September 2010 Archives

In honor of Fan Appreciation Weekend at Dodger Stadium, the final homestand, Joe Torre's going-away party and another page turned in the Dodgers' team chapter, we've taken up a collection and have something to present to the owners of the team.

Frank and Jamie McCourt: You've been served.

By the powers vested in us, the citizens of Los Angeles, we hereby declare a class-action divorce from the McCourts and demand full custody of the Dodgers.

Ipso facto, E pluribus unum, carpe diem and, considering how much the two of them have been spending on their hairstylists, coiffure interruptus.

Divorcing ourselves from the courtroom circus that has become McCourt v. McCourt over the last few months, culminating in a charade that ended with closing arguments this week, has been a very difficult task.

Frank and Jamie each contend they own the Dodgers in one bad shape or another. They don't want to play nice about it as they attempt to split up their leveraged fortunes and actually stop believin'.

An otherwise wise judge now has to waste his time going over the testimony and has until around Christmas to rule on their marital unbliss. But then, with appeals, new trials and just plain stubbornness, Frank could use millions of more borrowed dollars that perhaps could be better spent on a hypnotist for Jonathan Broxton to drag this out.

We can't wait'll next year. Because, in all seriousness, who really owns the Dodgers?

Isn't it community property that's property of the community?

Shouldn't the fans take ownership of this situation?

Maybe we're treading on Chavez Ravine ground that has already seen enough abuse, but we propose a new legal measure of revenge.

Don't worry, Silverstein. We're not even messing with typos here. Exclusive, inclusive or reclusive, we'll make this as plain and painless as possible.

Now, in California, petitions for the dissolution of marriage are based only on a) irreconcilable differences or b) incurable insanity. We intend to hit for the cycle on this. Sign us up for both.

And irregardless of whether that's an actual word or not, we add irrational behavior unbecoming of a O'Malley successor, irrevocable trust, irreversible damage, irregular heartbeat, irreplaceable left fielders with dreadlocks, illogical thinking and, not to get too graphic, but irritable towel syndrome (have you tried to pull off one of those sheets of sandpaper in the restrooms at Dodger Stadium)?

You may try to rephrase this as a case of "emancipation." We will stick with the big D-word, without the help of anyone from LegalDoom.com.

Despite having watched plenty of episodes of "Family Court with Judge Penny," we're not about to squeeze every nickel out of you in this, although we know payback can be bitchin'.

In the division of assets, our demands are simple.

We get:

== Vin Scully.
== Nancy Bea Hefley.
== Roger Owens, the peanut man.
== Dodger Stadium.
== The land surrounding Dodger Stadium.
== The promise never to "enhance" the land surrounding Dodger Stadium with a shopping mall, Indian casino or rifle range.
== The Dodger Stadium naming rights (which we vow to never use).
== The annual Jackie Robinson night promotion.
== Hollywood Stars Night (can't believe that was so botched this season that it didn't even happen).
== All remaining light-blue paint left.
== All future prospects in the farm system under the age of 21.
== Andre Either's bat.
== James Loney's glove.
== Clayton Kershaw arm.
== Larry Bowa's attitude.
== The four seats next to the dugout where the McCourts currently have reserved, but will be used on a rotating basis, given away to four fans each game who originally buy a ticket to the left-field pavilion.

As such, we also propose the McCourts can have:

== Continued liabilities of all deferred salary payments, including but not limited to Manny Ramirez, Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt, Darren Dreifort, Don Stanhouse and Vladimir Shpunt.
== All concession stand workers, especially those who act as if punching the order into the cash register pad is the first time they've seen it in their lives.
== Any future trademark rights to "$2 Tuesdays."
== All broken maple bats.
== All advertising decals on the outfield walls.
== One percent of parking revenue, not to exceed .002 cents per automobile per year.
== Rental of the Stadium Club one night every 10 years, at an agreed-upon date, for family functions only (with a necessary cleaning deposit).
== All profits from the California Pizza Kitchen stand, since no one should be eating that stuff anyway.
== Rhianna.
== The ear-piercing center-field speaker system.
== The overpaid guy running the "Dodger Dream Foundation."
== Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's future requests for free tickets.

As for Tommy Lasorda: That's open for negotiation.

We accept a demand to be named later, but respect whatever visitation rights you intend to set up in the interim. We can pick him up at the local McDonald's parking lot and take him to the games on every other weekend if that's amicable.

Sorry it's come to this. Really. Truly. True Bluely.

It's not your fault. It's our fault for not doing this earlier. Even if this is a no-fault state of confusion now.

Enjoy the final games of the 2010 season, McCourts. An usher will escort you out of the facility whenever you've finished cleaning out our wallets.

Photo by Heinz Kluetmeier/SportsIllustrated.com

An hour-long documentary about Fernando Valenzuela's cultural impact on the city of Los Angeles has been added to the ESPN "30 For 30" series, to air on Tuesday, Oct. 26 on ESPN at 5 p.m.

L.A.-raised Cruz Angeles, who created some buzz with his 2009 Sundance Film Festival feature, "Don't Let Me Drown," directed the project.

The ESPN summary of it:

'The Natural' is supposed to be a blue-eyed boy who teethed on a 36-ounce Louisville Slugger. He should run like the wind and throw boysenberries through brick. He should come from California." - Steve Wulf, Sports Illustrated, 1981. So how was it that a pudgy 20-year-old, Mexican, left-handed pitcher from a remote village in the Sonoran desert, unable to speak a word of English, could sell out stadiums across America and become a rock star overnight? In "Fernando Nation," Mexican-born and Los Angeles-raised director Cruz Angeles traces the history of a community that was torn apart when Dodger Stadium was built in Chavez Ravine and then revitalized by one of the most captivating pitching phenoms baseball has ever seen. Nicknamed "El Toro" by his fans, Fernando Valenzuela ignited a fire that spread from LA to New York--and beyond. He vaulted himself onto the prime time stage and proved with his signature look to the heavens and killer screwball that the American dream was not reserved for those born on U.S. soil. In this layered look at the myth and the man, Cruz Angeles recalls the euphoria around Fernando's arrival and probes a phenomenon that transcended baseball for many Mexican-Americans. Fernando Valenzuela himself opens up to share his perspective on this very special time. Three decades later, "Fernandomania" lives.

The documentary will actually debut on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. on ESPN Deportes before it's appearance on ESPN.

By Doug Ferguson
The Associated Press

NEWPORT, Wales -- You can count on Johnny Miller to be impartial at the Ryder Cup as an analyst for NBC Sports.

American or European, he can get under anyone's skin.

As great as he was as a player -- Miller will tell you that himself -- he only played in the Ryder Cup twice. Still, he has managed to become a big part of the event through commentary that is always blunt, sometimes shocking, usually accurate.

Even some of his victims agree with that.

"I like a lot of what he does," Justin Leonard said last week. "It can be a little too critical. I'm sure most guys on tour would say the same thing. We don't want anyone saying we choked. We know we did. We just don't want to hear anyone else say we did."

Leonard says he is not a "Johnny basher," even though few other player were bashed worse.

"My hunch is that Justin needs to go home and watch it on television," Miller blurted out in 1999 when Leonard and Hal Sutton were losing a fourballs match Saturday afternoon at Brookline.

That remains among the most famous of the "Johnny moments," and there have been plenty over the years. Like the time he said Craig Parry's swing would make Ben Hogan puke. And remember, Miller is the first analyst to introduce the word "choke" into the golf broadcast, a word players don't even like hearing in conversation.

And there might be plenty of that going on this week at Celtic Manor.

Fox's ability to find a sponsor willing to finance a pushed-up start to the third game of the upcoming World Series is a start in the right direction toward making the product more viewer-friendly for future generations.

It's not a major move, per say - a 3:57 p.m. PT/6:57 p.m. ET for the game set on Saturday, Oct. 30 - considering it's only an hour earlier from every other start time (except Sunday's Game 4, which will wait for the finish of Fox's NFL coverage).

"We've said over the years that if advertisers were willing to support earlier starts at prime time levels, we'd be able to begin games earlier," said Fox Sports president Eric Shanks in a release, noting that Chevrolet is the sponsor (with parent-company GM still 60 percent owned by the U.S. government) that stepped up.

By Doug Freguson
The Associated Press

How well do you know Ryder Cup history? Try this quiz:

FRIDAY FOURSOMES

1. Where did the Ryder Cup get its name?
a.) An English seed merchant.
b.) A tabloid columnist.
c.) A rental truck company that paid $50 million to be the title sponsor.

2. Who is the oldest player in Ryder Cup history?
a.) Fred Funk
b.) Christy O'Connor Sr.
c.) Raymond Floyd

3. Which American has won the most points in the Ryder Cup?
a.) Billy Casper
b.) Jack Nicklaus
c.) Gardner Dickinson

4. Where was the first Ryder Cup held?
a.) Valhalla Golf Club
b.) Worcester Country Club
c.) Newport Country Club

FRIDAY FOURBALLS

5. Which Ryder Cup tandem has won the most matches?
a.) Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson
b.) Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal
c.) Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson

6. Which player has had the most partners in the Ryder Cup?
a.) Raymond Floyd
b.) Bernhard Langer
c.) Tiger Woods

7. Who was the last player to win all five of his matches?
a.) Justin Rose
b.) Larry Nelson
c.) Corey Pavin

8. Who has played in the most Ryder Cup matches?
a.) Bernhard Langer
b.) Sam Snead
c.) Nick Faldo

SATURDAY FOURSOMES

9. What is the surname of the first set of brothers to compete in the same Ryder Cup?
a.) Hebert
b.) Hunt
c.) Whitcombe
(Note: At right, Italy's Eduardo and Francesco Molinari will be on the European Ryder Cup team).

