

MLS: Galaxy at San Jose, 1 p.m., FSW:

Nope, Beckham isn't back yet. And we're walking ...

Movie: "Whip It," Cinemax, 10 p.m.

We've waited for this 2009 chick-flick about Roller Derby (Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig) to make it to cable. It's here.

WNBA: Sparks at Seattle, 8 p.m., ESPN2:

The regular season ends here -- if the Sparks have enough juice to qualify for the No. 4 spot, it means they'll face this same Storm team in the first round.

SUNDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Cincinnati, Dodger Stadium, 1 p.m., Prime:

Take your kid down on the field and let him (or her) run the bases after the game ends. They might not think it's cool, but you will.

MLB: Angels at Minnesota, 5 p.m., ESPN:

A prime-time game of interest, and the Angels stand to miss both Carl Pavano and Francisco Liriano during this three-game set since their spots probably won't come up in the rotation this time.

Beach volleyball: Manhattan Beach Open:

The AVP says it can't finance it -- it cancelled the season with five events to go -- but the city of Manhattan Beach says it'll go ahead with providing prize money and staging the event as scheduled. It's the 50th year of this thing called the Wimbledon of beach volleyball. Go look at the plaques on the pier that commemorate past winners -- including five-time champ Mike Dodd, the commissioner of the now-insolvent league.

NFL exhibition: Minnesota at San Francisco, 5 p.m., Channel 4:

Starting at quarterback for the Vikings ... you think we have any inside information?

Howard Cole, editor of the most savvy BaseballSavvy.com blog, picked up some national attention for his endless quest to get a Sandy Koufax statue errected (as well as one for Vin Scully)outside of Dodger Stadium from a travel piece posted recently on ESPN.com by Josh Pahigian.

Pahigian, author of "101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out," did a travel piece for ESPN.com (linked here) about statues honoring Major League Baseball team history of its star players outside their ballparks.

Pahigian notes that "some franchises like the Dodgers, Athletics and Orioles possess storied histories but not the statues to match." He then talks to Cole about his campaign for a Koufax statue since 2003, and gathering more than 1,000 signatures on his site (linked here).

"I've been to San Diego and San Francisco," Cole said. "The Tony Gwynn statue at Petco is beautiful, and in a perfect spot, where you can visit before the game and see it from your seat during. The [Willie] Mays, [Willie] McCovey and [Juan] Marichal statues are nice, too, interesting in that they're blocks apart in placement. All of them capture the exact image you'd expect to see for the player, Marichal with the leg kick. When I saw these, and whenever I see [a statue] on TV, I think, 'We just have to do this for Sandy.' And it inspires me."

Cole, born in East Hollywood after his parents moved the family west from Brooklyn, was at Dodger Stadium for Koufax's perfect game in 1965.

"The Dodgers do a number of things with photographs, all very classy, and have the retired numbers around the pavilions," Cole said. "But there's an absolutely perfect spot in front of the executive offices where Sandy would be just incredible. There's even a slope in the concrete that would make for a natural mound to place him on."

Pahigian adds that the Dodgers' front office is "aware of Cole's campaign," and with a $500 million upgrade project still on the drawing board, "plans are under way to create a Dodgers museum on the stadium grounds, but the details of its contents are still being worked out."

Does that involve statues, of Koufax, Drysdale, Scully, Lasorda ... anyone? Let's get it in writing.

Sign the e-petition for a statue for Sandy Koufax (linked here) and for Vin Scully (linked here) on Cole's site.

A week before the start of their most glamorous event of the season, the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour decided it couldn't find enough money to finish this summer's season and Friday declared it over.

The AVP has been unsuccessful at finding new investors so its players could compete in the final five events of the year. Last month, when the tour stopped in Long Beach, AVP officials had a conference call with players and told them that because of dire financial straits, this could be the last event of the year. A couple weeks later, the San Francisco event due for early August was rescheduled until September.

"On behalf of AVP staff we want to express our sincere gratitude to fans, players, partners and sponsors," said Jason Hodell, AVP CEO. "Words cannot express our profound disappointment."

First-year AVP commissioner and beach legend Mike Dodd said: "Through the course of this investor search we have encountered individuals and groups with intelligence, common sense and a passion for the game of beach volleyball. Unfortunately, the time constraints were such that pulling the trigger on the amount of money necessary to salvage this season were too great."

The Manhattan Beach Open, also known as the Wimbledon of beach volleyball, was set to start next Friday, with the men's and women's final set for Sunday, Aug. 22. The women's final was to have been shown live on ABC, while ESPN had a contract in place to show one or both finals each week.

"Ironically this sad news comes as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Manhattan Open, our sport's crown jewel and the one event that showed us all we could dream big," said Dodd, who has won the event five times as player. "The Open has seen its ups and downs over the years and always persevered. I'm sure our sport will do the same."

This season had only 12 events scheduled, most on the West Coast. Seven have already been played -- the last, in Long Beach, when rumors of the AVP's financial problems first became public. The tour, which started in April in Fort Lauderdale, was to have run through September, closing out in Hermosa Beach.

The tour added new sponsors for this season, including a new title sponsor with Nivea, after Crocs ended its funding after last year.

The AVP has been in existence the last 23 years, with AVP players winning at least one gold medal in each Summer Olympic since the sport became part of the Olympics in 1996.

There's a profile of Jerry Buss by NBA.com's Scott Howard-Cooper , a former Laker beat writer at the L.A. Times, from the official league site (linked here) that begins:

"Standard bearer is how (Buss) will be inducted, in the Contributor category because he was innovative in marketing his team as more than a night of basketball, because he correctly envisioned that the Lakers could become pop culture, because he participated in the birthing of the relationship between sports and cable television, because he became such a respected and level voice that he was twice voted president of the Board of Governors.

"Buss as The Establishment. Yeah, everyone really saw that coming."

His creation of Prime Ticket, launching it nearly 25 years to the date of his Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement tonight (3 p.m. with the red carpet show, 4 p.m. with the ceremony on NBA TV), is chronicled in today's media column (linked here). Simply put, before George Steinbrenner could launch his own YES network to feature his New York Yankees (it came about in 2002 only because of a contract dispute with Madison Square Garden network), the plan had been put in place by Buss' cable TV venture for the West Coast in 1985.

If only Prime Ticket had the ceremonies tonight. That would be poetic. The best they could do: Have Bill Macdonald trail the Buss party in the private jet and post a video blog about it (linked here), along with a written blog (linked here), that mentions KCBS Channel 2's Jim Hill made the trip as well.

More poetry not in motion, with an excess of media notes:

== NBA.com will stream today's news conference with the Basketball Hall of Fame honorees at 7 a.m. Matt Winer, David Aldridge and Rick Kamla handle the NBA TV network coverage of the ceremonies.

== If you need to know more about Golf Channel reporter Jim Gray sticking his finger in Corey Pavin's face and giving him a piece of his mind, this piece on CBSSports.com does a nice job (linked here).

== Did Deadspin cross the line in trying to defend itself against a post by the Poynter Institute that was trying to point out that Deadspin crossed a line in reporting on a story about Brett Favre and his alleged sexting episode with another poser journalist? (linked here)

== An MLB produced documentary series about the game's greatest rivalries focuses on the Dodgers-Giants tussels over the years, airing on Versus (Tuesday, 8 p.m.) after the first two episodes focused on the NL-AL All-Star games and the Cardinals-Cubs series. Following up are episodes on Mets-Phillies (Aug. 24) and Yankees-Red Sox (Aug. 31).

== Matt Vasgersian narrates an hour-long documentary on the rise and fall of the Montreal Expos in an MLB Network special that airs Sunday at 7 p.m. The focus is on the 1994 Expos, featuring Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, Moises Alou and John Wettland, poised for a post-season appearance before the players strike cut the season short and eventually set the stage for the franchise's downslide, as key players were traded and the team moved to Washington D.C. 10 years later. Those interviewed include Gary Cater, Steve Rogers, Rusty Staub, Felipe Alou and former GM Dan Duquette, who says in the piece: "It was a personal tragedy for these players who missed their chance to shine. It was a tragedy for the baseball fans in Montreal because this was the best team that they ever had."

== The Associated Press sports has started its own Twitter account with breaking headlines. Find it at http://twitter.com/APressSports, with more AP news available at http://associatedpress-sportsnews.blogspot.com

== DirecTV has announced it will have more than 300 live soccer matches, including up to 28 exclusive European matches a week, taking them from TV partners who cover the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europe League and Spanish first division La Liga. They're on the DirecTV soccer channel mix (Channel 480), which includes finding games on Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer Plus, Fox Sports Net and Fox Deportes. More details: www.directv.com/soccer.

== ESPN also announced this week that it has sublicensed U.S. rights to up to 74 Premier League games in each of the next three seasons from Fox Soccer Channel.
Last season, ESPN televised 46 Premier League matches under a sublicense from Fox, which has been broadcasting the EPL in the U.S. since 1998. ESPN's U.S. coverage begins Saturday with the Premier League opener -- Manchester City at Tottenham -- starting at 4:45 a.m.

== NBC has live coverage of the Dew Tour Skateboard tour from Portland on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. USA Network ads late-night coverage from the BMX Vert on Saturday at 9 p.m.

== In light of Chris Berman's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Ken Fang of Fang's Bite blog does his best lay out why we "hate" the ESPN NFL highlight guy (linked here) . We didn't think it was really that complicated. Like, those who tuned into HBO's "Hard Knocks" and were confused to hear Jets coach Rex Ryan curse.

== AND FINALLY:

== The promos airing this week on KLAC-AM (570) about the new configuration of the new "Loose Cannons" show starting Monday -- Steve Hartman and Vic "The Brick" Jacobs will be joined by former CBS Sports reporter and "Access Hollywood" and "The Insider" dropout Pat O'Brien -- brings to mind a book that O'Brien wrote more than 10 years ago, poised on telling anyone how he has managed to pretend to know about the sports of the day without really knowing anything.

In "Talking Sports: A B.S.er's Guide" (1998), O'Brien, who was at the height of his Hollywood TV personna, was letting the common person in on a secret -- you don't have to know sports to talk about sports.

The book description that's still there on Amazon.com says:

Why should politicians get to do all the lying? Yes, sports fans can spin, especially with a little help from Pat O'Brien, a guy who can convincingly expound on any game, even if he doesn't know the rules.

Perfect for anyone who wants to shoot it like one of the pros--Talkin' Sports is for every sports fan who wants to win the battle of the bull.

Sorry, P.O.B. but you may be D.O.A. The secret's out. The smarter sports-talk show listeners are now hoping you'll put some substance over style.

Dr. Jerry Buss' induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday (3 p.m., NBA TV) is for his contributions to the game.

Dancing girls, Hollywood celebs courtside and waitress service aside, there was the 1985 creation of the Prime Ticket cable TV channel that probably had more to do with any of the non-roster issues than anything he could have achieved.

As we go back to the beginnings of the channel in Friday's media column, we asked Kings Hall of Fame play-by-play man Bob Miller to reflect on how he saw Prime Ticket's emergence affect not just the hockey boom of Los Angeles, but the ripple effect it had on other sports as well:

"I remember Prime Ticket being an innovation since I believe it was the first regional network put together to carry local teams games. It was only one channel then and it came just in time for the arrival of Gretzky when the Kings increased their televised games from about 25 to 62.

"I know Bruce McNall got most of the credit for making the Gretzky trade but I had heard that Dr. Buss has started ooking into it just before he sold the team to Bruce. I guess Bill Daniels was involved also because at the news conference announcing the trade, I know Dr. Buss was on the dais and also Tony Acone who worked for Bill Daniels (and was in charge of the cable channel's distribution). The public profile of the Kings increased tremendously with the arrival of Gretzky and Prime Ticket since we were televising so many more games."

There's more from those who worked on the launch of Prime Ticket in Friday's column.

Former Angels TV and radio analyst Rex Hudler popped up on the MLB Network's "MLB Tonight" show Wednesday night in New Jersey with a chance of perhaps working out a deal to be a regular contributor.

Hudler said this morning that he was invited to join the nighttime, live cut-in show and will be on tonight as well as Friday before flying back to his Orange County home on Saturday, waiting to hear how the tryout went, and ready to consider making a regular gig.

"It's been my first summer off in 32 years, so the fun part has been getting reacclimated with my famly and being home, but I do miss the game on the professional side, it's my passion and at first, it was hard to be away, but once I accepted that, it was a lot easier emotionally," said Hudler, who has three boys aged 7, 9 and 13 and a 16-year-old daughter, with his wife Jennifer.

"It's been a nice break, but last night was a lot of fun talking about the game again, seeing guys I played with and against. I know (the MLB Network) has its pick of guys out there, and there are plenty of them, so I'm not sure if I'm on their radar but it's fun to be invited."

Hudler, who retired as a player after 13 seasons in 1998 and spent 1999-2009 on the Angels' broadcasts, said he's also kept busy this summer by doing some radio work and writing a column for a Japanese newspaper. The Angels announced last November -- on Thanksgiving weekend -- that Hudler and Steve Physioc would no longer be part of their broadcast plans.