10. What significant change in the Ryder Cup occurred in 1979?
a.) Players from continental Europe were eligible.
b.) Captains no longer could play in the matches.
c.) The Ryder Cup turned its first profit.

11. Which U.S. captain put together the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the world, only to see them get beat on the last hole?
a.) Hal Sutton
b.) Ben Crenshaw
c.) Dave Stockton

12. The Ryder Cup was not played on consecutive days in 1951 at Pinehurst. Why was no golf played on Saturday?
a.) Record flooding.
b.) A hurricane warning.
c.) Both teams attended a college football game.

SATURDAY FOURBALLS

13. Who is the youngest player to compete in the Ryder Cup?
a.) Tiger Woods
b.) Sergio Garcia
c.) Gene Sarazen

14. How many majors did Jack Nicklaus win before competing in his first Ryder Cup?
a.) None
b.) Three
c.) Seven

15. Where was the first Ryder Cup held outside of England or the United States?
a.) Muirfield
b.) Valderrama
c.) St. Andrews

16. Who was the last playing captain at the Ryder Cup?
a.) Dai Rees
b.) Dave Marr
c.) Arnold Palmer

SUNDAY SINGLES

17. Who holed a 45-foot putt to complete the biggest comeback in Ryder Cup history?
a.) Justin Leonard
b.) Peter Baker
c.) Philip Walton

18. Name the only player to go 18 holes in all five matches.
a.) Phil Mickelson
b.) Curtis Strange
c.) Tom Watson

19. What is considered the greatest gesture of sportsmanship in the Ryder Cup?
a.) Jack Nicklaus conceding Tony Jacklin a short par putt in 1969 so the Ryder Cup would end in a tie.
b.) Hal Sutton sending out Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as partners -- twice.
c.) Ben Crenshaw waiting until after the 1999 matches were over before crying.

20. Who made a hole-in-one to close out his singles match?
a.) Howard Clark
b.) Scott Verplank
c.) Paul Casey

21. When was the last time the year's four major champions played in the Ryder Cup?
a.) 1989
b.) 1979
c.) 1969

22. Name the only European who has a winning record despite having never played on a winning team (minimum three events)?
a.) Henry Cotton
b.) Peter Oosterhuis
c.) Tony Jacklin

23. Who was Bernhard Langer's opponent when he missed his 6-foot par putt on the 18th hole at Kiawah Island?
a.) Hale Irwin
b.) Mark Calcavecchia
c.) Payne Stewart

24. Where did Europe win on American soil for the first time?
a.) Muirfield Village
b.) Oak Hill
c.) PGA National

25. Name the only player to beat Tiger Woods in a Ryder Cup singles match.
a.) Jesper Parnevik
b.) Costantino Rocca
c.) Lee Westwood

26. Who was the only American who failed to earn a point as a captain's pick?
a.) Curtis Strange
b.) Jay Haas
c.) Fred Couples

27. Who has earned the most singles points without ever having lost a match?
a.) Tom Kite
b.) Colin Montgomerie
c.) Tom Lehman

28. Name the only American who lost the decisive singles match and won the decisive singles match.
a.) Jim Furyk
b.) Justin Leonard
c.) Andy North

Players ranked Nos. 51-60 are revealed in all their glory on the NFL Network's "The Top 100" next episode that debuts Thursday at 6 p.m. (preceeded by an encore of Nos. 61-70 at 5 p.m.).

You can see the complete list on NFL.com (linked here), interestingly to see how the "fans rank" element is added to the list (i.e.: Steve Young, No. 81 on the list, but No. 13 on the fan ranking).

From the first 40 picks (61 to 100), three are active players, six are recently retired and the rest are all in the Hall of Fame.

The show's appeal is seeing who "presents" each player, ranging from ex-players and coaches, to directors, authors and stat man extraordinare Steve Hirdt.

Here's the list so far as far as that goes (player, then presenter):

100. Joe Namath (Spike Lee)
99. Michael Strahan (Jon Runyan)
98. Lee Roy Selmon (Ron Wolf)
97. Derrick Brooks (Jon Gruden)
96. Mel Hein (Steve Hirdt)
95. Larry Allen (John Randle)
94. Lenny Moore (Bobby Mitchell)
93. Sam Huff (Sonny Jurgensen)
92. Michael Irvin (Troy Aikman)
91. Fran Tarkenton (Sen. Amy Klobuchar)

90. Kurt Warner (Nick Bakay)
89. Ernie Nevers (Steve Hirdt)
88. Ed Reed (Hines Ward)
87. Crazylegs Hirsch (Michael MacCambridge)
86. Willie Davis (Bobby Mitchell)
85. Marcus Allen (Matt Millen)
84. Joe Schmidt (Jerry Glanville)
83. Norm Van Brocklin (Sonny Jurgensen)
82. Ted Hendricks (Howie Long)
81. Steve Young (Mike Holmgren)

80. Troy Aikman (Drew Brees)
79. Emlen Tunnell (Michael MacCambridge)
78. Bruce Matthews (Warren Moon)
77. Tony Dorsett (Roger Staubach)
76. Art Shell (Ron Wolf)
75. Darrell Green (Carl Lewis)
74. Marion Motley (Mike Brown)
73. Ozzie Newsome (Marty Schottenheimer)
72. Jonathan Ogden (Michael Strahan, video linked here)
71. Paul Warfield (Mercury Morris)

70. Marshall Faulk (Kurt Warner)
69. Bobby Bell (Michael MacCambridge)
68. Mike Webster (Dan Dierdorf)
67. Kellen Winslow (Joe Gibbs)
66. Willie Brown (Mercury Morris)
65. Randy Moss (Brian Billick)
64. Herb Adderley (Raymond Berry)
63. Jim Otto (Bill Bergey)
62. Randy White (Mark May)
61. LaDainian Tomlinson (Reggie Bush)

Congrats to Jessica Lin, Jessica Matthews, Julia Silverman and Hemali Thakkar for being honored with the "Next Generation Award" by Popular Mechanics for an energy-gerating soccer ball.

The four were undergrads at Harvard when they figured out a way to harness the kinetic energy of a soccer ball and use that as a LED light for families in the sub-Saharan African desert.

The way the sOccket works is that, after 15 minutes of kicking it around, the ball can put out three hours of light, an alternative to the kerosene lamps used in a place where less than 25 percent of the population has access to reliable electricity. The device was field-tested in South Africa during last summer's World Cup.

The sOccket also has an imbedded DC jack and weighs only 5 ounces more than a FIFA-regulated ball. A future model is planned to generate enough juice to charge a cellphone.

== More on the sOccket (linked here)
== For more on Popular Mechanic's "Breakthrough 2010" awards (linked here).

Apt to picking up a good baseball-related book this time of year, we came upon "Glory In The Fall: The Greatest Moments in World Series History" (linked here), edited by Peter Golenbock (Union Square Press, $22.95, 420 pages).

There's a piece by the L.A. Times' Jim Murray from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, and another by Sports Illustrated's Peter Gammons, about Orel Hershiser's contribution to that Dodgers' championship.

A piece from the L.A. Daily News' Steve Dilbeck after Game 6 of the 2002 World Series -- Scott Spezio's game-winning homer to bring the Angels back and vault them to the title the next night.

Good times.

Yet, in reading the introduction by Golenbock, a well-respected, prolific author (linked here), we found ourselves gently returning the book to the shelf.

As Golenbock lists "off the top of my head, if you asked me which are the greatest World Series moments," he includes Don Larsen's perfect game, Willie Mays' catch, the home runs by Carlton Fisk, Joe Carter, Bill Mazerowski ...

"And the Tampa Bay Rays playing in the 2008 World Series. I know. Kirk Gibson's home run off Mitch Williams is far more important, but if you had been a Rays fan as long as I had, you'd understand."

Hmmmm. Where do we start ...

You look at a map of Wales and can't help but think -- such a green country. So many golf courses must be there. And all so green.

The nine-hour time difference between the Ryder Cup in Wales and your home television set will provide many of the usual Wimbledon-British Open-type warps in trying to follow the action of the U.S. team against the dirty dozen from Europe.

Note the posting of this blog -- if you're reading it live at 1 a.m. Tuesday, you're body clock is in a good position to move forward before it falls back.

ESPN has Day 1 of the Ryder Cup -- Friday in Wales, but Thursday night here -- starting at 11:30 p.m.

Thursday's opening ceremonies will go on ESPN during the 8 a.m. SportsCenter, followed by a preview show at 11 a.m.

ESPN will also re-air coverage from all three days, starting at 10 a.m. Friday on ESPN2 (the first day goes from 11:30 p.m. Thursday to 10 a.m. Friday on ESPN).

Mike Tirico anchors the event with Paul Azinger (the '08 Ryder Cup captain), while Curtis Strainge ('02 captain) will be among the analysts, with Andy North, Judy Rankin, Bill Kratzert and Peter Alliss. Also beware of essays and commentary from Tom Rinaldi and Rick Reilly.

(Tirico, by the way, has an insane flight schedule, having to work ESPN's "Monday Night Football" from Chicago, go to Wales, then be back for Monday, Oct. 4 in Miami for the New England-Miami NFL game).

NBC comes in for the weekend -- Dan Hicks, Johnny Miller, Gary Koch, Peter Jacobsen and Brad Faxon, plus Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing and Dottie Pepper, with essayist Jimmy Roberts -- but Saturday's four-ball and foursome matches are on 5 1/2-hour tape delay (from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m.). That's already not going over well with some of those state-side golf followers. Sunday is live from 4 to 10 a.m.

The delay from the Ryder Cup is nothing new. Back in 2002, NBC did the same thing from The Belfry in England after USA Network had delayed first-day coverage. NBC came on Saturday at 5 a.m., delayed.

Golf Channel plans 20 hours of live reporting starting today at 9 a.m. with press conferences, including Wednesday (9 a.m.), Thursday (3 p.m.) and Friday (10 a.m.). Kelly Tilghman, Frank Nobilo, Rich Lerner, Steve Sands, Alex Miceli, Tim Rosaforte, Ken Schofield, Mark Rolfing and Randall Mell are there. Lerner will cover the European team, while Sands is with the U.S. On the weekend, Golf Channel goes to the Ryder Cup from 3-5 p.m. Saturday and 10-to-11 a.m. Sunday.

Sirius XM Radio has live coverage on Sirius 209/XM 146 on Thursday (11:30 p.m.), Saturday (5 a.m. to 3 p.m. delayed) and Sunday (4 a.m.).

Two new talking 7-inch Kenny Powers bobbleheads produced by a company called Bif Bang Pow! are coming out in time for the holiest of holidays, one by this Thanksgiving and the other set for a Jan., 2011 delivery, available for preorder on EntertainmentEarth.com (linked here and linked here).

Among the things one of the other will say: "You're f__king out!," "So that is why I'm better than everyone else in the world," "Kenny Powers is a man, ""Kenny Powers is an athlete," "Kenny Powers is a lover," and "The thing that Kenny Powers is the most... is a G-dDamn champion."

*****

Emerging in the "darkest third-world hole" he's ever been in -- Copales, Mexico, "about a thousand, hundred million miles from where I should be" -- this Stephen Janowski, expert cockfighter, finally reveals himself to the local Mexican League baseball team to be the true Kenny Powers and wants to turn his life around. Again.

"In Mexico, a man can truely get lost," Powers says at the end "Chapter 7," the episode that aired on HBO Sunday night and will repeat this week. "And if you're a bankrobber or maybe someone who's committed a f--ked up crazy crime, then that's a good thing. But hiding takes its toll. At first you don't realize it. but soon the identity you tried to shed starts getting pissed and knocking at your insides. You know, when dealing with deep depression and sad s--t, it's cool to pretend like nothing is wrong. That sometimes works. But eventually you gotta call a G-Damn spade a spade -- yes, I'm f--ked up and I gotta change ...

"Sometimes you gotta wash away the pain and look at the world that is the jackass hiding beneath. Sometimes, I gotta get back in the game."

That's the essence of the launch of the second season of "Eastbound & Down" -- hey, is that Pedro from "Napoleon Dynamite?"

Not to spoil anything, but here's a gameplan provided by HBO for the coming month:

== Sunday, Oct. 3: "Chapter 8: Charros owner Sebastian Cisneros (Michael Pena) agrees to pull out all the stops in promoting Kenny Powers' return to organized baseball, but Kenny loses motivation after learning a secret about April from an old friend."

== Sunday, Oct. 10: "Chapter 9: Puzzled by the Mexican fans' lukewarm reception, Kenny starts a grassroots PR campaign to burnish his image, but it takes a vintage Powers flare-up to bring the crowd to its feet. Kenny makes inroads with Vida (Ana de la Reguera) by inviting her to Sebastian's yacht party."

== Sunday, Oct. 17: "Chapter 10: Though Charros fans respond to Kenny, he is warned by Roger (Marco Rodriguez) about the perils of showboating. Kenny learns he has serious competition in his courtship of Vida."

== Sunday, Oct. 24: "Chapter 11: Kenny considers a new full-time life working in Mexico."

== Sunday, Oct. 31: "Chapter 12: Kenny settles some old scores and shows Mexico what he's really made of."

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

MONDAY

NFL: Green Bay at Chicago, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

This matchup of two 2-0 NFC North teams should have Chris Berman more excited than an Applebee's 2-for-$20 deal. Whooooooooooop! Please tip your waiters. (Hey, you see Chili's has the same promo going?)

NBA: "Real Training Camp: Los Angeles Lakers," 2 p.m., NBA TV:

It's not like "Hard Knocks," but that's kind of the idea taken by NBA TV as it goes to the Lakers' training camp for a preseason reality show. There's two hours of coverage here, hosted by Marc Fein.

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, 5:40 p.m., Prime:

The Rockies' Cy Young candidate Ubaldo Jimenez, who didn't look all the sharp registering his 19th win in a 7-5 victory over the Dodgers 11 days ago, can win his 20th today against them. The Dodgers have actually beaten him twice this year and sends Ted Lilly out today. This also means Jimenez, who was 15-1 in early July and seemed to be on a easy path to 20, will get one more start in an important game at the end of the week. Consider: It would mark the first time someone named Ubaldo has won any major award in sports history. We're pulling for the big U. The last opposing player to win his 20th against the Dodgers: Arizona's Randy Johnson on Sept. 4, 2002, when he threw a three-hitter in a 7-1 victory.

MLB: Angels vs. Oakland, Angels Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

The second- and third-place teams in the AL West at least can say: We're not Seattle. The Angels' Ervin Santana, who was 13-9 back on Aug. 24, can win his 18th game of the season, and probably have one more shot by the end of the week to get No. 19. That'd be a magic season for Ervin.

Horse racing: Fairplex racing, L.A. County Fairgrounds, Pomona, 1 p.m. first post:

Day 15 of the 15-day card has arrived, with free hot dogs, admission, parking. ... leftovers for everyone.

TUESDAY

Special: "The Tenth Inning," 8 p.m., KCET Channel 28:

Ken Burns' addition to his 1994 "Baseball" documentary picks up where the first series left off -- covering the '98 home run chase, performance enhanced players, the arrival of Ichiro and the Red Sox winning the World Series. Twice. You can't make that stuff up. KCET follows up the first two-hour installment with a documentary on the 1955 Dodgers' World Series (10 p.m.). The second part of this airs same time on Wednesday.

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, 5:40 p.m., Channel 9:

This stat we know: Coming into this week, Matt Kemp is the only Dodger to have appeared in all 156 games this season -- and he has the longest active consecutive-games streak in the majors at 198. He'd be the last guy we'd figure to hold that distinction. So the point is: For all the times Kemp was benched in the second half, he still somehow got into a game. Maybe that explains everything. Or maybe not.

MLB: Angels vs. Oakland, Angels Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

We ran a blog item the other day about how the A's new stadium could be built on a platform (linked here). It bothers us the Angels didn't think of that first. Imagine if Angel Stadium connected the 5 and 57 freeways somehow.

NHL exhibition: Kings vs. Ducks, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m.:

OK, guys. This is just pretend. No fisticuffs. Or, at least, keep your gloves on.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Colorado, 12:10 p.m., Prime:

The Dodgers juggled their rotation to have Clayton Kershaw make his final start of the season in a game that matters. To Colorado. Kershaw has three wins and two no decisions against the Rockies this season. He's also 4-2 in day games this year, and 9-6 lifetime (vs. 16-17 at night). Sorry, Rocks.

MLB: Angels vs. Oakland, Angels Stadium, 12:30 p.m., FSW:

Another day-time event, the Angels' last home game. Last chance to see Clyde Wright roaming around in the grandstands handing out napkins.

THURSDAY

Golf: Ryder Cup, Day 1, ESPN, 11:30 p.m. (through 10 a.m. Friday), ESPN:

Letterman, Leno and Kimmel, step aside. Pull an all-nighter, friends, and watch Tiger Woods with his 11 new best friends (most of which will have wives and girlfriends cheering them on) go in as distinct underdogs in this international golf event that has come to be one of the sport's greatest flag-stick waving events.

The Celtic Manor resort course in Wales knows no daylight before it's time, so adjust your body clocks or set the DVR. One of the subplots is always how the U.S. team is going to be dressed -- it can backfire if the attire is atrocious. Team captain Corey Pavin's wife, Lisa, is in charge in picking the style, colors, fabric ... and then posing on a golf magazine cover to promote that fact. Fact is, the costumes for the Americans just 30 days before Halloween shouldn't be that scary. Pavin calls it modern and retro, as evidenced by the nice red logo that was picked to be a felt patch on the polo shirts. However it looks on your high-def screen, someone will complain. Moreso if the team is losing after the first day's events. NBC picks up coverage of Day 2 on Saturday (5 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and Sunday (4 to 10 a.m.)

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

A four-game series to close the regular season was supposed to mean something. It does. It helps the Rangers set their playoff rotation. Jered Weaver is slated to make his final start of the year, with a chance to outdo Seattle's Felix Hernandez and win the AL strike out crown.

Horse racing: Oak Tree meeting at Hollywood Park, 7 p.m.:

Instead of Santa Anita -- where they're tearing up the track again, yanking out the plastic and putting back God's brown dirt -- the fall thoroughbred season of Southern California shows up in Inglewood for the first time. With the traditional late-night start, the group Sugar Ray will band together and perform after all the horses are done running (at about 10:30 p.m.). It's $3 beer until 9 p.m. and $2 hot dogs all night and $1 for Mark McGrath's autograph.