MLB Network spokesman Lou Barricelli said Hudler is "a broadcaster that many of our regular analysts know and like very much. It has not been determined when Rex will join us again at MLB Network after tomorrow night."

By David Stringer
The Associated Press

LONDON -- Hold off from hugging an Indian, don't be alarmed if the French are rude and never mistake a Canadian for an American.

Britain's national tourism agency issued guidelines Wednesday on the etiquette of dealing with the hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors who will be coming to London for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Seeking to help the country's sometimes snarky citizens offer a warmer welcome, VisitBritain has updated its advice for anyone likely to work with travelers arriving from overseas -- from hotel staff to taxi drivers.

Other tips: Don't go around asking Brazilians personal questions and never be bossy with visitors from the Middle East.

"Giving our foreign visitors a friendly welcome is absolutely vital to our economy," said Sandie Dawe, chief executive officer of the agency. "With hundreds of thousands of people thinking of coming to Britain in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, this new advice is just one of the ways that VisitBritain is helping the tourism industry care for their customers."

About 30 million people visit Britain each year, spending about 16.6 billion pounds ($26 billion). The 2012 Olympics is likely to bring in an additional 2.1 billion ($3.3 billion) in tourism revenue, according to a government estimate, and about 320,000 extra visitors from overseas during the games in July and August 2012.

VisitBritain said research it had conducted found tourists believe Britons are honest and efficient -- but not the most pleasant. Britain is ranked 14th out of 50 in the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index on the quality of welcome offered to visitors, the tourism agency said.

The frank etiquette tips were written by agency staff about their own native countries.

Polish tourists are likely to be hurt by stereotypes that imply they drink excessively, while the French are notoriously picky in restaurants, the guidelines claim.

U.K. workers are told to brush off common Argentine jokes about a person's clothing or weight. Belgians take offense at people snapping their fingers while Australians are fond of coarse language. Japanese people consider prolonged eye contact impolite and smile to express a range of emotions -- not simply to show happiness.

Tourism workers are advised to show extra patience when dealing with guests from India or the United Arab Emirates.

"Indians are in general, an impatient lot, and like to be quickly attended to," the guidelines claim. "The more affluent they are, the more demanding and brusque they tend to be."

Indians also don't like being touched by strangers and may be suspicious about the quality of British food, the guide said, without noting the latter might be a common concern.

Travelers from the Middle East are likely to be demanding with staff and "are not used to being told what they can't do," the guide warns.

Guests from China and Hong Kong may find winking or pointing with an index finger rude, while "mentioning failure, poverty or death risks offense," the advice claims. Chinese visitors may be unimpressed by landmarks just a few hundred years old, tourism staff are told.

Workers are advised against discussing poverty, immigration, earthquakes or the Mexican-American war with visitors from Mexico -- who prefer to chat about history and art.

Canadian tourists are likely to be quite annoyed about being mistaken for Americans, the guide suggests -- urging workers to keep an eye out for maple leaf pins or badges on tourists' clothing.

And Americans? They can appear "informal to the point of being very direct or even rude" and won't ever hesitate about complaining, the guide says.

Matt Curtis, who spend the last 10 years as part of a Fresno State program that won the 2008 College World Series title, accepted the head baseball coaching job at Cal State Northridge, the school announced Tuesday.

Curtis, who turns 36 on Saturday, was the Bulldogs' recruiting coordinator, pitching coach and third-base coach the last several years for head coach Mike Batesole, the former CSUN head coach who hired Curtis upon his arrival in Fresno prior to the 2003 season.

Curtis replaces Steve Rousey, who spent the last eight years at the CSUN coach compiling a 169-278-1 overall mark and 48-129 in the Big West. Rousey, who was let go in June, had been an assistant under Batesole at CSUN in 2001 and '02.

With the ability to have sounding boards in both Batesole and Cal State Bakersfield coach Bill Kernan, who guided CSUN from 1989 to 1995, Curtis says he goes into this new job with eyes wide open.

"(Batesole) was behind me in pursuing this and a great asset for me in shedding light on the department and the school, on how to have to success -- as was coach Kernan, who has really become a good friend of mine," said Curtis, a Visalia native and two-time All-Western Athletic Conference catcher at Fresno State who played with and against former CSUN standouts Adam Kennedy and Robert Fick, both of whom made it to the big leagues.

"I'm well aware of the history of the program, going back to my days as a player. And I know resources are tight, but that's the nature of college athletics anywhere you go, and I'm ready to take that on."

Drafted in the 28th round by the Angels in '96, Curtis spent five years in the minor leagues, reaching Double-A, before he came back to Fresno State as a student assistant, then volunteer assistant in 2000. He got an accounting degree from the school in 1998 and a masters in business administration in 2001.

"I really get a sense of excitement from the administration, that they're behind the baseball program," said Curtis. "The challenge, and opportunity, is playing the Big West Conference. There's a lot of name recognition there with the location and the campus. It's a great area to recruit and there are a lot of great things to offer given the chance to compete."

CSUN athletic director Rick Mazzuto said his search to replace Rousey included "a number of first-class candidates," including former Dodgers pitcher and UCLA pitching coach Tim Leary, but added that the hiring committee "and I felt Curtis possessed the experience and energy needed to help the baseball program become one of the most successful teams in the Big West."

Aside from having a core group of players returning, Curtis sees potential in strengthening the facilities around the baseball program as a priority to attract players on a year-to-year basis.

"Every job has its challenges, and from a facilities perspective, we've got some work to do," said Curtis. "The playing surface is in great shape. Of course, you'd love to have lights, and bleachers and a clubhouse, but we'll see what happens over time. It's not a prerequisite to playing winning baseball, but we'll bring some people together who can provide us with resources for the needs of the program and welcome any movement in that direction."

More from Curtis on:

== Finding players in Southern California to join the Northridge program, which competes with UCLA, USC, Cal State Fullerton, Pepperdine, LMU and Long Beach State:

"Southern California is rich in baseball, and we want to pull in players from not just the San Fernando Valley, but the San Gabriel Valley and Ventura County, keep them around and let the people who followed them in high school see them go to the next level."

== On the players he inherits:

"There's a nucleus there that wants to be successful. I've visited with some of them over the last couple of days. They're good kids to build a program around. There's a depth of pitching I'm anxious to see come back after some of them had injuries. The returning outfield is strong but we need guys up the middle to make it work. I do think it's an older group and more than anything they have a desire and a passion to play in a system that we'll have in place. With the right effort and discipline, and keeping everyone healthy, I don't believe we're going to give any years away. We'll compete every year and qualify for post-season play. Without having seen any of them with my own eyes -- Fresno State hasn't played Northridge since 2008 -- I can't say if the talent is there, but I know they're hungry and ready to go to work."

== On fundraising:

"Unless you're in a school that might be in the SEC, or in a BCS conference, baseball isn't a revenue-generating sport so you have go be creative in ways to be successful. We faced that at Fresno; all the programs in the Big West face that. It's the reality of the situation. We have to dig in and get the community energized. You've got a limited number of scholarships but you have a roster, with walk-ons, that we'll settle on at about 30 to 32."

== On how to build a roster:

"At any level -- from Northridge, to Dodger Stadium -- it's pitching and efense. Northridge is known to have an offensive park, but we need to recruit athletes with Division I arm speed and foot speed, build up the middle, and weigh the scholarships we give out on the mound and behind the plate, at shortstop and center field, and move from there. To be honest, there's not many guys who'll turn down first-round pro money. Each program has to build to its structure and take advantage of the area they're in and not try to imulate any one else's program."

Also:

== Curtis' bio at the Fresno State Website (linked here)

The Associated Press
The Mets' Luis Castillo breaks his bat during a game against the Dodgers last July at Dodger Stadium.

The Associated Press

A New York Mets fan who says a shattered bat smashed him in the face in the Shea Stadium stands is suing the team and Major League Baseball, claiming they didn't do enough to protect fans from break-prone maple bats.

James G. Falzon's lawsuits follow years of discussion of the safety of maple baseball bats, which have become increasingly popular but have been shown to break apart more readily than traditional ash bats.

Falzon was in a box seat along the third-base line, watching a fly ball soar, when the barrel of a broken maple bat flew into his face during an August 2007 Atlanta Braves game at the Mets' former home, according to lawsuits he filed Friday in Manhattan.

He suffered multiple facial fractures, including a broken palate, as his traumatized 11-year-old son looked on, the lawsuits said.

Falzon is seeking unspecified damages from the team, the league, Rawlings-brand bat maker the Jarden Corp. and two players: Mets second baseman Luis Castillo, who was wielding the bat, and then-Mets catcher Ramon Castro, who owned it, according to the lawsuits.

The team, the league and Rye, N.Y.-based Jarden declined to comment Monday. Castillo is still with the Mets, who were off Monday. Castro now plays for the Chicago White Sox and couldn't immediately be reached by telephone for comment.

Baseball bats have traditionally been made from ash trees, but maple bats have gained ground in recent years, particularly after Barry Bonds used them to break Mark McGwire's single-season home run record in 2001 and Hank Aaron's career home run record in 2007.

But an MLB committee found in 2008 that maple bats were three times as likely to break in multiple places as ash bats.

The ruptures sometimes send pieces hurtling into fans, umpires and players. Boston Red Sox shortstop Nick Green had to deflect a maple bat barrel with his forearm while the ball rolled between his legs during a game against the Washington Nationals last year.

The league set new bat production standards after the 2008 season, including requirements that manufacturers track the breakage rates of different models and outfit bats with dots that show how straight the wood's grain is. The straighter the grain, the more durable the bat.

The broken-bat rate has since dropped from 1 per game to 0.55, the league says.

Pointing to MLB-commissioned studies of maple bats that went back to 2005, Falzon's lawsuits argue that the league and the Mets failed to keep spectators "reasonably safe from hazards they had actual knowledge of, including the increased danger posed by shattering maple bats."

The suits also accuse the players of not being careful enough in inspecting and maintaining the bat and accuse the manufacturer of producing an "inherently dangerous" bat.

MLB says on tickets that fans assume risk for accidents incidental to the game, such as getting hit by foul balls and broken bats.

LeBron James' autograph ain't what it used to be.

According to those who authentate things at Carlsbad-based Upper Deck, the new Miami Heat star "has decided to also modify his signature," something that may be note to those who collect such things in bulk.

Upper Deck Authenticated notes that when James joined them in 2003, he signed his first name with a looping "L" that closely resembled the start of his uniform No. 23.

Now he's "tapered that with a more definable starting letter," and, of course, changed 23 to 6 with each scribble.

"It just feels right; this marks a new beginning for me," James is quoted by Upper Deck during a July 31 signing for his memorablia.

The Upper Deck store (www.upperdeckstore.com) has two "new" James-signed products -- a Spalding basketball, limited to 100, that goes for $899.99. An autographed 16x20 photo with his new Heat jersey is available for a mere $699.99.

Because they've apparently run out of "Stump the Schwab" reruns, and Jerry Lucas "SportsCentury" airings, ESPN Classic has taken to carving out an hour of programming on Mondays to show a series from the 1970s called "Celebrity Bowling."

Last week, it was Barry Williams and Christopher Knight vs. Eve Plumb and Maurine McCormick, followed up by William Shatner and Hugh O'Brian vs. Fran Jeffries and Michelle Lee.

Today's lineup (at 7 and 7:30 p.m.): Virginia Graham and Dick Martin vs. Ernest Borgnine and Laurence Harvey, then Graham and Michelle Lee vs. Martin and Borgnine.

More than 400 celebs of all B- and C-list appeared on the syndicated series hosted by Jed Allen that ran from January, 1971 to September, '78, according to whomever posted such information at Wikipedia. That included all the usual suspects: Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Jan Murray, Angie Dickinson, Don Adams, Bob Newhart, Roy Rogers, Marty Allen, Richard Dawson, Nipsey Russell ... and George Foreman.

Most interesting was that the show, produced at KTTV-Channel 5 studios on Sunset Blvd. by creator Joe Siegman and Don Gregory, didn't have a bowling alley. The lanes were installed inside the studios.

Wikipedia's entry notes (linked here): "The status of the 70's version is unknown, but most likely wiped or otherwise deteriorated into an unviewable condition. Only a few episodes exist among private collectors. Shows are currently airing on ESPN Classic."

Could it work again if someone pulled the right strings to make it happen? How could you not avoid watching it? Especially with this music:

Highlights of the week ahead in sports, both here and afar:

MONDAY

MLB: Angels vs. Kansas City, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

Torii Hunter, suspended for this whole series? For being a Royal pain in the butt? Former Angel Sean O'Sullivan, the 22-year-old right-hander traded to the Royals for third baseman Alberto Callaspo late last month, gets the start for K.C.

TUESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m., Channel 9:

Wikipedia defines a "soap bubble" as something that "usually last for only a few moments before bursting . . . They are often used for children's enjoyment, but their usage in artistic performances shows that they can also be fascinating for adults." As Vin Scully bubbles up when describing the 50-mile an hour change by the Dodgers' Vicente Padilla, we note he's 4-2 since coming back from the DL on June 19 and opens a three-game series against the two-time NL champion Phillies (don't remind us). Kyle Kendrick starts for the Phillies in place of the injured 47-year-old lefty Jamie Moyer, who just joined Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino and Chase Utley on the DL with a bad elbow and doesn't expect to pitch for the rest of the season.

MLB: Angels vs. Kansas City, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

Jeff Dedmon didn't wear plaid when he pitched in the major leagues years ago. But the Angels are hip on bringing it back, with a hat giveaway today. (You didn't get that original joke there? See the Steve Martin movie, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"). We think most kids would be more inclined to get a copy of the new "Madden NFL 11" game that comes out today. here against the Angels' Dan Haren.

WNBA: Sparks vs. Indiana, Staples Center, 7 p.m., ESPN2:

Nine famous-enough Southern California athletes who wore No. 9 during their playing days here: Nick Van Exel, Bernie Nicholls, Paul Kariya, Mickey Hatcher, Bill "Cowboy" Flett, Wally Moon, Greg Brock, Damon Allen . . . and the person getting her No. 9 retired by her team tonight. On Lisa Leslie Court, Lisa Leslie, a year removed from her playing retirement, even if scoring the most points in WNBA history isn't on her resume any longer. Games at Minnesota (Thursday) and Tulsa (Saturday) finish off this week for the Sparks, then there's just one more to go in the regular season.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Angels vs. Kansas City, Angel Stadium, 12:30 p.m., FSW:

Jose Guillen, who hit 27 homers with 104 RBI for the Angels in 2004, was let go last week by the Royals as his three-year, $36 million deal comes to an end, even though he was leading K.C. with 16 homers and 62 RBI. The Royals' highest paid player per year in team history -- he was nearing the end of a three-year, $36 million deal -- wouldn't consider coming back to Anaheim, would he? You mean, to play for Mike Scioscia, whom he once called "a piece of garbage" before the team traded him to the Nationals after the '04 season and got Maicer Izturis and Juan Rivera in return? The Royals have until sometime this week to trade or release him. Meanwhile, it's Zack Greinke against Jered Weaver in this epic showdown. Expect a lot of Ks in the bright sunshine.

MLB: Dodgers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m., Prime:

Recently snatched-up All-Star pitcher Roy Oswalt hasn't won for the Phillies yet since they gave him a reprieve from Houston. He left his last start against Florida with a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning against Florida, but the Phillies bullpen gave it away. Oswalt starts here against Chad Billingsley.

THURSDAY

Golf: PGA Championship, first round, 10 a.m., TNT:

Even if Tiger Woods, coming off a blowout at the Bridgestone Invitational, is within breathing distance of securing another major victory in this 92nd such event from Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisc., just remember how it ended last year. They wanted to give the Wanamaker Trophy at Hazeltine to Tiger, but South Korea's Y.E. Yang stunned the world No. 1 player, who never before gave up a 54-hold lead in a major. Woods, who's in danger of missing out on the Ryder Cup, will be the story here again as the even comes to a close. Whistling Straits, by the way, is where they held the 2004 tourney, and that went to a playoff before Vijay Singh won it. Round two is also on TNT, Friday at 10 a.m. CBS takes over Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

NFL exhibition: Carolina at Baltimore, 5 p.m., ESPN:

On the first day of multiple practice games played at NFL facilities, New Orleans is at New England and Oakland is at Dallas, but ESPN has picked this one. Just as well. Panthers third-string QB Jimmy Clausen should get his feet wet for all to see.

MLB: Dodgers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m., Channel 9:

If the Dodgers make it back this way for the third October in a row, pinch us. Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to throw his left-arm to the wind.

FRIDAY

Basketball Hall of Fame inductions, NBA TV, 3 p.m.:

Lakers owner Jerry Buss, WNBA star (and former USC standout) Cynthia Cooper, briefly one-time Laker Karl Malone, the 1960 U.S. gold medal winning Olympic team that included Jerry West, and the 1992 U.S. gold-medal winning Olympic team with Magic Johnson are all included in this latest induction ceremony. Scottie Pippen and the late Dennis Johnson will also be honored with a plaque in Springfield, Mass.

MLB: Dodgers at Atlanta, 4:30 p.m., Prime:

Don't gloss over Braves first baseman Troy Glaus just because he's been in a funk. He went 4-for-17 with two homers in a four-game series at Dodger Stadium from early June, ended up as the NL Player of the Month, and, between May 1 and June 20, he had 46 RBIs while hitting .316 with 12 homers and a .579 slugging percentage. But then came July -- no homers five RBIs in 77 at bats, with a stellar .182 average. The former UCLA star and a hero from the Angels' 2002 World Series team turned 34 last Tuesday but was out of the lineup when manager Bobby Cox said he was giving him "a breather." Don't hold your breath. Glaus is due to explode again soon.

MLB: Angels vs. Toronto, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

It still makes no sense to us how the Blue Jays' 6-foot, 195-pound third baseman/ right fielder Bautista -- it's Jose, right? -- leads all of baseball in home runs at this point. And that it's just 33. And he was the only one with 30 or more until Adam Dunn pounded on the Dodgers last Friday. Hey, it's freakin' August. Remember when Barry Bonds would hit 33 in the month of August alone? The Blue Jays also lead all of baseball with team dingers.

SATURDAY

MLS: Galaxy at New York Red Bulls, 3 p.m., FSC:

You've got to appreciate the jolt that the Red Bulls have made lately -- adding Thierry Henry, Juan Pablo Angel and now Rafael "Rafa" Marquez to the lineup. Hey, wanna make a deal for Beckham? Manny Ramirez?

MLB: Dodgers at Atlanta, 4 p.m., Prime:

Former Dodger Derek Lowe finally has to face his old team. He pitched against them twice last year and beat them on Aug. 1, 4-3. Ted Lilly faces him.

MLB: Angels vs. Toronto, Angel Stadium, 6 p.m., FSW:

Sorry, kids. School starts soon. Here's a free backpack to everyone aged 2-to-18. Like a 2-year-old needs a backpack? Ask his mom. He does. And does she. Ever hear of daycare? The Blue Jays are set to send out Brandon Morrow tonight, one start after he came within an hour of throwing a no-hitter against -- who else? -- Tampa Bay.

SUNDAY

MLB: Angels vs. Toronto, Angel Stadium, 12:30 p.m., Channel 13:

East L.A. native and former Cal State Fullerton standout Ricky Romero should bring a bunch of family members to the park today for another performance in Anaheim for the Blue Jays. He made his first Southern California start as a pro against the Angels on May 25, giving up seven runs and 11 hits in an 8-3 loss. He had a complete-game, two-hit victory over the Yankees earlier this month at Yankee Stadium.

MLB: Dodgers at Atlanta, 10:30 a.m., Prime:

It's a game of somewhat national interest -- TBS has it for the rest of the country to see -- but this series isn't over yet. It continues Monday night. Forcing the Dodgers to leave immediately and return home for a game Tuesday against Colorado. Fair? Naw.

AP Photo/Toby Talbot
A youngster takes a swing at the plate at Little Fenway, a scaled-down version of the major league field in Essex, Vt., in the backyard of Pat & Beth O'Connor's house. It is used exclusively for Wiffle ball games.

Following up on today's story about the time and place for Wiffle ball (linked here), which includes a review of the book "Wiffle ball: The Ultimate Guide" (linked here), we've got more from this charity event this weekend in Vermont:

By John Curran
The Associated Press

ESSEX, Vt. -- Pat O'Connor loved baseball so much he just had to have his own Fenway Park.

So he built one.

O'Connor focused on the important stuff: the right shade of green for his miniature Green Monster, a Citgo sign to sit just past the left-field wall, baseball-shaped markers in right field to represent the retired jersey numbers of Ted Williams and other Red Sox greats.

His attention to detail paid off - for the backyard paradise he calls "Little Fenway," for hundreds of Wiffle Ball players who get to play in it for one weekend every August and for a paralyzed hockey player whose charity is its main beneficiary.

"It started with just planting a seed, and it grew into something a lot bigger than I ever imagined," said O'Connor. "Each year, it seems to get better and better."

O'Connor, a 55-year-old IBM manager and father of three, calls himself "a crazy baseball fan." It's no coincidence he's one of a baseball team-sized family of nine
children, or that his e-mail address starts with "homerunpat." He's been in love with the game since he was 7.

You can guess his favorite movie: "Field of Dreams," the 1989 Kevin Costner film about an Iowa farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield after hearing voices.

In 2001, he built Little Fenway on little more than a whim, turning a one-acre parcel
behind his house on a dirt road into a replica of Fenway Park, complete with bases, bleachers, an old-fashioned Fenway-style scoreboard, a 12.5-foot-tall Green Monster
and a 3-by-3-foot plastic Citgo sign - it's not neon - that looks a lot like the one
towering over Kenmore Square.

And of course, there's the left-field foul pole - "the Fisk pole" and right-field "Pesky pole."
Little Fenway even has tomato plants in the bullpen, a nod to former Boston pitching
coach John Cumberland, who in the 1990s planted tomato plants in the Fenway Park bullpen and had idle pitchers tend them.

All the groundskeeping and organizing means O'Connor, left, isn't exactly an all-star when it comes to pitching in around the house. That's OK with his wife, Beth. She's proud of what O'Connor has done. She just doesn't get the same thrill about the sports stuff.

"I don't really get it. I'm not really a sports person, so I don't have that same feeling that I see other people get when they're coming and see how much fun they're having and watch the magic," she said.

What started as a lark became something more after Sept. 11, 2001. O'Connor hosted a
Wiffle Ball tournament to raise money for New York disaster relief after the World Trade Center attacks. It brought in $1,400.

That winter, he picked up "Eleven Seconds," E.M. Swift's book about former Boston University hockey player Travis Roy, who was paralyzed from the neck down while playing in his first collegiate game in 1995.

O'Connor had an idea for a charity tournament, and pitched it to the Travis Roy
Foundation, a charity that raises money for victims of spinal cord injuries.

In 2002, seven teams played in the first tournament, raising $4,000. Since then, the
three-day event has steadily grown - in participants, money raised for Roy's foundation and stature. In addition to the $500 entry fee for teams, the players compete with one another to raise money that they then bring to the tournament.

There's a 20-20 club - for anyone who raises 20 pledges of $20 or more - and a 30-30
club, the members of which are announced in a ceremony on the field each year. Former
Red Sox players have found their way there to play, including Bernie Carbo and Bill "Spaceman" Lee.

There's a waiting list for teams to play.

Demand was so great that O'Connor went a step further in 2007, building "Little Wrigley" - a replica of Chicago's Wrigley Field - behind Little Fenway. It has a field and bases, an ivy-adorned faux brick wall, flagpole pennants bearing the names of famous Cubs and a clock that's set to one hour behind the one at Little Fenway - an accommodation for central time, of course.

The two parks swarm with players for one weekend a year, with games running all day
and into the night, illuminated by portable lights brought in for the occasion.

"Playing there is the highlight of everybody's summer," said Mario Fontana, 27, of Allston, Mass., who hit a walk-off home run in the championship game of the inaugural Travis Roy Foundation Tournament and hasn't missed once since.

"It's amazing. When you first play at Little Fenway, you aren't prepared for the experience, even if you've seen it from afar. It's constant giddiness. You keep
giggling about how fun it is. You can't believe you're getting to do it."

To date, the tournaments have raised $715,000 for the Travis Roy Foundation, and
thousands more has been raised with tournaments benefiting other charities.

Twenty-five teams will converge on O'Connor's backyard for the ninth annual Travis
Roy Foundation Tournament. This weekend, the 35-year-old Roy will be there, as he always is.

"It's a magical place that really removes you from everything else that's going on in
your life," Roy says. "It just really is a unique setting and a unique place."

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), and in addition to the column we did in today's newspaper and website on Wiffle ball (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Wiffle Ball: The Ultimate Guide"

The pitch:

A curveball. What else?

An 85-mph fastball. Seriously. With a Wiffle ball?

Along with a riser, screwball, knuckleball, sinker and change up, what can't you throw with an eight-holed plastic ball invented in 1953 from plastic disgarded pieces of a cosmetic package from a perfume company.

The past, present and future of Wiffle Ball is finally here for dads and sons to discover for themselves. It's comforting to know that the same family that invented this in their backyard still runs the show and produces it in the U.S., based in a little Connecticut town from whence it came.

The book breaks the Wiffle down into several categories by chapter -- its place in pop culture; its history (invented by the Mullanys); the story of the Mullany family today; a look at the leagues that have popped up; a "how-to" explanation on throwing the ball (including how to scuff it); some of the ingenious fields created to honor the game (including the one in Encino, called Strawberry Field, created by Hollywood talent manager Rick Messina, which expanded when he bought his neighbor's property once it went up for sale); and finally, the science behind what makes the ball do what it does (think Bernoulli's Principle of 1738, with the Magnus Effect outlines in 1852).