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Arizona, Dodger Stadium, 7:10 p.m., Prime; San Diego at San Francisco, 7 p.m., MLB Network:

Here's now the NL West tiebreaker would work: Dodgers and D'backs face each other three times, with neither the winner nor the loser having a say in the matter. Padres, Rockies and Giants keep flipping a coin until someone loses the coin. Then, if one of them are tied with the Braves for the wildcard ...

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

As for Bud Selig talking about the exploration of expanding the postseason this winter -- the time is right to revisit it, the commissioner explains: If you can figure out a way to get the Angels and Dodgers into the postseason with a .500 record, we're listening.

SATURDAY

College football: UCLA vs. Washington State, Rose Bowl, 12:30 p.m., Prime Ticket:

The Bruins' shocker in Texas got them 9 votes in the latest AP poll - not enough to crack the Top 25, but 33rd best. And one spot ahead of Oregon State.

College football: USC vs. Washington, Coliseum, 5 p.m., ESPN2:

It's the wunderkid matchup: Kiffin vs. Sarkisian. Somewhere, Pete Carroll will be paying attention. There's also the chance that the Huskies, if Jake Locher gets stuck somewhere, willl have to go to No. 2 QB, Nick Montana. USC enters the toughest part of its schedule with games on four Saturdays that would have been tough with or without a probation slap.

College football: Oklahoma vs. Texas, 12:30 p.m., Channel 7:

An annual BBQ took a kick to the keister with the Longhorn's loss to UCLA.

College football: Stanford at Oregon, 5 p.m., Channel 7:

And ESPN's "College GameDay" has decided to come to Eugene, Ore., as well. Makes sense.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Arizona, Dodger Stadium, 7:10 p.m., Prime:

Here's a team photo calendar giveaway, with the 2011 schedule.

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

Brandon Wood stayed on the roster for the whole second half of the season?

Horse racing: Lady's Secret Classic, Hollywood Park, 4:15 p.m., ESPN:

Last November, the Oak Tree folk decided to change the name of this event from the Lady's Secret Stakes to the Zenyatta Stakes. Simple reasoning: Zenyatta had won it two years in a row, then went onto win a major race at the Breeders' Cup, and now it seemed she was retired. Not so fast, buster. She's come back as a 6-year-old, extended her winning streak to 18 with a recent victory at Del Mar (pictured above), so Zenyatta owners and trainer asked if this thing could go back to the original name -- in honor of the former thoroughbred champion Lady's Secret, not after some lame sponsor. As such, Zenyatta returns today for this one, hoping for three in a row, with the plan to ship to Churchill Downs to defend the Breeders' Cup Classic title on Nov. 6. Win the last two, and she's most likely retiring with a 20-for-20 record that is about as impressive as any in sports history.

NHL exhibition: Kings vs. Colorado in Las Vegas, 6 p.m.:

Whatever happens here in Vegas goes in coach Andy Murray's notebook. Which then stays in Vegas.

SUNDAY

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

Joe Torre got the Dodgers into October for the third season in a row. Except this time, it ends far earlier in the month than the last two. He fills out his final Dodger lineup today, and then it's off to manage the Mets Cubs White Sox Bigelow tea contract renewal.

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

Angels fans can start that 50th anniversary season celebration.

MLS: Chivas vs. Galaxy, Home Depot Center, 5 p.m., ESPN2:

Back on April 1, the Galaxy registered a 2-0 win over the Goats -- Edson Buddle scored both goals -- to extend their SuperClasico series streak. Chivas hasn't beaten the Galaxy since 2007, and has lost the last four without even scoring. "These things go in cycles," Galaxy coach Bruce Arena said after the last win. "We've just been fortunate at this point in time. Chivas will win their share of games in this rivalry. There is no question about that. At this point in time, we've had the upper hand."

NFL: Washington at Philadelphia, 1 p.m., Channel 11:

Donovan McNabb, back in Philly, while the Eagles try to figure out their QB situation.

NFL: Chicago at N.Y. Giants, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4:

The Cowboys, Chiefs, Vikings and Buccaneers have the week off. So you get this -- The Bears, in prime time, twice in a seven-day stretch. That's kind of a stretch.

NHL exhibition: Kings at Ducks, Honda Center, 5 p.m.:

The practice games end. Season starts next week. Drop the puck and let's go.

(AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
Filmmaker Ken Burns stands outside Fenway Park in Boston last week, after a premiere of his latest edition to his "Baseball" documentary called "The Tenth Inning." The show is scheduled to air on PBS on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

By Jimmy Golen
The Associated Press

When Ken Burns decided to update his epic documentary "Baseball" to chronicle the tumultuous developments since it first aired in 1994, he knew that he didn't want to make a movie of the Mitchell Report.

Instead, Burns and co-producer Lynn Novick tried to bring Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and their pursuit of the sport's hallowed home run records to viewers as fans experienced them at the time.

"If you did the home run chase from the perspective of what we know in 2010, it would be joyless," Burns said recently before "The Tenth Inning" premiered in a Boston theater. "But we all know how exciting that was. We wanted to relive some of that,
but at the same time give equal time to the other revelations."

In the four-hour miniseries scheduled to debut on PBS Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Burns and Novick take "Baseball" into extra innings, updating the original 18½-hour documentary on the first 150 years of the sport's history to include the successes and scandals since 1994.

The Associated Press

Bing Crosby often found himself dreaming of the Pittsburgh Pirates, too, even while on vacation in Paris during the 1960 World Series.

His zealous support and superstition wound up being a good thing for baseball fans: Found in his wine cellar was film of the deciding Game 7, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending homer to beat the New York Yankees, that was thought to be lost forever.

The New York Times reported in a story published in Friday's editions that the complete NBC broadcast had been discovered in Crosby's longtime home in Hillsborough, near San Francisco.

The silver-tongued crooner, whose recording of "White Christmas" has sold millions of copies worldwide, was part owner of the baseball team from 1946 until his death in 1977. But the avid sportsman was such a nervous wreck watching the Pirates that when they played the Yankees in the World Series, he went on a European vacation with his wife, Kathryn.

"He said, 'I can't stay in the country. I'll jinx everybody,'" Crosby's widow said.

It was thought that one of the greatest games ever played had survived only through radio broadcasts, grainy photographs and the written word. Then in December, while Robert Bader was combing through tapes and reels of Crosby's old TV specials, the vice president of Bing Crosby Entertainment stumbled across two gray canisters in a pile stretching to the ceiling.

They were labeled "1960 World Series" and looked as though they hadn't been touched in years. An hour of searching revealed three more reels.

AP Photo/Jay LaPrete
Dave Nutini, a former bank contract manager who quit his job three weeks ago to play poker professionally, sits next to his computer in Dublin, Ohio. Nutini plans to wager $200 to $300 per week on fantasy football using FanDuel.com where he already won a trip to Las Vegas and $500 cash during the first week of the FanDuel Fantasy Football Championship.

By Oskar Garcia
The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Sports fans are betting online each night on athletes' performances -- and it's all legal.

The bets are an exception to laws banning online gambling because they take the form of fantasy sports -- where participants pick a team of real-life players in baseball, football or other sports and compete based on their real-life statistics. Such competitions typically last a season, but more websites are springing up that offer prize money for teams that last only one night.

Drawn by the possibility of quick cash payouts, instead of just end-of-season glory, fans ready for more-than-casual rivalries among friends or co-workers are building new nightly online betting into a hit for the $800 million fantasy sports industry.

More than a dozen websites have sprung up to manage daily fantasy sports wagers and grab a percentage, says Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, which represents 120 companies. Those commissions amount to $35 per player per month at one of the largest new sites, FanDuel.com, according to its CEO. And with nearly 7 million Americans and Canadians already playing fantasy sports for money by 2008, the total is expected to soar.

"It's always been a little murky, so I think a lot of companies didn't have the stomach for it," said Charchian. "People now are jumping on board."

Dick Enberg, as an assistant baseball coach at San Fernando Valley State, back in 1962.
Photo from Cal State Northridge archives

********

We went a whole media column (linked here) and a previous blog post about Dick Enberg and didn't state the obvious?

Oh, my.

More quick stuff from the San Diego Padres' TV play-by-play man and how he thinks some day, he could be doing baseball-only work:

== On broadcasting games for a team with two Ivy League players (Wil Venable and Chris Young, both out of Princeton) and a former college academic All-American (David Eckstein, at the University of Florida):

"Eckstein is really the posterchild for this team. Going back to his days with the Angels, he just know how to win -- he's always in the middle of everything. Just the night before, no one out, he gets hit by a pitch, it leads to a three-run inning. I think he'll be a great manager.

"Chris Young, second game of the season, we're in Arizona, April 6. He didn't allow a run. The team won the first game of the season. I went to the clubhouse afterward, and he came up to me with a sanitary sock and pulled out a baseball. He said he got everyone to sign it for me because it was my first win with the team 'and we want you to remember it.' How great did that make me feel? It's so much of these little things, not the walk-off grand slams, that make this team and this season so nice.

"Even Bud Black (the Padres' manager). I call him 'The Dean' and the rest of the coaches are 'The Faculty' because they're all such great teachers."