Interspersed are stories from people like Bob Costas, Jim Bouton, Gary Dell'Abate, Sports Illustrated publisher Jeff Griffing and Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers with their takes on what Wiffle means to them.

It's a simple 150 pages, actually. Barely 5 inches by 8 inches. Kinda correlates perfectly to the thing itself.

Thanks. Now back to the field before the sun goes down.

How it goes down in the scorebook: One, big plastic game-winning home run, over the power lines and off Mr. Reitler's roof, trickling down and falling into his prized scrubs, not to be found by my little brother until after I've circles the bases standing up and mom called us in for dinner.

Post script: Aside from the pictures that show how a Wiffle ball and bat are actually molded, you gotta check out pages 33-35 -- the original Wiffle ball patent, filed on Feb. 18, 1954, and granted on Jan. 1, 1957 as No. 2,776,139, which made it all official. "Game Ball" had been invented, specifying apertures of 5/16 of an inch in diamter equidistant from the next adjacent row no matter who tries to knock it off from here on.

More online at Wiffle.com (linked here) and merchandise (linked here).

And don't confuse it with a product called "Junk Ball" (linked here), which you may find at sporting goods stores, that looks like Wiffle Ball, but sells for even more. And if Hermann needed a reason to file some kind of copyright infringement ...

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Batting Stance Guy: A Love Letter to Baseball"

The pitch:

"Ladies and gentleman, I offer you the least marketable skill in America ... welcome," it says on Ryness' website (linked here).

The 21st century Max Patkin, a performance artist/mime who exaggerates the batting stances of current and former players for the enjoyment of the fans, says he never intended to have a book come out on his abilities to make people laugh.

Instead, as he started writing it, it came necessary to add the subtitle, about it being his "love letter to baseball," something much like Josh Wilker did with his recently successful book, "Cardboad Gods."

"I truly would have never come up with this (book), and I know my high school teachers wouldn't have encouraged it," Ryness told us. "All the backyard videos were just a joke to show buddies back in Boston I could immitate players they liked on the Red Sox. Then (ESPN.com columnist) Bill Simmons wrote something, we got on the front page of YouTube ... A book agent who saw a piece on me in the New York Times (March, 2009) thought there's be something in the marketplace for a book less than $20 that's fun and nostalgic about baseball from a fan. Honestly, we'd have never approached a publisher about this."

Ryness gives the illusion that he can making a living off this hobby, enough to support a wife and two daughters in the Los Feliz area of L.A. (near Dodger Stadium). But really, he just works it in around all the other things he does to put food on the table -- including coaching his daughter's soccer team.

"I have a lot of screenwriter friends in L.A. -- who doesn't? -- and they have such a weight and burden on their heads. They say, 'A rewrite is due on Sunday and I hate the main character ...' So when I got this bok started, I just started to write, but I didn't want to have deadlines stopping me. So I started and I just didn't stop. Every night. Until 3 in the morning. I gained about 25 pounds eating Twix and drinking cherry Coke. But it was a blast.

"The book really isn't about show me doing '50 wacky player stances!' It's really more of my love letter to the game and how emotionally gratifying that process has been. You often kind of bury some of your youth because, otherwise, you can't be functional playing Comodor 64 game every day. But this has been the most absolute fun three years of my life.

"And of everyone in my family, I'm the big baseball fan. My bother has been on Broadway, my sister is a story-board artists for films and my other sister is a singer and talent agent. I have the least marketable skills, and I'm the oldest. But now I'm hanging out with artists in L.A. and people are asking, 'Are you a professional dancer?' because of the videos.

"I mean, this thing was so ghetto backyard, with no thought to it, I figured once it hit the Internet ... never in my wildest drams did I know this would happen."

Or that he'd get letters of thanks from George Will, Supreme Court justices Sotamayor and Alito, a text message from Jenny Finch, and a note of thanks from Mark Simons, the researcher for ESPN's "Baseball Tonight."

Ryness, a Bay Area native, really has produced a book that, to our cynical amazement, made us smile.

He celebrates it with what he does best. Acting it out. Then giving his take on each team's ballpark that he's visited.

On Anaheim's Angel Stadium (after he breaks down Rod Carew's stance): "I don't think Angels fans live in fear the way other fans do. They're just happy to be there. Life is good. It's sunny. It's a beautiful day, and when the game's over, they'll get back in their monster trucks and head back out to the beach for a late-night bonfire with their loved ones. It's not like they don't care. It's just that they're a lot happier than other fans."

On Dodger Stadium (after his imitation of Ron Cey, and recreating the Kirk Gibson-Dennis Eckersley at bat from Game 1 of the '88 World Series): "I currently live in the shadow of Chavez Ravine. If Los Angeles were New York, I'd walk to Dodger games. But L.A. is L.A. and we love our cars so I always drive .. Don't let the empty seats fool you: Dodger fans are hard-core. Go spend a few innings in the cheap seats and you'll see ... If tattoos, especially tattoos on the neck and face, are the measure of loyalty to a team, then the Dodgers have a lock on dedication."

Ryness also adds: "We often brush off what we see in front of us. We sometimes forget to absorb what's going on around us. Think of this book as a magnifying glass. A (hopefully) moderately humorous magnifying glass aimed directly as baseball and its cavalcade of personalities."

How it goes down in the scorebook:

"I'm not a baseball expert or any authority with any kind of credentials other than my unfettered love of the game," Ryness writes in the first chapter. "I hope that this book site somewhere on the shelf between a Bill James abstract and the ramblings of a madman. I hopes it makes you laugh, but more important, I hope it makes you take a deeper look at the game I -- and most likely you -- love."

So that's where it'll go.

And coming Sunday: Ryness participates in a discussion about how Wiffle ball fits into the world order these days.

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Field of Screams: Haunted Tales from The Baseball Diamond, The Locker Room and Beyond"

The pitch:

When Bradley and Gordon were collecting material for their 2007 book, "Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends, and Eerie Events" (linked here), they were frightened somewhat by the fact they had much more material for one book.

So after chronicling stuff like how there are hidden passageways at Dodger Stadium, how Roberto Clemente had preminitions about dying in a plane crash and why the Curse of the Billy Goat still haunts Chicago Cubs fans, ghostbusters Bradley and Gordon scare up some more stories for a second edition.

For starters: The Dodgers' Adrian Beltre admitting he didn't sleep the entire three nights that the team was at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee in 2003, with teammate Alex Cora and coach John Shelby verifying there was something crazy going on there. But don't take ex-Dodgers words for it. San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum has his stories about being there, as does Matt Treanor, Billy Wagner, Ellis Burks and Matt Nokes.

There's Chapter 4, about how visiting clubhouse man Bubba Harkins knows of the spooky things that have happened in Angels Stadium over the years -- stereos going on, lights coming out ... and visits by the late Jimmie Reese. Angels communications director Tim Mead is quoted: "If anyone's seen a ghost down there or any facsimilie thereof, they've geen good ones and if Jimmie Reese or Gene Autry were own there, then we're blessed."

Then how do you explain the center-field gate at Fenway Park flying open during an Angels-Red Sox AL Division Series game last fall? Maybe it was Nick Adenhart joining in the pending celebration?

Does the spirit of Babe Ruth still live on today in places he used to haunt?

Why do Pirates players shy away from staying at Room 232 at the team's spring training camp hotel?

What is it like to be a night watchman at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown? Much like "Night at the Museum"?

Remember when the Cubs used to train on Catalina Island? Have all of them really left the place?

Or how about in the Mission District of San Francisco, where the old Seals Stadium used to be. Employees of the shops there report strange things happening all the time.

Poltergeists, exorcisms and voodoo aside, it's worth at least looking into what could cause these things to happen, and either fear it, or embrace it.

Like how the Dodgers of '08 took to liking this gnome with an LA hat in the bullpen after a 7-11 start was reversed.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Don't read it if you're the last one of the stadium.

Post script: Not to be confused with the book, "Field of Screams," published in 1982 by Richard Scheinin (W.W. Norton & Company, 404 pages), which is described as: "For those who have had it with the "Boys of Summer" playing "The Summer Game" on a "Field of Dreams," here is a blackly funny reality check--featuring a rogue's gallery of cheats, misers, sadists, racists, egomaniacs, substance abusers, gamblers, and criminals who have participated in America's favorite sport." That screams for a rewrite and updated version.

By David Ginsburg
Associated Press

BALTIMORE -- The National Sports Collectors Convention is probably the only place in the world where a guy can find Jerry Rice's football pants, a box of Flying Nun trading cards and the tooth of a Tyrannosaurus rex under the same roof.

This gigantic trade show is not just for sports fans, even though there were thousands of signed baseballs, countless game-worn jerseys and enough football helmets to cover every head in the NFL.

"Just a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing," said Rick Walker, who brought much of his inventory from Atlanta to the show. Walker's station included comic books, coasters, plates, pennants and a miniature pink Cadillac.

The 31st annual convention, which runs through Sunday, features dozens of stations with unopened football and baseball cards from yesteryear. At various places on the floor, grown men eagerly opened one pack after another in hope of filling out their collection.

Those without patience but thick wallets could dispense with the suspense by buying a full set. For example, the 1956 Topps baseball collection cost a cool $4,300.

That's nothing compared to the 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Wax Box, which sells for $14,375 primarily because it could very well contain the coveted Wayne Gretzky rookie card. And how much is a Wayne Gretzky rookie card worth? Well, you could ask someone at one of several appraisal booths located throughout the basement of the Baltimore Convention Center.

This is not a place to take your girlfriend. The clientele was mostly middle-aged men, and the items for sale were not exactly the type of stuff women covet. Then again, what lady wouldn't look good in a sleeveless Oakland Athletics jersey once worn by Rick Monday? The one selling for $1,000?

A year ago -- August, 2009 -- ESPN sent out a memo to all employees that said, in part, it didn't want social networking, including Twitter, to get in the way of reporting, or become the vehicle of choice for breaking news.

"All ESPN employees must receive permission from a supervisor before engaging in any form of social networking dealing with sports," it said in part.

The move came because, at the time, Twitter was a tool that many didn't know how it could be used, only that it made things a lot faster.

In the New York Times, Richard Sandomir wrote that the guidelines "restrict the freedom that ESPN employees might previously have enjoyed." But ESPN senior VP of corporate communications Chris LaPlaca said: "We've been in the social networking space for a long time, and will continue to be there. But we want to be smarter about how we do it.

As ESPN.com editor-In-chief Rob King told the Sports Business Daily: "Anyone who's ever had a tweet re-tweeted by the audience knows that it can be presented in ways that you might never have understood or intended when you originally articulated those 140 characters. ... I'd sooner make sure that I've got the right number of words to tell the story as well and as accurately as possible then fret about whether my 140 characters get out into the digital space first."

There was immediate complaining by the ESPN writers that their liberties were being taken away. It was for their own good. And that of the company's credibility. Some even figured that out.

ESPN event production manager Katie Richman later posted on Twitter: "I'm tweeting now and no one has dropped out of the ceiling on a wire to arrest me. Don't worry, Twitter, we ESPN'ers are still here... ;)."

With that, we have more from today's media column (linked here), and new Fox Sports senior VP and editor in chief of the network's interactive ventures Rick Jaffe talking about other aspects of the business from his end *

*-and yes, we did post a tweet letting all our bitchin' followers know we have a story up about sports and Twitter ... (linked here):

== On how he consumes sports news from the time he wakes up at 5 a.m., gets to the L.A. office at 8 a.m. and finds himself back home reading until he goes to sleep:

"It's mostly all online, a never-ending cycle right up until midnight. I go to newspaper sites and SportsPages.com (linked here) to see what are the major links and headlines. I randomly go to 10 sites to check other stories unless I see a headline that I want to check out. I really do consume it all online because it's so much faster. And the newspaper sites, from a standpoint of having the best reporters and best-trained people, are where you don't get just blogs and opinions but also the news and background and reporting -- it's still the best place to get information. Now that there are more legitimate websites that also have real reporters, that's another place to get news, but it all stems from what the newspapers started and the experience we all came through."

== On how the Internet sports website business has changed from 2000, when he was heading FoxSports.com, to today's model:

"It's really exploded from a time when we had eight fulltime writers to where we now have fulltime, freelancers, video .. we hardly did video before. That's where (Fox chairman) David Hill wanted to have shows on the website -- that's very unique. David wasn't in charge fo the site 10 years ago, and he's bridged that gap now. You've now got talent on-air doing stories or video for us. There was also a time when it was hard to get a writer to go on air, but that's not so difficult any more. There is much more cooperation between the divisions of cable and network and Internet."

== On how Fox still can maintain its edgy philosophy but also maintain a news-gathering competition against other websites such as ESPN, Yahoo!, etc.:

"It filters down from everything. Fox has that attitude but it starts with regional things, and that's a different animal than the network or the dot.com. It's a fine line you walk there. The regionals have relationships with the teams they cover. It really is a business. Nationally and with the dot.com, we can handle news about those teams differently. Some stories on FoxSports.com won't run on the regional websites. At the end of the day, sports is still fun and entertainment, so unless you're dealing with something serious, we have to be fun and edgy and push the envelope."