== On adjusting his calls to accomodate the home team:

"I was scolded early on by trying to be 'too network,' and I understood that I could adjust my calls. A home run didn't have to be 'touch 'em all!' for both teams. It didn't affect my journalistic integrity. So now when the Padres hit a homer, it's 'touch 'em all!' but when the other team does it, I'll say, 'It's gone.' It's a smaller, more provincial area and I have an investment in the fans and San Diego, which has become my home my whole adult life. I've had to alter some things, and I think I've satisfied everyone -- I've satisfied myself.

"It think it goes back to my KMPC days doing the Angels. Stan Spero, the program director and a huge baseball fan, called me in during the middle of my first season (1969) and said, 'I just want to emphasize to you, Enberg, how important you are to our radio station. You consider that other than Vin Scully - and maybe more than Vin Scully - your voice is going to be on the Los Angeles' ears more than anyone else to the millions of people in this city. So your influence and your voice is important to us. No matter if the team wins or loses, when people turn off their radio at night, they'll turn it back on in the morning -- and they'll have it on KMPC.

"I thought of that when the Padres approached me. I like being an ambassador to San Diego, and to bring in from time to time, duck in a moment about a famous artist who may be appearing at the San Diego Symphony or something going on at Coronodo island so we can take a shot of the beautiful bridge and bring it into the broadcast. I like that part, being more than calling balls and strikes and 6-4-3."

== On perhaps doing baseball on radio again:

"Here, we have two different teams and don't cross over. I think we have such a great resource in Jerry Coleman, I think sometimes he should be on TV, just so I could pick his brain. But he's radio. It would be fun to do radio again. That's the real art form. On TV, we're just pointing and adding shades of color and tone, but the picture tells the story.

"On radio, you paint the canvas. It's more challenging. The plan isn't for me to go to radio if the Padres make the playoffs. That would be tough. I'd be stepping on toes and I don't want to do that. I'd be open to it, but only if I could be sure it would be incorporating me and not replacing someone else."

== On his schedule:

"Originally, it was set up like Vin's -- all west coast road games and all home games (about 120 a year). Back in 1985, when the Angels had their 25th anniversary season and they asked me to come back and do 40 games, I was in Rancho Santa Fe, so I had to drive up there and it was a significant round trip. But I tried to keep track of the season by clipping box scores. So if I were doing a game and had to refer back to one I didn't do, I'd go back to the box score and it would say, 'Robinson, 0-for-4' but I don't know if that was four strikeouts or what. So I'd be home keeping scores of games I wasn't at anyway. My wife said, 'If you're doing that, you might as well do them all.' So as long as they let me off for tennis (five weeks at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open combined), I wanted to do the rest of them. And it's really been like a honeymoon here. They've given me everything I've asked for."

Without the usual smokes and mirrors of the "smokes" and "chokes" segment in today's media column (linked here), we've timeshifted it all to this part of the more interesting Internet part of the house:

== There's no use of the word "pig" and "lipstick" in the press release to describe the changes made by ESPN on its "Around the Horn" show starting Monday, but let's just say that by moving it to a new studio and showing it in high def, we don't expect the intelligence level to rise dramatically.

This is the artist's redition of how the set will look -- as executive producer Erik Rydholm says, it'll be "like Tony Reali is in a spaceship or an Apple store."

Likewise, "Pardon the Interruption" will go hi-def starting Monday, and both shows will be moved to a new studio in the ABC News Bureau in Washington D.C.

Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon will do Monday's show, but for the rest of the week, the wishy-washy voice of "Sports Guy" Bill Simmons will serve as the guest host (as he's been this week).

Again, from the artists' rendering, Kornheiser and Wilbon are somewhere near the middle of the set below, if you look closely:

== Fox Sports West has Bill Macdonald (play-by-play), John Jackson (analyst) and Lindsay Soto (sideline) on its coverage of USC-Washington State (Saturday, noon). Soto and Jeremy Hogue will also do the pre- and post-game shows.

== ABC has Sean McDonough (play-by-play), Matt Millen (analyst) and Heather Cox (sideline) for its UCLA-Texas game (Saturday, 12:30 p.m., Channel 7). The net returns with Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit for the Oregon State-Boise State telecast (5 p.m., Channel 7), while ESPN "GameDay" is in Boise, Idaho (starts on ESPNU at 6 a.m., then on ESPN at 7 a.m.). It will mark the first time the show has originated from a Western Athletic Conference site.

== ESPN sends out JP Dellacamera, John Harkes and Allen Hopkins to cover the Galaxy-New York Red Bull contest (tonight, 8 p.m., ESPN2), then bring in Alexi Lalas for halftime. The coverage from Home Depot Center will include the expense of a blimp and a super slo-mo with the usual compliment of cameras.

== Because the next 19th annual ESPY Award ceremony is just around the corner -- Wednesday, July 13, 2011, if you haven't bookmarked it yet -- the network wanted all to know that "Saturday Night Live" guy Seth Meyers will return to host it from the Nokia Theatre in LA Live, ending any threat that it could go to Roy Firestone.

== They say it has something to do with Hispanic Heritage Month (which goes from September 15 to October 15 by some weird calendar), this televising Sunday's Jets-Dolphins game in both English and Spanish, and on both NBC and Telemundo. The Telemundo L.A. station (as well as those in Chicago, New York, Dallas and Miami) will have Jessi Losada, Rene Giraldo and Edgar Lopez on the call.

And Inez Whatshername has been told of this?

== MLB of note this weekend: MLB Network has tonight's N.Y. Yankees-Boston game (4 p.m.). Fox goes to Cincinnati-San Diego (Chris Rose and Mark Grace) for Saturday's game of the week (1 p.m., Channel 11), with MLB Network airing San Francisco-Colorado (5 p.m.). Sunday, TBS has San Francisco-Colorado (noon) while ESPN has Yankees-Red Sox (5 p.m.).

== Eric Karros with a new goatee? See for yourself on KCAL Channel 9's "Think Blue" pregame (6 p.m., leading into the Dodgers-Dbacks telecast). Comment appropriately.

== ESPN's Mark Fainaru-Wada has a sit-down with the Dodgers' Jay Gibbons set to air on Sunday's "Outside The Lines" (ESPN, 7 a.m.). The clip above provides some context. Gibbons acknowledges he received HGH, testosterone and HCG, the female anti-fertility drug used essentially as a masking agent, and used the drugs sporadically for 18 months until 2005.

== After its "24/7" documentaries have worked in the boxing world, and once expanding into NASCAR, HBO will do one for the NHL's Winter Classic, a four-episode series that leads up to the Penguins-Capitals game on New Year's Day. The series starts Dec. 15. It ends on Jan. 5, with coverage of the game from Pittsburgh's Heinz Field.

== The New York-based Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame has announced as its 2010 inductions for this December: Leonard Chapman (CEO of Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment, which specializes in camera cranes), Davey Finch (CBS's lead handheld-camera operator for 30 years), John Madden (former NFL colorman from 1979-'08), Geoff Mason (a former ABC executive producer on the NFL and Olympic games from '68 to '88), John Roche (a technical manager for some of the largest live television events), Chet Simmons (former president of NBC Sports and the first CEO of ESPN), George Steinbrenner (the former New York Yankees owner, for his business in regional MLB coverage and launching the YES Network), and Pat Summerall (former CBS play-by-play man who did 16 Super Bowls).

== A Twitter exchange recorded earlier this week between Tim Cowlishaw, the Dallas Morning News and ESPN "Around the Horn" panelist, and Mike Florio, the ProFootballTalk.com editor and new contributor to NBC's NFL Sunday night coverage:

From Cowlishaw: "Has Costas run out of people to talk to? Dumping Wade for Garrett after a Houston loss? News flash to Florio: Garrett's not exactly hot."
8:52 AM Sep 20th via web

From Florio: "Hey, Tim, isn't there something about Darrelle Revis you should be fabricating today?"
10:02 AM Sep 20th via web in reply to TimCowlishaw

From Cowlishaw: "@ProFootballTalk took a law degree to come up with that? Sad."
11:05 AM Sep 20th via Twitter for BlackBerry® in reply to ProFootballTalk

Pardon that interruption.

== AND FINALLY:

== Congratulations to Lance Orozco, the news director for NPR station KCLU (88.3 FM in Ventura County and 1340-AM and 102.3-FM in Santa Barbara County ) for winning a 2010 National Edward R. Murrow Award in recognition of "Best Audio Sports Reporting" in the small market radio division for his story on "The Oldest Dodger."

Orozco, a Sherman Oaks resident, profiled 100-year-old Tony Malinosky, the oldest living former major-leaguer, living in Oxnard (his Baseball Reference bio linked here).

Orozco joined KCLU on the Cal Lutheran University campus in 2001, working in the broadcast journalism field for nearly 30 years.

The Murrow ceremony will be Oct. 11 in New York.

== Hear "The Oldest Dodger" story (linked here). Read an Associated Press story last year on Malinosky (linked here).

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
San Diego Padres shortstop Miguel Tejada throws to first after forcing out the Dodgers' Jamey Carroll to complete a double play on Andre Either during the first inning of Tuesday's game at Dodger Stadium.

Consider the double play.

Dick Enberg says he does every night from his new home in the San Diego Padres' TV booth.

"I'm still fascinated and memorized by it," the 75-year-old Enberg, who cut back on his network NFL and college basketball assignments to sign a multi-year deal with the Padres to do their games.

We have more with Enberg in Friday's media column.