== On whether that Fox philosophy means they'll always be thought of as the network that had "Best Damn Sports Show Period" rather than "Outside The Lines":

"That goes in phases. When I was on the cable side, we did a show called 'Going Deep,' and also 'Beyond the Glory,' some really well-done documentaries. 'Sports Science' was another. Something always ends up taking its place. On the national side of the cable division, it was tough to get things to stick because of the way it was set up. It's still a group of regionals that take precedent over national shows because of their live game coverage. National shows can get pre-empted or a post-game show locally can bleed into a national show."

== On the FoxSports.net addition of Brian Lowery of Daily Variety as its on-site weekly media critic:

"I've known Brian going back to the L.A. Times, and in the five years I was there, I think we used him several times to do a sports column. I'm comfortable with him being here. David (Hill) said when he hired him that if you want to say we did something wrong, say it. That's his role. You don't see too many of those. He's so far been most critical of how ESPN handled the LeBron James announcement, but so were many media critics. We talked to him about writing on that for us, not from the perspective of what we thought, but for him to weigh in on it."

== And, in light of the controversy last week over ESPN with reporter Arash Markasi writing about LeBron James' party in Las Vegas, and the story getting killed before it was posted, on how the business side of a media company can push and pull the editorial side into making compromises:

"That has affected me a lot more than when I was in the newspaper world, because we didn't have to deal with it too much. If story needed to be done, we did it. We learn after awhile, especially on the cable TV side, that it is a business, you're partners (with teams) and sometimes you don't have to be first at breaking a story. You can report them after someone else does, but you don't have to be doing the investigative pieces.
"I don't feel that way at all on the network or national side of the dot.com. If we have something we think might be a sensitive topic, we do send it to David Hill to make him aware, but at least when he called me in to start this job three weeks ago, he didn't put any restrictions on me. I haven't felt anything like that. When you're on the regional side, that's a day-to-day issue and I understand that point of view. It's a very fine line you've gotta walk. You want to be fair and want to do what you need to for your credibility, but you also have to consider that we're partners. Truthfully, I haven't felt any kind of push from David in saying, 'Don't criticize NASCAR or baseball or the NFL.' You can see that in our coverage."

More paragraphs that have not been screened by an editor on the subject of sports media:

== From the Universal Sports network's Westlake Village facility, Paul Sunderland and Ato Boldon will call the 100 meter race live from the IAAF Diamond League Meet in Stockholm that features Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay. The event airs today at about 11:50 a.m. and will be streamed on UniversalSports.com starting at 11 a.m. for a $1.99 subscription fee. Asafa Powell, who was expected to race against Gay and Bolt as well, dropped out late Wednesday due to an injury.

== Prior to and following Fox Soccer Channel's coverage of the Galaxy game against Real Madrid from the Rose Bowl (Saturday, 7 p.m.), the network will air "Team USA: Journey For Glory," a half-hour look back at the FIFA World Cup and its impact on America's interest in international soccer.

"The recent World Cup performance by the U.S. has generated more enthusiasm among Americans for professional soccer than I have ever seen," said Eric Wynalda, Fox Channel analyst from Westlake Village. "Our team can take pride in knowing that they not only provided some of the most exciting moments in South Africa, but cultivated a new wave of fans to our game."

Meanwhile, FSC announced Thursday that former Galaxy midfielder Kyle Martino was hired to host "Soccer Talk Live," a new show that debuts Aug. 16, trying to tie soccer into pop culture. The talk show takes over the Monday evening time slot vacated with the cancellation this summer of "Fox Football Fone-In," which featured Wynalda. Martino told the Associated Press he will attempt to meld together hard-core soccer supporters who watch every Premier League game with viewers interested both in Lindsay Lohan and Portugal and Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo.

== Somehow, Jim Gray missed out on hosting the NBA TV's special last Tuesday night, an hour-long show devoted to announcing the league's opening night and Christmas Day lineup. The rest of the 2010-11 schedule? That's coming out this Tuesday. Because it really needed to be broken up into two episodes.

== Fox sends the Red Sox-Yankees game from Yankee Stadium to 86 percent of the country, including L.A., on Saturday (1 p.m., Channel 11, with Joe Buck, Tim McCarver and Ken Rosenthal, plus Chris Rose). ESPN also has Red Sox-Yankees as well on Sunday night (5 p.m., Jon Miller, Joe Morgan and Orel Hershiser), while TBS has San Francisco at Atlanta (10:30 a.m. with Dick Stockton and Buck Martinez).

== Dan Hicks, Rowdy Gaines and Alex Flanagan work the NBC telecast this weekend (Channel 4, Saturday, 1 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 p.m.) from the USA Swimming National Championships in Irvine.

== Fuel TV has coverage live from the Maloof Money Cup action sports event this weekend (Saturday and Sunday from 6-8 pm..) from the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Fox will air a one-hour review show of the event on Aug. 28.

== ESPN's Erin Andrews made her first "Good Morning America" spot for ABC, with former ESPN anchor Robin Roberts hosting it, and she won't let this stalker story rest (thanks to Fangsbites.com):

== "Gridiron & Steel" a look at how Pittsburgh embraces football from pee-wee leagues to the NFL, is the first of four football-related documentaries released on Friday nights during August on the Documentary Channel. Jeff Sewald, a Pittsburgh native, produced and directed the opener (tonight, 8:30 p.m.). The other four: "Year of the Bull," by Todd Lubin, that covers a season with the Miami Northwestern High Bulls and All-American captain Taurean Charles, who hopes football will be able to eventually provide his broken family with a better life (Aug. 13); "Two Days in April" by Don Argott, following four players who come to the IMG Academy with agent Tom Condon to get their game plan in place beore they go to the NFL scouting combine (Aug. 20); and "10 Yards: Fantasy Football," by Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, comparing their crazy world of participating for the Intergalactic Championship League title, where the top prize is a box of Twinkies, to other fantasy leagues across the country (Aug. 27). The Documentary Channel is found on DirecTV (267) and Dish Network (197).

AND FINALLY:

== Who are the Jacksonville Panthers? A team good enough to win someone the championship in "Final Jeopardy!" this week. Only because she didn't wager enough to lose:

On TVWeek.com's site, this video was displayed with the headline: "Woman on 'Jeopardy!' Has Disdain for Super Bowl"

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, The First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League"

The pitch:

Marcenia Lyle "Toni" Stone of St. Paul, Minn., once said: "When you finish high school, they tell a boy to go out and see the world. What do they tell a girl? They tell her to go next door and marry the boy that their family's picked out. ... A woman has her dreams, too."

Author Martha Ackmann found that quote in a story that Merlene Davis wrote for the Lexington Herald-Leader in 1996, in a story headlined: "Female Baseball Player Got the Ball Rolling."

When Toni Stone's brother, Quinten, started to show talent in sports, she told him to stay out of her world: "You get our own dreams, because I've got mine."

Ackmann located that quote from Stone from an interview she did in 1996 with the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A local newspaper said Stone excelled in baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, ice skating, swimming, tennis and track. And then added: "Miss Stone" is "always taking away honors."

If the Negro Leagues needed its own Jackie Robinson, it was Toni Stone -- banned from playing in the All American Girls Baseball League because of her skin color. Instead, she did better.

The first women to play professional baseball when she was signed by the Negro League's Indianapolis Clowns in 1949, she replaced the Clowns' second baseman who had just been signed by the Boston Braves. A kid named Hank Aaron.

She also played for the 1954 Kansas City Monarchs, at age 33, but at that point, the Negro Leagues were thankfully coming to an end, thanks to Robinson's ability to break the major league baseball color barrier seven years earlier.

On Aug. 28, 1954, a columnist for the black Chicago Defender wrote under the headline "Toss 'Em Out" about Stone's career in particular, and women playing pro baseball in general: "Girls should be run out of men's baseball on a softly padded rail. When Miss Stone, who appears to be a woman of unusual athletic ability, was signed last year, the report was ... that she had earned her chance with three years of professional competition (in the equalivant of the Negro minor leagues). ... When the time comes that a woman's affections depend on her batting average, the world will be a sorry place in which to live. It's thrilling to have a woman in one's arms, and a man has a right to promise the world to his beloved -- just so long as that world doesn't include the right to play baseball with men."

With the Negro Leagues going away, and Toni Stone going with it, "without baseball, she lost sight of her dreams and watched from the sidelines as the Negro League community vanished," wrote Ackmann. She added that aside from a brief moment in the 1970s when the San Francisco Giants asked her to throw out the first pitch in a game, "Toni had all but given up being recognized as a former professional baseball player."

Later in life, she got a call from the Hall of Fame, asking her to come to Cooperstown to join in a celbration of the Negro Leagues in 1991. At that point, Ernie Banks, who played against Stone, was quoted as saying she helped him understand more the inequities that women faced.

"She kind of triggered my interest," he said (page 208 of the book). "Young people, especially of all races could learn something from her, from her self-esteem and self-worth. From standing up for what you believed in and dealing with unfairness. ... She was so talented."

According to her biography on the Negro League Baseball Players Association Website (linked here), "Toni Stone maybe one of the best ballplayer you've never heard of."

Hopefully, not any more, thanks to Ackmann's research, well-documented account of what really happened.

How it goes down in the scorebook: A big thank you to Ackmann. Stone died in 1996, at the age of 65. But 14 years later, if feels like she's alive today because of this.

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "The Baseball Maniac's Almanac: 2nd Edition"

Following up on the 2005 edition, Sugar gives up more of his free time in the pursuit of stats that do (and don't) add up.

The top 10 things we learned that we'll probably never forget, now that they're etched into our heads:

10) Hall of Famers who played for the Harlem Globetrotters:
Ernie Banks, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jekins and Satchel Paige.

9) Players who have won the Rookie of the Year award for a team other than the one they made their MLB debut with:
Tommie Agee, Chicago White Sox, 1966 (played 5 games with Cleveland in '62)
Jason Bay, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2004 (played 3 games for San Diego, 2003)
Alfredo Griffin, Toronto, 1979 (played 12 games for Cleveland, 1976)
Lou Pinella, Kansas City, 1969 (played 4 games for Baltimore, 1964).

8) Player with the longest given name: Alan Mitchell Edward George Patrick Henry Gallagher ("Al," 1970-73, San Francisco Giants third baseman): 45 characters.

7) Players who have played on four of the five California teams (L.A., Anaheim, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland) and the team he missed:
Mike Aldrete (L.A.); John D'Aquisto (L.A.), Rickey Henderson (S.F.), Stan Javier (S.D.), Jay Johnstone (S.F.), Dave Kingman (L.A.), Elias Sosa (Angels), Derrel Thomas (Oakland).

6) Hall of Fame pitchers with losing records:
114-118: Rollie Fingers
28-31: Satchel Paige

5) Most common last names in baseball history:
140: Smith
92: Johnson
88: Jones
79: Miller
75: Brown
70: Williams
65: Wilson
60: Davis
(Also: Most common Latino names in baseball history: 18, Hernandez and Perez)

4) Players with palindromic surnames (spelled the same forward and backward)
Truck Hannah (1918-20, catcher)
Toby Harrah (1969-86, infielder)
Eddie Kazak (1948-52, shortstop)
Dick Nen (1963-70, first baseman)
Robb Nen (1993-2002, pitcher)
Dave Otto (1987-94, pitcher)
Johnny Reder (1932, first baseman)
Mark Salas (1984-91, catcher)

3) Players traded for themselves:
Harry Chiti (April and June, '62); Archie Cobin (Nov. '92 and Feb. 93); Clint Courtney (Jan. and March, '61), John MacDonald (July and Nov, '05), Dickie Noles (Sept. and Oct., '87) and Mark Ross (Dec. '85 and March '86).

2) The last time a team scored a run in every inning:
1999 Colorado Rockies (May 5, vs. Chicago Cubs): 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 -- 13 (in a 13-6 win at Wrigley Field)
2006 New York Yankees (April 29, vs. Toronto): 4 1 2 2 3 1 3 1 x -- 17 (in a 17-6 win at Yankee Stadium).

1) Rookie pitchers who started the seventh game of a World Series:
Babe Adams (Pittsburgh, pitched a complete game 8-0 win over Detroit, 1909)
Hugh Bedient (Boston, pitched 7 innings, no decision, in a 3-2 win over the N.Y. Giants, 1912)
Spec Shea (N.Y. Yankees, pitched 1 1/3 innings, no decision in a 5-2 win over Brooklyn, 1947)
Joe Black (Brooklyn, pitched 5 1/3 innings and lost, 4-2, to N.Y. Yankees, 1952)
Mel Stottlemyre (N.Y. Yankees, pitched 4 innings and lost 7-5 to St. Louis, 1964)
Joe Magrane (St. Louis, pitched 4 1/3 innings, no decision in a 4-2 loss to Minnesota, 1987).

Did we forget anyone? How about John Lackey (Angels, pitched 5 innings and won in a 4-1 victory over San Francisco, 2002).

But Lackey's name wasn't included on this list for some reason.

The obligatory Bob Costas endorsement: "Being a baseball maniac is a condition which cannot be cured -- it can only be treated. So take two chapters of Bert Sugar's book and then call him in the morning."

How it goes down in the scorebook:

The absolutely, postively and without question, the greatest book of facts, figures and astonishing lists ever compiled.

Those aren't my words. They're that of Sugar (or a marketing guy) as the subtitle for this book. We'll take it for what it's worth -- a reference book worth reading and placing along the 2007 "SABR Baseball List and Record Book: Baseball's Most Fascinating Records and Unusual Statistics* not available online or in any other book"

Post script:

You might also enjoy getting your head around "Great Baseball Feats, Facts & Firsts (2010 Edition)," by David Nemec and Scott Flatow (linked here).

www.nea.gov
President George W. Bush and Laura Bush present the National Medal of Arts award to Vincent Scully in 2004.

It struck us the other day about how some entries on Wikipedia -- accuracy aside -- were more chock full 'o facts, antedotes and dates than others.

So, minus captions, tables of content, edit links, references and external links:

== If an alert came over the wire services that said "Obit-VinScully," would Dodgers Hall of Fame play-by-play man Vincent Edward Scully (2,807 words on his Wikipedia entry) ever be confused with influential architectural teacher Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (481 words) -- seven years his senior, and whose "lectures at Yale were known to attract casual visitors and packed houses, and regularly received standing ovations?"

== Who's more qualified to replace Scully someday in the Dodgers booth: Matt Vasgersian (1,016 words), Charley Steiner (1,208), Dan Shulman (497) or Pete Arbogast (page was deleted in 2008)?

(As for that last reference, user MZMcBride explains: "He was O.K. at the beginning. He rebuilt all the roads, honey. You know that, right? He just went too far.")

== Hockey Hall of Fame play-by-play man Bob Miller (443 words) is three quarters behind on the play than newly inducted Baseball Hall of Fame play-by-play man Jon Miller (1,671)?

== Bob Costas (a 3,775-word entry) is nearly four times more important than his boss at NBC, Dick Ebersol (971)? And more relevant in baseball than Bud Selig (3,147)? Or does the entry need additional citations for verification?

== Why was Al Michaels (4,476 words) just the daytime host for NBC during the 2010 Winter Games from Vancouver, while Costas was the prime-time guy?

== is Fox play-by-play man Joe Buck (2,070 words) at least considered half the man his father was -- Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck (3,589)? Or should lists of miscellaneous information really be avoided?

== Whose so-called "trademarked" expression of "Holy Cow" meant more, Harry Caray's (3,262 words) or Phil Rizzuto's (6,053 words)?

== Even if the Celtics beat the Lakers in nine of the 12 meetings for the NBA Finals over the years, did the late Chick Hearn (2,474 words), who died eight years ago Thursday, have a bigger impact in the NBA and on the rivalry than the late Boston Celtics play-by-play man Johnny Most (1,270)?

To be continued ...

By Lynn Elber
The Associated Press

Ken Burns makes sweeping documentaries on subjects including baseball. But he was concise in assessing whether Pete Rose should be in the sport's Hall of Fame.

Rose, who agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 that stemmed from gambling, should be honored after he dies, Burns told the Television Critics Association on Wednesday in Beverly Hills.

"He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. But he doesn't deserve to know he's in the Hall of Fame," Burns said. "But that's just one person's opinion."

Burns, whose films include "The Civil War" and "The National Parks," appeared at the association's summer meeting to promote PBS' "The Tenth Inning," a follow-up to his 1994 series "Baseball" that also aired on public TV.

The filmmaker said his reluctance to revisit a documentary subject wavered when his beloved Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series after a long drought.

But the decision was cemented by the "giant shadow of steroids," as well as issues including the sport's growing ethnic diversity and the effect of big money, he said.

As Burns put it, "2004 made me think about it, steroids made us do it."

"The Tenth Inning" proved to be a challenging narrative to construct because of the drug issue, Burns said.

In examining a glorious season, he said, the film had to recapture the joy but be mindful it was "setting traps" for the subsequent exploration of performance-enhancing drugs and their effect on the sport, players and fans.

The four-hour, two-part "The Tenth Inning" tracks America's national pastime from the early 1990s to the present. It touches on the devastating 1994 strike, the growing importance of Latino and Asian players, baseball's ballooning profits, the exploits of Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and others, and revelations about drug use.

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, managers Felipe Alou and Joe Torre and players Pedro Martinez, Omar Vizquel and Ichiro Suzuki are among those interviewed in the film.

"The Tenth Inning," directed by Burns and Lynn Novick, will air on Sept. 28 and 29 on public TV stations.

A companion book -- an updated, expanded edition of "Baseball" by Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward -- will be published in September, PBS said. The new documentary will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in October.

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark"

The pitch:

Nearly 100 years ago today -- Aug. 18, 1910 -- Rickwood Field opened in Birmingham, Ala., the first steel-and-concrete baseball facility in the South. Heck, in all the minor leagues, modeled after Philadelphia's Shibe Park.

It's still alive.

A book about the history of the place is nice, but from what we see, two have already been done about it. In 1995, Timothy Whitt did "Bases Loaded With History: The Story of Rickwood Field," and in 2005, Ben Cook did "Cool Wood: A Fan's History of Rickwood Field."

Barra, an Alabama native who says he saw a Yankees-Red Sox exhibition game there in 1966, and then saw Reggie Jackson hit a home run there for the Birmingham A's Triple-A team in '67, cites both those books in the appendix of his newest book about the place.

Maybe the timing of the 100th anniversary is worthy of another review -- and Barra digs much deeper, into the history of the area, the background of stadium creator Allen Harvey "Rick" Woodward, a coal mining baron who bought two-thirds of the Birmingham Coal Barons for $20,000 in the late 1900s, and more than passing references to those who've played there -- but we're not sure if we became romantically linked to the place after reading this.

We definitely know much more than we did before, but the place seems to have survived despite all that's happened around it. It wasn't until 1963, it's pointed out, that a chicken wire screen was taken down in the right-field bleachers to keep black spectators separated from the whites.

An exhibition game there on April 2, 1954 between the racially integrated Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella led Brooklyn Dodgers and Hank Aaron's Milwaukee Braves actually defied local law. A month later, the Brown vs. Board of Education case was ruled on by the Supreme Court, which made Section 597 of the Alabama Code noteworthy and relevant.

Just six years earlier, Robinson had an All-Star team with Campanella play the Birmingham Black Barons, with an 18-year-old Willie Mays. But that was OK. The teams were all black.

Rickwood was also a place former Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley, an Alabama native, put a team, as mentioned before. (It kind of leads to a six-degrees link of book reviews we've done so far -- first on George Steinbrenner, then one on Finley, now this on a place Finley had a vested interest).

Did Babe Ruth once hit a homer at Rickwood over the right-field roof, into an open box car on the railway behind there and taken hours later to Atlanta? It's just part of the local flavor of the place (the story can't be confirmed, but it is known that in 1924 Ruth hit homers into the black segregated right-field bleachers, causing Barra to write: "On this day, at least there was an advantage to being segregated.")

Ruth, Robinson, Jackson, Mays, Aaron, DiMaggio, Mantle, Ted Williams, Dizzy Dean (who pitched maybe the most memorable game there ever in 1931), Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Pie Traynor, Christy Matthewson, Grover Cleveland Alexander ... they all played there.

So did Roger Clemens. In the role of White Sox pitcher Ed Walsh, pitching to Tommy Lee Jones, as Cobb, in the Ron Shelton movie, "Cobb," in 1993.

"The only known confrontation between Academy Award and Cy Young winners," Barra wrote.

The book pitch from those marketing it includes: "While other fabled stadiums have yielded to the wrecker's ball, baseball's Garden of Eden seems increasingly invulnerable to the ravages of time. Indeed, the manually operated scoreboard still uses numbers painted on metal sheets, and on the right field wall, the Burma Shave sign hangs just as it did when the legendary Black Barons called the stadium their own."

Those ads, by the way, are reproductions. It's been updated, but at least kept alive, by those who see it as a place that survived and is now the country's oldest active park -- which at least Barra puts into context with a list of other old-time facilities still around, including Civic Stadium in Eugene, Ore., and Warner Ballpark in Bisbee, Ariz., originally build of wood in 1909 but now a concrete facility with 3,000 seats.

How it goes down in the scorebook: Aside from the color shot of the place on the bookjacket, there are only black and white photos inside -- most historic, but many current shots that, because of the non-color, can be confused as older photos that captures the place's charm. That, and the $27.95 price tag, won't please the locals who may want to add this nice memory book to their collection.

We actually felt we knew the place better after reading this blog post (linked here). Take that for what it's worth. And this array of color photos (linked here).

Post script:

It is pointed out that the Spanish mission-style entrance to the place, added in 1928, was modeled after a home in Pasadena (here, not in Alabama) after the style was made popular from the 1910 movie "Ramona" with Mary Pickford, which was shot around many buildings in L.A. with that similiar look.

Harkening back to last April and the 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman"

From page 15 of the prologue:

"Charlie Finley was a man of inconsistencies -- miserly and autocratic one minute, charitable and paternal the next. The one characteristic that ran through his entire soul was control; it was how he brought oder to his different worlds. Control meant everything had to be done the Finley way. The baseball establishment vilified him for his new maverick ideas intended to improve the game, but the baseball world was changing. The baseball lords were losing control. And it would be the iconoclastic yet old-fashioned Charlie Finley and his rambunctious players who would unwittingly lead the baseball world into a new, uncertain era."

You think of Reggie Jackson's career, how it started with Charlie Finley's control freakishness, and then went to George Steinbrenner's world that was much of the same. How poetic.

A reporter once told Jackson that Finley deserved credit for driving the 1973 A's to the World Series, following up the won they took in '72, and would take again in '74 from the Dodgers. Jackson replied: Please don't give that man the credit. It takes away from what the guys have done. He spoiled what should have been a beautiful thing."

Hundreds of footnotes later, we find out more about Finley, the man, than we probably cared to know when we started.

Green and Launius, members of the Society for American Baseball Research, both of whom work in Washington D.C. for NASA (Green) and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (Launius). Somehow, they've launched this one into the baseball atmosphere, long overdue.

The end of the Finley regime with the A's in 1979 seems to have some current context: The team was playing before record-low attendance, and he was involved in a divorce proceeding against his wife, Shirley. "Finley stonewalled and fought the proceedings every step of the way," the authors write.

He eventually left in 1980 and said at his farewell press conference: "Before I leave the game, I'd like to see orange baseballs introduced. I'd like to see a three-ball walk, and I'd like to see a designated runner."

Finley would live to 1996, and before he died, he tried to buy the Chicago Cubs, start a new baseball league, form an international football league and market a new "double grip" football, with inverted dimples like a golf ball and stripes that went horizontally to help receivers and fans see it better in flight.

The book also has a paragraph from what Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich wrote about Finley upon his death: "Was he a genius or a crackpot, a career maverick or a buffoon, a liar, an angry man, an egomaniac, good for baseball or bad for baseball? He was all of the above."

How it goes down in the scorebook:

The East Coast had Steinbrenner. The West Coast had Finley. And baseball was much more interesting with both somehow involved. As interesting as this book is to read, as well.

And as long as we're on the subject: The recently new book, "Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October" by Dayn Perry of FoxSports.com, is somewhat disappointing, but maybe that's because it lacks, well, Jackson.

"I made two formal requests for an interview with Reggie," Perry says in the notes in the back. "His busines smanager Matt Merola assured me that he had passed along my requests, but I never received a response. As a result I wrote the book without my subject's cooperation, but thanks to my interviews with those who knew and covered Reggie and the wealth of reportage already out there, I was able to tell his story."

Kinda.

"At certain points in the book," Perry then admits, "I enter Reggie's head and presume to communicate his thoughts. I do so in the service of the narrative, and any thoughts I relay, while ultimately assumptions of what i believe he may have felt at certain instances, are informed by the facts and by what I came to learn of Reggie's inner workings."

Perry also says that two resources that were very helpful to him were Jackson's autobiography with Mike Lupica, a Maury Allen biography of Jackson, and a Bill Libby book with Jackson on the 1974 season.

Other than that, it's all fresh.

I thought I just saw the Dodgers' Jonathan Broxton lock up a 2-1 win over San Diego tonight. But I wasn't sure when I saw the score at the bottom of the screen on the KCAL Channel 9 telecast -- the graphic was posted at least 15 seconds the first time, then was taken down, then put back up over the replay of Broxton's reaction after a game-ending double play.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The charitable foundation created and controlled by Barry Bonds has donated $20,000 to a black journalists group, and the gift is not sitting well with some members.

The Maryland-based National Association of Black Journalists announced the donation last week from the Barry Bonds Family Foundation.