In theory, you stay home to watch a Lakers, Clippers or Kings game on TV because the picture is better (aside from ticket prices, traffic and laziness). The truth is, in most cases, your flatscreen at home is better than your own eye sight at the arena.

Staples Center has defined an answer to that.

This afternoon, it unveils a new Panasonic 4HD eight-sided, 720p high-def scoreboard that will be used for the first time during the Kings-Coyotes NHL exhibition game on Thursday.

Staples people say it's "believed to be the largest indoor center-hung" high-def scoreboard and video screen system "in the world." It works off the 16:9 letterbox format, 22-feet by 14-feet LED display. With that are 13'-9'' x 14'-3" video boards that keep the score, stats and game clock.

And for those poor fans sitting courtside, there's additional 8-foot by 14-foot LED displays under the giant scoreboard to allow for easier replay viewing.

Apparently, the photo Staples Center provided doesn't do it justice -- yet, our eyes are already glazed over. If you can afford an admission ticket, that'll be your chance to see if it all works, or if it simply causes more stimulus overload and neurological disorder.

Not to mention when the first outlet pass from Pau Gasol to Kobe Bryant grazes the bottom of it, we'll figure it out as we go along.

Calling all idiots.

We're not suggesting a quick trip to Austria to attend the Vienna Recordia 2010 this Sunday -- the fifth annual event where Guiness Book of World Records are set and reset to the amusement of those attending.

But if you've got some Rosetta Stone homework left undone, maybe you can get extra credit helping us figure out what this circus entails.

From the rough translation we were able to obtain on the official website (linked here), "this day of superlatives promises spectacular record attempts, to participate in as well as to marvel at! From the attempt to collect the milk of a coconut with the bare hands to the trial to destroy as many baseball bats as possible with one hand - last year again several record attempts managed to gain an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records."

Another part of the sight implies someone named "Sir Hugh Beaver" will be there to record the records (linked here). Give Sir Beaver your best shot.

Last year, some remarkable accomplishments were achieved:

== Car cramming into a Smart Car: 15 cheerleaders from the Viennese American football team Vienna Vikings folded themselves inside a Smart car. This creates far more questions than answers: How did the Vikings do last season? Did Brett Favre retire from that team? Who had to sit on the back-seat hump? Did the stick shift get in the way? How smart was it really to do this? And did they remember to put on the seat belt?

== Most coconuts crushed by hand: Muhamed Kahrimanovic did 83. Previous record: Skipper, episode 43 of "Gilligan's Island," 1966. Kahrimanovic is also the guy who also holds the record for destroying 65 beer cans in one minute with his bare hands. So, he's a one may recycling crew. Coconut beer has to be his next trick.

== Strongest Man: Franz Müllner turned a 600 kg Fiat eight times around in five minutes. Two years earlier at the Vienna Recordia, he pulled a 60-ton truck over 20 meters. In 2006, a 1.8 ton helicopter landed on his shoulders. Again, proving overseas health care is remarkable when compared to what we have the U.S.

== Longest Wiener Schnitzel: You ready for 9.55 meters? It took 500 people to eat it, with a free salad. Don't go there.

== Most people solving a crossword puzzle: Some 443 participated on a puzzle for 10 minutes. We're not even sure if they finished it. Easily, the most boring record broken that day. In fact it set a record: Most people standing in a crowd bored watching a world record broken.

== Tallest man: Turkey's Sultan Kösen was certified to stand 246.5 cm. That translates to 8 feet, 1 inch. To put that into perspective, that's almost two Al Rokers (or seven of the late Gary Coleman's). Kosen's country sorely missed him at the latest FIBA World Basketball Championships. He was asked recently what he'd like to get out of this title: "To travel and see the world and have a car that accommodates my size! My biggest dream though, is to get married and have children - I'm looking for love." He can kill that in one smooth move: Offer to help the cheerleaders get out of the Smart car.

We're trying to get our headline around a proposal to build a new stadium for the Oakland A's that would essentially be built on a platform above Interstate 980.

The story recently in the Oakland Tribune (linked here) tries to explain how a local ubran designer and planner thinks a new ballpark can be "built over the depressed portion of I-980 between 14th and 18th streets. In essence, the bridges at 14th and 18th streets would be widened to connect, creating a solid platform where the stadium could be built."

Grunwald says greenparks have been installed this way in cities such as Seattle and Phoenix to connect neighborhoods.

But the real hangup in all this, the story continues: "Air rights -- rights to build above a highway." The Federal Highway Administration and the California Department of Transportation need to approve it and "it could take years to get those rights."

Eric Angstadt, planning director for Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency, said the idea of building a ballpark on top of I-980 had been looked at when the city and Major League Baseball began looking at sites but was dismissed because it did not meet certain requirements. He did not elaborate on those requirements.

The Associated Press

Turner Sports and the NCAA announced a 14-year digital rights deal Tuesday that includes management of NCAA.com, the primary web site for all 88 NCAA tournaments and other services.

"We're doing this for a couple of reasons, and we would never do a stupid economic deal," said Lenny Daniels, executive vice president and CEO of Turner Sports. "The long-term television world is going to change, and we think everything is, eventually, going to be interconnected."

Financial terms were not immediately disclosed.

If Daniels is right, Turner Sports' second major coup with the NCAA in five months may put the network in a stronger position to land future contracts.

In April, Turner and CBS announced they were teaming up as broadcast partners for the NCAA's marquee event, the men's basketball tournament, winning a bidding war with a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal that means each game will be broadcast live for the first time in the 73-year history of the event. The NCAA will get an additional $740 million per year, on average, from that deal -- money it says will go back to individual schools and conferences.

But Turner Sports could be the big winner.

Beginning this season, Turner will carry games on three of its cable channels (TBS, TNT and truTV), will begin alternating title game broadcasts with CBS in 2016 and now holds digital rights to all NCAA championships across all three divisions.

According to the website coverbrowser.com (linked here), this particular cover is No. 77 on the list of the Top 100 Worst Album Covers of All Time.

How it relates to the Kings' 2010-11 TV schedule? They have 77 games scheduled to air among Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket (70 there) and Versus, NBC and KDOC.

That means five didn't make it (in L.A.): Nov. 6 at home vs. Nashville (FSW is locked in with a Clippers game at Utah and Prime Ticket is locked in with USC-Arizona State football game), Dec. 18 at Nashville, Dec. 29 at Phoenix, Feb. 2 at Edmonton and March 9 at Detroit.

(What's the problem with Nashville? Aside from the fact hockey should never be played there).

(We also suspect Don Cherry got his jackets from the same store these twins have shopped, but that could be a stretch. A real stretch. A 54-long stretch.)

The coverage on FSW starts with all 10 games in October -- staring with the opener on Saturday, Oct. 9 at Vancouver. For the second season in a row, all FSW/Prime games are in high definition.

An interesting twist: The Kings' games at Anaheim on Nov. 29 and Feb. 23 will both air on FSW, the Kings' home network. Meaning play-by-play man Bob Miller (starting his 38th season) and analyst Jim Fox (in his 21st season) will do their first Kings game from Anaheim, since the network has in the past allowed the Ducks' Prime Ticket package to have sole coverage of previous head-to-head games with their Southern California rival. Miller and Fox may also do the March 13 game at Dallas if NBC passes on it as a regional telecast.

Heidi Androl returns as a reporter (third season) with Patrick O'Neal (sixth season). Steven Dorfman (second season) is the producer and Mike Hassan (15th season) is the director of the FSW telecasts.

All 82 Kings regular-season games are scheduled to air on KTLK-AM (1150), with Nick Nickson (starting his 30th season in the organization and 21st on radio) and Daryl Evans (12th season) on the call. All games have a 30-minute pre-game show and all home games (plus those in Anaheim) will have a "Kings Talk" post-game show.

The Kings Radio Network this season includes KVTA-AM (1520) in Ventura, KHTS-AM (1220) in Santa Clarita, KMET-AM (1490) in Banning, KLOA-AM (1240) in Ridgecrest, KOSS-AM (1380) in Palmdale and KPTR-AM (1450) in Palm Springs.

The Kings also start the exhibition season Wednesday at Colorado on 1150-AM, as well as Thursday at Phoenix, Sept. 28 vs. Anaheim, Oct. 2 vs. Colorado in Las Vegas and Oct. 3 at Anaheim.

Ron Shelton says there were two movies he wanted to make once he was done playing minor-league baseball in the early 1970s.

"Bull Durham" made it in 1988. The Kevin Costner-Tim Robbins-Susan Sarandon cast created a film that's still listed in many Top 10 best sports flicks ever done.

Now, Shelton waits to see if he can get "Our Lady of the Ballpark," about life in the Mexican Leagues, into the batter's box office radar.

It has an Internet Movie Database listing (linked here), but Shelton says that's about as far as it's gone. It's stuck as a movie "in development."

"We've got a script, a budget and a cast, but it's been hard to get off the ground because there's no foreign sales for a baseball movie, and that's what's driving the movie business these days," Shelton, who turned 65 last week, said Saturday during a panel discussion on the 40th anniversary of the Jim Bouton book, "Ball Four" at the Burbank Central Library.

That doesn't seem right. Mexico isn't considered a foreign market?

"Mexico is part of North America," said Shelton. "What about the Latin American market? Not true. The Caribbean (movie) market is as big as San Bernardino. There's not a lot of baseball in South America. Or Western Europe.

"Japan ... we got $1 million out of Japan. South Korea and Taiwan .. that's as big as Pico Rivera in a movie market.

"It's all about the numbers. It's a budget issue. I think we're close. I hope we're getting close."

Shelton said the script he made with "Tin Cup" co-writer John Norville is about a fifth starter for the New York Yankees "who's got a really bad rock band, drives a Lamborghini around Manhattan at about 2 miles and hour and has a Paris Hilton-kind of girlfriend." When he's sent to Triple-A Wilkes-Barre, he refuses to go -- a violation of his contract. The only place his agent can get him a job is in the Mexican League.

"It's all about that journey, and if you ever go to the Mexican League, it's just fabulous," said Shelton, whose five-year minor-league career as a second baseman in the Baltimore Orioles' system took him through places like Stockton, Dallas-Fort Worth and Rochester -- the later being the Triple-A level (minor-league stats linked here). "There are four non-Mexican players on each team, paid in cash every week, so if you have two bad games, you're gone.

"The Americans who go there are pitchers trying to develop another pitch to come back as a closer -- that's a big one -- or guys with bad knees playing first base and hitting home runs. It's a lot of guys in their 30s -- like the French Foreign Legion of sports.

"There's gambling, kids running on the field, cheerleaders on the dugouts in Tecate shorts, mis-matched mascots in uniforms where you can't figure out where they came from. I love the project."

Shelton, who recently did a documentary as part of the "30 For 30" ESPN project on Michael Jordan's decision to quit the NBA and play minor-league baseball, has also stalled on a HBO-related project on bringing the book "Game of Shadows" into a movie. Shelton said most of the hangup is Major League Baseball agreeing to grant the release of game footage involving Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

John McCoy/Daily News staff photographer
Paula and Jim Bouton, right, visit with Jean Hastings Ardell and David Kipen, left, before Saturday's panel discussion in Burbank on the 40th anniversary of the release of "Ball Four."

For those who missed Saturday's day-long tribute by the Baseball Reliquary to Jim Bouton, "Ball Four" and the 1969 Seattle Pilots, it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event for those of us based in Southern California -- kinda like the Pilots' existence.

We were only able to capture a small slice of it with our Sunday column (linked here), but realized afterward we had only really started to pound the Budweiser.

This 40th anniversary of "Ball Four" was not just a chance to thank Bouton in person for what he was able to accomplish, but an experience that is worth savoring for years to come.

Space and time put a limit on what we could cover on the website and in the paper. That's the beauty of the blog.

Among the other things we'll take away from our day in Burbank with fellow Bouton admirers:

== In Bouton's follow-up to "Ball Four" called "I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally" (1971, where he writes that he got a $40,000 advance, unlike the pro-rated $10,000 he got from the publishers at World Books for the one that really set the bar high), he mentions briefly on page 167 that the tentative title for "Ball Four" was "Baseball Journal." The idea was actually a spin-off of the "Instant Replay" book Dick Schaap helped the Green Bay Packers' Jerry Kramer write in 1968 (linked here).

When asked how the title "Ball Four" came into being, Bouton explained Saturday how he and editor Leonard Shecter were at the Lion's Head Tavern in New York, the famous literary bar near Columbia University, having just turned in the finished product into the publisher:

"We went to have a drink to celebrate this piece of cardboard we had just turned in, and we're thinking, 'Now what are we going to call the damn thing?'

"We were talking about the need to have a downbeat title. This isn't a story about how somebody just won the World Series. It's about struggling, about difficulty. What's the toughest thing for a pitcher -- a knuckleball pitcher in particular -- it's to get the damn ball over the plate. It's walking guys ....

"So we're talking about all this, and there was a lady sitting at the bar. She was very drunk. And she was listening to our conversation. And at some point, she leans over and says, 'Whyyyyy don't you caaaaall it Baaaaallllll Foooouuuuurrrrrrr?'

"And we said, 'nawwwww.'

"Finally we couldn't come up with anything. And I was walking Shecter back to his hotel before I went home to New Jersey, and then Shecter says, 'You know, Ball Four isn't a bad title.' So we owe it all to this woman at the bar."

By Bernie Wilson
The Associated Press

Ron Artest is motivated to win another NBA championship because he plans to auction his ring from last season's Lakers title to raise money for mental health counseling in schools.

"I'm still searching for that first ring. I'm not going to have a ring, and I really do want a ring," Artest said during a visit to San Diego to promote an exhibition game against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 21. "This one was on the house. The next one, I guess, you could say, is on me."

During an interview after the Lakers clinched the title with a Game 7 victory over the Boston Celtics in June, Artest thanked his psychiatrist for helping him relax during the playoffs. He said he received counseling for a few months when he was 13, but that funding for the program dried up.

"When I grew up, mental health was something that wasn't talked about. People were scared to say they were seeing a psychologist and stuff like that. Even before the championship I was telling people I was seeing a psychiatrist. When we won the championship, it was on a much more larger scale -- 'Wow, he really said that.' "

AP Photos/Alan Diaz
The Chicago Cubs' Tyler Colvin, right, grimmaces as he scores after he was hit in the chest by a broken bat from teammate Welington Castillos' double, above, in the second inning of a game Sunday in Miami. Colvin was a runner at third base who came home on the hit. MLB Media has tried to prevent all websites from posting video of the incident.

All it takes is one person -- player, ump or fan -- to get impailed by a broken maple bat, and possibly die. Or worse.

Darn, we almost had one Sunday.

It was decided today that the Chicago Cubs' Tyler Colvin, who was hitting .254 with 20 homers and 56 RBIs, would sit out the rest of the season after a shattered maple bat punctured his chest as he scored a run in a game against Florida.

He remains in stable condition at a Miami hospital today and is likely to stay there for a few more days, MLB.com reports.

A Cubs trainer said Colvin was hit in his upper chest, allowing air into his chest well and potentially into his lungs. He was being treated with a chest tube to prevent a collapsed lung, according to The Associated Press.

What's it going to take for baseball to kill maple bats before it kills someone else?

== More on the Colvin story:

== The New York Times (linked here) reports that the number of broken bats declined about 15 percent this season after falling 35 percent last season, according to Major League Baseball. In 2008, about one bat per game was broken compared to about 0.55 bats broken per game this year. (By comparison, 0.57 bases have been stolen per game in the N.L. this year.)

== Bob Nightengale at USA Today (linked here) reported that Oakland Athletics reliever Brad Ziegler, who was hit in the back with a broken bat this month, wrote on Twitter: "Hope it won't take the death of a player/fan to get maple bats banned."

== Time magazine (linked here) refers to Arizona Diamondbacks analyst Mark Grace endorsing a transparent safety film placed over bats.

== The Chicago Tribune's Phil Rogers (linked here) quotes Ron Manfred, MLB's executive vice president of labor relations: "People say ban maple bats. We couldn't play if we banned maple bats. There's not enough ash available. If you banned maple, you'd find there's not enough high-quality ash available. We're dealing with an ash blight in the United States.''

He sounds more worried about a blight of ash bats, knowing there'll always be another player to replace someone like Colvin if he's ever killed.

Steve Mitchell/US Presswire
Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija checks on the condition of Tyler Colvin as Colvin walks back to the dugout on Sunday.

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

MONDAY

NFL: New Orleans at San Francisco, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

The Super Bowl champion Saints have had 11 days off between their opener and this second game. Does that count as a bye week? Still, there was plenty of football news to come out of the Bayou over the last nearly two weeks -- Reggie Bush giving back his Heisman (to the delight of LSU fans), the New Orleans VooDoo returning to the Arena Football League (the Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings are relocating and snatching the name from the defunct franchise) and the city council of Mathews, Louisiana, which is about 20 miles southwest of New Orleans, decided not to impose an ordinance that would change Halloween trick-or-treating as a day-time event because having at night would conflict with the Saints' game on Oct. 31. Ever since the Saints won the Super Bowl, isn't it Christmas every day in New Orleans anyway? You know, aside from natural and man-made disasters.

MLB: Tampa Bay at N.Y. Yankees, 4 p.m., MLB Network:

The Rays took two out of three against the Yankees last week -- even after Derek Jeter pretended to get hit by a pitch -- and the top two left in the AL East have their last four head-to-head meetings starting today at Yankee Stadium, with the Yankees holding a half-game lead. As if it matters: It's just for playoff seedings, since both will make it.

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

The Rangers will be scoreboard watching, waiting to find out if they face the Yankees or Rays in the first round of the playoffs. The Angels will be watching the scoreboard to see if they're actually beating the Rangers. The rest of us will be watching "Hawaii 5-0."

"Dancing With The Stars," 8 p.m., Channel 7:

Former Laker forward Rick Fox and former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner are apt to embarass themselves in the season premiere. Or, set the stage to winning the whole stupid thing.

TUESDAY

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

First 50,000 who crash the gate get an Andre Either fleece blanket. Insert your own jokes about getting fleeced this year. Or whether 50,000 will actually show up. Or if Either will be traded to the Boston Red Sox by this point. He and Dustin Pedroia need to give each other a big hug after this season.

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

Angels pitcher Ervin Santana, who used to be only effective on roadies, now has an ERA that's more than a full point higher at home than away from Anaheim. The Rangers may know how to exploit that.

MLB: N.Y. Yankees at Tampa Bay, 4 p.m., MLB Network:

See Monday.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: N.Y. Yankees at Tampa Bay, 4 p.m., ESPN:

See Monday. And Tuesday.