The gift comes as the former San Francisco Giants slugger prepares for trial on federal charges he lied to a grand jury about steroid use.

Association member Kenneth Cooper says Bonds is a controversial figure and journalists and their organizations should maintain their distance.

NABJ President Kathy Times says the money will be used for an annual award promoting entrepreneurial spirit. She said the board discussed Bonds' legal situation and decided to accept the contribution.

With all due respect to last April's edition of 30 baseball book reviews in 30 days (linked here), more light to heavyweight reading before the summer gloom burns off:

The book: "Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball"

The pitch:

It was released on May 11, about two months before Steinbrenner died on the morning of the MLB All Star Game. But many saw the end of Steinbrenner's life coming - several unauthorized bios of him had been released in the last couple of years.

But this one by Maddon has more blessing of Steinbrenner and family than anything else that preceded it. And for good reason.

Maddon, who in 1990 wrote with Moss Klein the book, "Damned Yankees: A No Holds Barred Account of Life With Boss Steinbrenner," and also did a bio with former Yankees coach Don Zimmer, apparently got Steinbrenner's final print interview (it says on the book jacket).

Maddon was also was asked by Steinbrenner's daughter, Jennifer, to work with him on an autobiography back in 2005, which really didn't happen. But Maddon took it as an endorsement to do it his way.

After interviewing more than 150 for the project, Maddon, who last month was inducted into the writer's wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, says he's asked all the time if Steinbrenner deserves his own plaque in Cooperstown.

Maddon writes: "I guess it depends on your perspective. His peers on the Hall of Fame Board of Directors saw to it that he wasn't ever included on the executives ballot voted on by the Veterans Committee in 2007 and 2009. It is not my intent here to make the case for him one way or the other, but rather faithfully tell his story with the cooperation of all those who were there."

For what it's worth, Maddon does point out on page 23 that Steinbrenner had always said "the greatest pleasure of his youth was reading James Feinmore Cooper novels."

Anyone who lives in Cooperstown - named for the author's grandfather, and where he is burned - will surely make note of that circle of life when it's time to connect the dots of Steinbrenner's future induction.

How it goes down in the scorebook:

Although very New York centric, and more of a reporter's journey laying out all the incidents about how one may understand how egos work and get things done in that kind of climate, this provides insights into Steinbrenner for those of us who've only got to experience him through the media, and perhaps a few Miller Lite commercials.

"It's always better to be the hammer than the nail," Steinbrenner's dad once told him.

Maybe that says enough.

His conflicting desire to be bigger-than-life as well as a behind-the-scenes endorser of athletics on many levels gave all us the opinion from a distance that he was an arrogant force to be dealt with -- he, more than Reggie Jackson or Goose Gossage, was a great person to hate while the Dodgers and Yankees fought over World Championships in the 70s and 80s.

Whatever he did good, he also did stupid. Take the story starting on page 205 of how he handled getting "mugged" by two Dodger fans in a Hyatt Wilshire Hotel elevator after the Dodgers' Game 5 win in the 1981 World Series. It's a classic example of how Steinbrenner wanted the media to know his story about getting a broken hand as a result of it, but still insisted he could prevent it being a story that the rest of the world knew about.

The tale is told about Steinbrenner contacting the team's public relations man and telling him out how one fan "slugged me with a beer bottle. I hit back and knocked out a couple of his teeth. Then I got into it with the other guy. I left 'em both on the seven floor. I'm OK, but we're gonna have to round up the press. They'll need to know the story."

So the reporters were brought to his suite at 11 p.m. (or 2 a.m., East Coast time, past their print deadlines). As he told them his story, the New York Daily News' Dick Young got up, called his office from Steinbrenner's room and began to dictate a story - but not without Steinbrenner correcting him on the information from his side, sentence by sentence.

Wrote Maddon: "All of the sudden, Steinbrenner, who had insisted the story not be written, was now serving as Young's editor as the 63-year-old veteran baseball scribe continued to dictate details of the elevator incident to the Daily News."

The front page headline the next day: "Steinbrenner KOs 2 in Brawl." Even if, as Maddon points out, one of the fans supposedly called KABC radio in L.A. the next day to explain what happened, saying he thought Steinbrenner probably broke his hand when his punch landed on the elevator door as his friend ducked.

The bottom line: Maddon documents that in 2009, Forbes estimated the value of the New York Yankees at $1.5 billion, which Steinbrenner owned 60 percent. He paid $168,00 for his share in 1973. On top of owning 33 percent of the YES network and 33 percent of a concession company that the Yankees use, that would put Steinbrenner's wealth at $2 to $3 billion.

Not too shabby for someone who picked a team out of the doldrums of the 1970s and made them something bigger than even himself.

Post script:

Not to be confused with the Peter Golenbock biography of Steinbrenner, in spring, 2009, called "George: The Poor Little Rick Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire," where Golenbock's name actually took a higher billing on the cover. This came out in paperback last February ($16.95, Wiley, 384 pages).

Later this month, Phil Pepe has an updated paperback version coming out of his 2008 title, "The Ballad of Billy & George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner" ($14.95, Lyons Press, 272 pages)

AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis
Orthodox priest father Christos Mitsios, center, chant slogans with supporters of Greek soccer club PAOK, during a Europa league soccer match against Valerenga of Norway, in Thessaloniki, Greece.

By Costas Kantouris
The Associated Press Writer

"I don't see why we shouldn't pull it off," Father Christos said. "Look at all the big teams that got knocked out of the last World Cup."

Mike Mayock, the former NFL defensive back out of Boston College and the NFL Network's head guy on college football and draft stuff, is the man NBC picked to replace Pat Haden on its Notre Dame football package this fall.

"Mike's knowledge of and passion for college football has resulted in him becoming one of the most respected voices in the game," said NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood. "He possesses a relentless work ethic and perfect pedigree as a former player and son of a coach. We are excited to add him to our team."

Mayock teams up with Tom Hammond (play-by-play) and Alex Flanagan (sidelines).

Mayock did college football for ABC (2001-03), Fox Sports Net (200) and CBS (1996-99) as well as the Canadian Football League for ESPN ('93-'95).

The first of eight Irish games on NBC this fall is against Purdue on Sept. 4.

As FoxSports.com and Fox TV national baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal was on this morning's Dan Patrick national radio show, the show's contributors were tweeting about some of the news that Rosenthal was conveying.

At about 8:30 a.m., from DPShow, the Twitter post read:

"Rosenthal says Manny could be traded later this month http://bit.ly/bS7Y0p via SI.com"

Ironically, this interview with Rosenthal began with Patrick asking him about how Twitter's place in journalistic reporting seems rather suspect.

Patrick: "Who's overseeing the information that goes out when you tweet?"

Rosenthal: "No one."

Patrick: "That's sorta dangerous, isn't it? I know you're attaching your name to it, but should there be a sounding board for these (reporters) who have Twitter?"

Rosenthal: "(This is a question) that disturbs guys like me quite a bit. The problem is, information is king right now, more than it ever has been before. The speed of information is also king. And Twitter has become a reporting device. I don't like it. In a perfect world, I wouldn't use it. But if I don't use Twitter than my information is not going to be out there quickly enough because things are moving so fast. The checks and balances you speak of are part of reporting. Editors at our website, FoxSports.com, they may question a story. When you Twitter, there is no filter. And mistakes are made and things happen now that if earlier in my career had happened, people would get fired for. Swings and misses, you would say.

"I don't know that it's a healthy development, but I know the fans out there and people who read want this stuff fast. And they don't seem to care, to be quite frank, if things are wrong. Just give me the next (tweet)."

Rosenthal continued, after Patrick talked about how it seems like the method is to get it out there first and retract it later: "If I'm wrong over a period of time (as a column writer), the people who are reading are going to notice. And your credibility is at stake. And if it keeps happening there will be a negative fallout. In some ways, that's still what guides us, that checks and balances with the readers. But is journalism the way it used to be? No. One of my bosses at Fox TV said, 'The old rule is confirm (a story) with two sources,' something I still try to do before I put anything out, but there are times when you follow that rule - which is a great rule - you'll get hammered. And I'll be honest, I'm not comfortable with it."

Rosenthal, who has 30,000-plus followers on Twitter, had one crazy weekend trying to not just keep up with the MLB trading deadline (which was 1 p.m. PDT on Saturday) for both the website as well as getting it on TV during Fox's MLB telecast.

At 12:53 p.m. on Saturday at the deadline, Rosenthal tweeted:

Dotel latest name linked to #Dodgers.

Three minutes later, he tweeted:

#Dodgers get Dotel. For Lamb and McDonald. #Pirates

His last tweet on Friday night was 11:51 p.m., and his first one on Saturday was at 6:05 a.m.

His first tweet on Friday was at 3:38 a.m.:

#Dodgers after Lilly AND Theriot: http://tinyurl.com/378ptu6 #Cubs (with a link to his FoxSports.com column)

It was eventually followed by, if you're trying to figure out what the Dodgers and Cubs were trying to do as the deadline approached:

Friday at 12:17 p.m.: Source: #Dodgers more inclined to get just Lilly than both Lilly and Theriot from #Cubs. Also looking at #Pirates' Maholm, relievers

Friday at 6:15 p.m.: Sources: While a #Dodgers trade for #Pirates LHP is not necessarily close, both clubs believe deal is genuine possibility. #TRADES #MLB. .

Friday at 10:27 p.m. Sources: #Cubs have multiple proposals out on Lilly. #Dodgers in, but still apart on $$$/players. Similar spot with #Pirates' Maholm

Saturday, it went this way:

6:10 a.m.: Decision day for #Cubs. Lilly could go to #Dodgers. #Twins, #Tigers, #Yankees varying interest. Theriot alive w #Dodgers

8:50 a.m.: Source: #WhiteSox wanted #Dodgers to pay all but 1M of approximately 6.7M left on Manny's 2010 contract with no player coming back. #MLB

8:58 a.m.: #Cubs, #Dodgers working phones hard on Lilly. #MLB

8:59 a.m.: Theriot possibly in Lilly trade between #Cubs, #Dodgers as well. Still fluid. #MLB

9:01 a.m.: To clarify: #Cubs-#Dodgers trade NOT done. Teams still working at it

9:16 a.m.: It's a halfcourt shot, but it's still in the air: Source says #WhiteSox intend to make one more run at Manny today. #Dodgers

10:31 a.m.: Source: #Dodgers still trying to make Lilly/Theriot deal work. DeWitt would go to #Cubs if it happens, along with at least one other.

11:02 a.m.: #Cubs would get DeWitt, Class AA pitcher and possibly third player for Lilly/Theriot package. Not sure of financial exchange. #Dodgers

Finally, at 11:12 a.m.: Lilly and Theriot plus 2.5M for DeWitt and 2 minor-league pitchers. #Dodgers #Cubs #MLB

Westlake Village-based K-Swiss has gone yard in landing an athletic endorser for its newest product.

"Tubes have a super-bendable outsole, based on the natural foot-flex of world class athletes like myself. So you can accelerate like female fans through the open door of my bedroom."

L.A.-based 72andSunny helped launch the campaign. It includes this billboard at Venice Beach, as well as another in Times Square in New York, with a 1-888 phone number where people can call to get an "inspirational" message from Powers.

The campaign, of course, works for HBO, too. "Eastbound & Down" Season Two starts Sept. 26, with Powers still thinking he can make a big-league comeback.

Since his column last Wednesday on the life and partying times of LeBron James in Las Vegas was killed, ESPNLosAngeles.com reporter Arash Markazi hasn't posted a story nor sent anything on his Twitter account.

Should we be worried? Is he on vacation? Paid leave?

Send to the woodshed?

Again, it's perception, and ESPN doesn't do it well with fixing that.

ESPN has declined comment on the matter but says Markazi has not been punished, according to the Sports Business Daily.

The SBD quotes "a person familiar with the situation" as saying Markazi won't be suspended for failing to identify himself at a Las Vegas hotel, and thus having access to writing about some crazy partying by James and his group.

There are still more opinions on this floating around in mediaville, based on sketchy information and even sketchier motives.

On today's Dan Patrick syndicated radio show, the former ESPN employee continued to take the skeptical viewpoint that the World Wide Leader in Sports is doing something fishy here, even as Darren Rovell from CNBC says James people did not try to stop this story.

"Here's my problem with this," said Patrick. "You put this reporter out there to go behind the velvet ropes and hang out with the celebrities. You're there for three days. LeBron gets paid for an appearance. So it's not like, 'I'm hiding in the shadows ... trying to hear what LeBron James is saying.' And then you decide you're not going to run the story, and then you put it on this reporter to say, 'I didn't properly identify myself.'

"You know what's going to happen? I have Bob Ley and 'Outside the Lines' investigate ESPN and this story. How about that? Just turn it inside and let Bob find out exactly what happened here."

Added Patrick: "There are great news-gathering people and journalists still there. But they gotta start to right the ship here. And that's not a good first effort. ... ESPN is better than that. That's what disappoints me. If you're going to be the standard-bearer, or the world wide leader, then act it. Be what we look up to and where we go for information. You've sucked all the newspapers dry, you have all the reporters, you have all the tools there. Do it correctly because we're watching and we expect this out of you. You're just a start-up. Never forget, it's information first and entertainment second."

The SBD also notes a few more people chiming in on this:

Dan Le Batard in the Miami Herald: ESPN made the "correct ethical decision" in not running Markazi's story, but when the net has "drawn nearly 10 million viewers by doing a recent infomercial with James, perception drowns reality, circumstantial evidence and cynicism merging to choke credibility ... ESPN is going to look like it is protecting James here, even though it isn't. ... The irony here is that, in reaching for fairness, ESPN created exactly the opposite impression."

In Boston, Charles Pierce wrote, "If Arash Markazi really did just sort of worm his way in without identifying himself, then the ethics of his work are problematic. I just don't think that's what happened. ... (The public explanation for pulling Markazi's story is not) anything more than ESPN's trying to smooth over its well-cultivated relationship with James by taking the only avenue available to it -- to wit, throwing its own reporting, and its own reporter, out the window ... This should give pause to all the actual journalists working at the WWL."

The San Jose Mercury News' Gary Peterson: "However it is explained, ESPN comes off looking like an organization of witless amateurs and/or feckless enablers ... (The explanation) smells funny, which leads to the presumption that the real catalyst for making the blog go away is ESPN's deference to James, with whom the multimedia oligarchy maintains an unofficial partnership."

Highlights of the week ahead in sports, both here and afar:

MONDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Diego, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

The Padres can't help but be salivating to play these next four against a Dodger team that combined for five runs and 12 hits in losing two out of three last week in San Diego. Realistically, the Dodgers need to win three of these next four just to make a slight dent in the standings. A four-game sweep? Now's the time to consider it a must-do situation. And they'll have to try to do it again without Clayton Kershaw, who misses this stretch having pitched Sunday. This is a rematch of starters from last Wednesday's game, when Clayton Richard shut them down on one run over six innings, while striking out six in a 6-1 victory over Hiroki Kuroda. Expect to see, and learn to spell, Podsednik, Dotel and Theriot on your scorecard.

TUESDAY

"Shaq Vs.," Channel 7, 9 p.m.:

Shaquille O'Neal may not be back in the NBA after this summer, but his border-line reality show for ABC has returned for a second go-around. In episode one, he tries to race against NASCAR's Dale Earnhardt Jr., in Concord, N.J. Later, he'll compete against the Spelling Bee champ, cook off against Rachel Ray and ... you're really interested in taking this item past the first sentence?

Swimming: U.S. National Championships, Irvine, prelims start at 7:30 a.m.; finals start at 4:30 p.m., Universal Sports TV:

We'll float Michael Phelps, Katie Hoff, Amanda Beard and Ryan Lochte past you to see if you're interested in a local swim meet that has meaning to many in the Speedo community.
The event at the local aqua marine center runs through Saturday, with NBC on hand to carry the final events on the weekend.

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Diego, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

Documentary producer Ken Burns will throw out a ceremonial first pitch, and Ted Lilly will make the real first pitch for the Dodgers. Burns can document it.

MLB: Angels at Baltimore, 4 p.m., FSW:

The Orioles pick this start of a three-game series against the Angels to show off their new manager, Buck Showalter, who replaces interim skipper Juan Samuel, who replaced fired manager Dave Trembley. Who may have once met Earl Weaver, but we're not sure. Showalter, vegging out at ESPN since last fired as a big-league manager, takes over the team with the worst record in either league. The two-time AL Manager of the Year (in '94 with the Yankees and in '04 with the Rangers) has a 882-833 record over 11 years, and a reputation for having patience with younger players.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Diego, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

Beach towels to the first 30,000 who show up to this one. Because summer's almost over. And this is a night game.

MLB: Angels at Baltimore, 4 p.m., FSW:

So the Orioles didn't need Miguel Tejada again, and they let the Padres have him? The Dodgers don't thank you.

Soccer: Galaxy at Puerto Rico, 5 p.m.

More CONCACAF shenanagins. When these two met awkwardly at Home Depot Center last Wednesday, the Puerto Rican team handed the disinterested Galaxy a 4-1 loss. Expect even worse this time on P.R. island soil, especially with a bigger game coming up Saturday.

WNBA: Sparks vs. Chicago, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m.:

Seriously, the Sparks (8-17, but 5-6 at home) are in position to qualify for the playoffs? Ah, the beauty of the WNBA.

THURSDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. San Diego, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

Two more series to make sure the Padres are in charge to go to the playoffs: Sept 6-8 in San Diego, and Sept. 21-23 at Dodger Stadium. Got any extra blankets from Wednesday night to wrap those games up in?

MLB: Angels at Baltimore, 4 p.m., FSW:

Remember that day when the Angels' Nolan Ryan threw a no-hitter against the Orioles -- June 1, 1975 -- and the only run scored in a 1-0 victory came when the Angels' clean-up hitter, Dave Chalk, drove in Mickey Rivers? And the O's team included Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Brooks Robinson and Ken Singleton?

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Washington, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

If you've traded up to get tickets for this game in hopes of seeing the Nationals send Ross Detwiler, Scott Olsen, J.D. Martin, Craig Stammen or Livan Hernandez to the mound to face the Dodgers, you may be in luck. Stephen Strasburg is scheduled to come off the 15-day disabled list and could hook up with Clayton Kershaw if the stars align. Because the Dodgers don't otherwise anticipate a sellout, they're also giving away Matt Kemp posters to anyone who cares to take one at the gate.

MLB: Angels at Detroit, 4 p.m., FSW:

A three-game series in Motown, with the Tigers trying to recover from Magglio Ordonez' nasty injury, could give the Angels and Dan Haren a lift as he's set to open this one.

WNBA: Sparks vs. Tulsa, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m.:

One more L.A. appearance for Marion Jones and the Shock. She actually scored in doulbe figures in her last SoCal game -- a season high.

SATURDAY

Soccer: Galaxy vs. Real Madrid, Rose Bowl, 7:30 p.m., FSC:

Kaka and Ronaldo Cristiano against Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle, with tickets starting at $30 (and up to $250), and David Beckham just an interested spectator unless he and the family are on holiday somewhere else. You Madrid fans, you're stuck in Section 8, rows H-L, over the corner.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Washington, Dodger Stadium, 7 p.m., Prime:

This was the day the Dodgers were scheduled to hold Hollywood Stars Night, but it's been pushed back to Oct. 2. Just as well. August Sweeps aren't that popular. Meanwhile, the Dodgers' Dream Foundation's annual baseball equipment drive starts today and ends Sunday, asking fans who come to the game to drop off new and used baseball and softball bats, balls and gloves that will be donated to the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation & Parks to be used in programs for 20,000 kids in the community.

MLB: Angels at Detroit, 4 p.m., FSW:

We're reminded of the quote earlier this year from Tigers manager Jim Leland, when asked where he thought LeBron James might decide to play next year. "I don't care," he said. "I care more about Shaq. Seriously." Today, he can watch a re-run of that "Shaq Vs." show on ABC. If he's not busy taking a drag on a heater.

Horse racing: Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar:

Zenyatta's pint glass may be neither half full nor half empty. Decision-makers for the 2009 Breeders' Cup Classic champ will decide by Wednesday if she's going to put her 17-race winning streak on the line here. It depends on how she reacts to the conditions of the new Del Mar track surface. Either way, they're having a pint-glass giveaway with her photo on it. Free with each paid admission. While supplies last. And everyone's nerves are shot. The 6-year-old mare, training at Hollywood Park, has won this race the last two years. She hasn't started since she won the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park on June 13.

NFL: Pro Football Hall of Fame inductions at Canton, Ohio, 4 p.m., ESPN, NFL Network:

Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Russ Grimm, Rickey Jackson, Dick LeBeau, Floyd Little and John Randle now get to wear those Century 21 real estate jackets.

Mixed martial arts: UFC 117, in Oakland:

Anderson "The Spider" Silva, the long-time middleweight title holder, upset boss Dana White after his April 10 victory by first taunting, then failing to engage in battle during a decision victory over last-minute replacement Demian Maia. "I'm telling you right now, if he acts like that again in the ring, I will cut him," said White. "I don't care if he's the pound for pound best fighter in the world. I don't care if he's the middleweight champion." We don't care that he's won his last 12 acts of pugilism in a row. We're just afraid of spider bites.

SUNDAY

NFL: Hall of Fame Game: Cincinnati vs. Dallas at Canton, Ohio, 5 p.m., Channel 4:

An exhibition contest to start the NFL 2010 season, featuring Terrell Owens playing for the Bengals against America's Team. It goes up against the Yankees-Red Sox game from Yankee Stadium on ESPN. Will you be able to tune out T.O.?

MLB: Dodgers vs. Washington, Dodger Stadium, 1 p.m., Prime:

Prof surfer and Los Angeles native Anastasia Ashley is scheduled to throw out the first pitch. Who gets to escort her to Bleacher Beach afterward?

MLB: Angels at Detroit, 10 a.m., Channel 13:

Remember the game when the Angels' Nolan Ryan pitched a no-hitter in Detroit -- July 15, 1973 -- and Norm Cash came up to the plate in the ninth with a piano leg? Not so. It was the leg of a table from the club house. Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell called it a piano leg, which stuck with the legacy of the story. Ryan struck out 17 freakin' batters. And with the 6-0 victory, he improved his record to, gulp, 11-11.

WNBA: Sparks vs. San Antonio, Staples Center, 5 p.m., FSW.:

Any X Games stuff left laying around -- like a trampoline?

Saturday night, an email from RUWTbot landed at 7 p.m.: The Marlins had a 3-0 lead on the Padres in the sixth inning. And there was a no-hitter going on. Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco held the Padres hitless until Scott Hairston led off the sixth with a homer to left.

On Wednesday night, two emails told me about two "hot" games - at 6:50 p.m., the Marlins and Giants going into the 10th inning tied at 9 on the MLB pay-per-view package channel 734, and at 7:24 p.m., the Cardinals and Mets tied at 7 going into the 10th inning (available on ESPN3.com website).

On Thursday, two more "hot" games -- at 6:44 p.m., the Diamondbacks and Phillies were tied 2-2 going into the 10th (MLB Extra Innings Channel 732), and at 8:03 p.m., the Orioles and Phillies were tied at 5 going into bonus panels (MLB Extra innings and Fox Sports Maryland 672).

Friday, at 9:57 p.m., it was an alert to the Pirates-Cardinals scoreless game heading into extra innings. "Hot" again.

With each, there was a link to an Associated Press story to read about what happened after it ended, on the site.

Did we mention enough that the website "Are You Watching This?" (linked here) is pretty bitchin'?

As we explained in today's column (linked here), we stumbled upon it last week after ESPN.com (linked here) did a story on it.

Within 48 hours, we were alerted to the dual no-hitter going on in Tampa between the Rays and Tigers on Monday night.

Wow. That was easy.

For those who remain Twitter loyalists, the site also has a Twitter account - RUWT - with only 140 followers to date. On Monday, it sent out a tweet at 5:34 p.m. about the Rays-Tigers no-hitter in the top of the sixth.

At 6:53 p.m., someone named jjackel tweeted: "Just watched my first no-hitter thanks to areyouwatchingthis.com. I never would have watched Rays vs. Tigers otherwise."

(By the way, the RUWTbot also has its own Twitter account, with 530 followers. His bio reads: "Listen up, human. Don't be stupid. I can make sure you never miss an Instant Classic. Robot Power.")

The additional benefit of checking out the website: It has TV listings of all the games your provider has for the next two weeks, as well as a list of the stations that you are actually able to receive.

Creator Mark Phillip (pictured right), says when he started this journey in September, 2006, he was "coding my brains out," and finally launched it a couple months later. Then the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma played right into the concept.

"That's when I knew it would work," said Phillip. "And since then, the site has grown and changed in so many ways. I recalibrated the number of roots it takes to make a game 'epic,' and making sure it all stays on the same level."

From Phillip's data, there are 6,720 different TV channels that broadcast sporting events in the U.S. and Canada. And there are more than 2 million combinations of zip codes and cable and dish systems.

Crunch it all together, and Phillip has his service up and running - without any outside funding. All bootstrap, as they say.

"I'm trying to resist funding for absolutely as long as I can," he said. "Looking back, if I got a big injection of money to accelerate things, I don't think the engine would have gotten as good as it is. I would've been worried about users and visitor numbers, and wouldn't have had time to tinker as much as I have. Now if DirecTV or Google come knocking, that'd be a great fit, but I'm hoping all the conversations I've had because of the great pub this month will start leading to licensing deals that'll finally bring in some revenue."

And he hasn't stopped tinkering with it.

"I'd love someday to just have a magical button on the remote control - take me to the most exciting thing on TV right now, whether it's sports, or 'Oceans 13' on TNT."

We'll take sports, thanks. It makes too much sense.