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

Ted Lilly, tonight's scheduled starter, has actually lost three of his last four starts (with one no decision) after winning his first five appearances since he was traded to the Dodgers at the July 31 deadline. He beat the Padres, 2-1, in his first Dodger start on Aug. 3.

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

Checking back in with C.J. Wilson, the Rangers' starter out of Loyola Marymount: He's lost two of his last three starts after rattling off seven wins in a row since mid-July. He's still ninth in the league in ERA (3.21).

NHL exhibition: Kings at Colorado, 6 p.m.:

Oct. 9 is the first real one. This is the first practice one.

THURSDAY

Golf: PGA Tour Championship in Atlanta, first round, 10 a.m., Golf Channel:

Of the 30 players headed to East Lake, only the top five in points are guaranteed the FedEx Cup should one of them win this event: Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey, Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman and Steve Stricker have the best shot at the $10 mil bonus. "To have a shot to win it, you can't ask for anything else," said Johnson (right). "You know, that's the goal coming into the playoffs. I knew I was in a good situation. You definitely want to be in that top five because if you win and you're in the top five, then you get the $10 million. That would look nice in the bank account." Or, in FedEx credit, depending on how much stuff you ship. Golf Channel has the first two rounds; rounds three and four are first on Golf Channel then on NBC Saturday and Sunday.

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

The final time this year the Dodgers can actually help the Giants by beating the Padres.

NHL exhibition: Kings vs. Phoenix, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m.:

The "Walk With The Dinosaurs" tour should have left Staples Center by now. The Kings also are sending a team to Phoenix to play the Coyotes on this night.

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers at Arizona, 6:40 p.m., Channel 9:

Not to alarm anyone but The Onion fake newspaper reported recently (linked here) that the Diamondbacks organization apologized to fans, their families, and the community at large after more than 16,000 people attending the previous night's game were killed by the poisonous Western diamondback rattlesnakes given out as part of Complimentary Rattlesnake Night.

"I feel terrible," Diamondbacks general manager Jerry Dipoto told reporters as emergency personnel working out of temporary triage stations around Chase Field injected antivenom into the estimated 23,000 victims who survived the initial wave of snakebites. "All we wanted to do was give people something that was symbolic of the Diamondbacks, something they could take home and keep to remember the team by."

(Now, look closely at the photo. To the left, the guy with the Dodger cap smiling. And off to the right, the "Dodgers Suck" sign. Maybe they had it coming).

MLB: Angels vs. Chicago White Sox, Angel Stadium, 7 p.m., FSW:

Rent-a-slugger Manny Ramirez's influence on the White Sox charge to the AL Central title has been about as effective as . . . Manny Ramirez's influence on the Dodgers for the first part of the 2010 season. It's just Manny Being Uncanny.

MLS: Galaxy vs. New York Red Bull, Home Depot Center, 8 p.m, ESPN2:

Oh, Henry. Oh, Becks. A matchup so attractive, ESPN has swiped it and moved it back so it'll come after those watching TCU and SMU play college football are finished. How nice.

SATURDAY

College football: USC at Washington State, noon, Prime:

If Pullman, Wash., really was like the TV show "Cougar Town," the Cougars might draw more recruits. Meanwhile, as the Trojans, in their Pac-10 opener, keep moving down in the AP Top 25 standings, you think they can afford another victory to improve to 4-0?

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

Not that anyone for the sixth-ranked Longhorns will be looking ahead to next Saturday's game against Oklahoma . . . but the Bruins can hope that's the case. Opponents are averaging just 12.7 points a game against Texas, coming off a 24-14 win over Texas Tech, despite three interceptions from QB Garrett Gilbert.

College football: Boise State vs. Oregon State, 5 p.m., Channel 7:

Coach Chris Peterson and the third-ranked Broncos can use a win over the No. 24 Beavers to launch them into the rest of the season that most likely will be against no more ranked teams.

College football: Stanford at Notre Dame, 11:30 a.m., Channel 4:

If the game goes to OT, the Irish will be ready for the Cardinal's educated fake.

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

If the D'backs don't want Kirk Gibson as manager any more, could he be Don Mattingly's new hitting coach?

MLB: Angels vs. Chicago White Sox, Angel Stadium, 6 p.m., Channel 13:

Angels starter Scott Kazmir is only second in the league with 14 losses, one back of Baltimore's Kevin Millwood (3-15).

Mixed martial arts: UFC 119, Indianapolis, 7 p.m., pay-per-view:

The main event: Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop. Yup, it looks like a marquee at a theatre where some of the letters got knocked off.

SUNDAY

NFL: N.Y. Jets at Miami, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4:

Mark Sanchez lost twice to the Dolphins last season, and Miami DB Jason Allen picked Brett Favre off twice in Week 2. The buzz from last week's win over the Patroits should be short lived.

NFL: San Diego at Seattle, 1 p.m., Channel 2:

The Chargers' defense finally looks as if it has awakened. The Seahawks' defense looks pretty wounded. Meanwhile, the network also has Indianapolis-Denver and Oakland-Arizona if that sounds more appealing.

MLB: Dodgers at Arizona, 1 p.m., Prime:

Two more weeks after this ...

MLB: Angels vs. Chicago White Sox, Angel Stadium, 12:30 p.m., FSW:

Two more weeks after this ...

MLB: N.Y. Yankees at Boston, 5 p.m., ESPN:

Like old times. Including the Red Sox with no chance of making the postseason.

NASCAR: AAA 400 from Dover, Del., 10 a.m., ESPN:

Dang, Clint Boyer wins one time this year, and he's second in the Chase standings. If they rankings was by money earned, his $3.4 mil would be No. 20. But then, leading money winner Jamie McMurray ($5.4 mil) missed the cut of the final 12.

Series: "Eastbound & Down," second season debut, 10:30 p.m., HBO:

Kenny Powers drove away in the final episode of the first season, and we weren't sure where the washed-up, ex-big league relief pitcher was headed. He didn't have the tryout he thought was a lock. He left his girl friend at the gas station. And we know he has little common sense. As season two begins, we find him ... in Mexico, where, according to the HBO press release, "he's making a fresh start ... where he can both nurse his wounds and bless the locals with his awesomeness." He's befriended by a Mexican family and a sultry bar singer named Vida. But his comeback dreams haven't disappeared. Seven more episodes, each Sunday. Thanks to Danny McBride, and his new K-Swiss Tubes.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Honestly, sincerely, regrettably, I feel really, really bad for Inez ... her last name escapes me now ....

Was she the one in the wedding dress that one year proposing to Tom Brady? Si? No? (Actually, no, that was another Inez from the Mexico TV net).

She was all over the TV and radio and Internet thing this week for something ... showing up at Jets' camp to do something ...

Seduce the team? Distract the team? Call attention to herself? Make us remember her name?

Sorry, this is all like oatmeal heading for the garbage disposal.

Some can use it whatever this angle is as a launching point about women in the locker room. Was she actually in the locker room? Didn't sound like it.

Others can use it to further their cause about what's approrpriate attire when working as a journalist. I'm still trying to figure that out -- does wearing a tight-fitted adidas polo shirt while covering a Nike team deserve a flogging?

We thought the best thing written about this was from our own Jill Painter (linked here). She's been dumped on before while doing her job. She speaks from some experience. We can't.

Other reporters have also written about this from a female perspective. Sports Illustrated's Ann Killion (linked here). Shannon Owens of the Orlando Sentinel (linked here). USA Today's Christine Brennan wants some punishment handed down (linked here). The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins has an opinion (linked here).

Even Eric Deggans, writing for the National Sports Journalism Center at the University of Indiana site (linked here) makes great points. And another point: Is there a cultural difference here everyone's overlooking (linked here)?

Now, who's the boob that keeps preventing us to escape this mess and move forward? And when can we see ESPN Magazine's nude "Body" issue that comes out Oct. 8 (linked here)?

And we're walking into more trouble with more notes after today's media column (linked here):

== One more quote from Don Yaeger, on how "Tarnished Heisman" was somewhat snubbed by USC (and Reggie Bush) when it came out in early 2008:

"The fact that they said the NCAA was investigating the situation allowed a lot of people (at USC) not to talk. But I did hundreds of radio shows across the country when the book came out, and the conversations I had shows that people were stunned by the level of details we had. I think the book was ignored by USC and Reggie Bush camp when it came out, but it got good play in L.A., and even better in San Diego (Bush's hometown). In the rest of the country, they question was: What does this mean about college sports. It's that the $100 handshake still exists, but the level of graft (Bush) and and his parents got would be hardpressed to find on a daily basis. Reggie was a unique athlete in a unique market at a unique time."

== ESPN sends the irrelevantly irrepressible Dave Lamond and JC Pearson out to the land of 10,000 ex-Lakers to cover the USC-Minnesota college football game (Saturday, 12:30 p.m., ESPN). It goes up against Arizona State-Wisconson, Washington-Nebraska and BYU-Florida State on the ABC/ESPN family of networks in that slot. Meanwhile, Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Rebecca Haarlow have the UCLA-Houston game from the Rose Bowl (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., FSW). It's up against ESPN2's coverage of Texas-Texas Tech. The Bruins face the Longhorns next Saturday.
Our game of interest: No. 9 Iowa at No. 24 Arizona, with Mark Jones and Bob Davie, ESPN, 7:30 p.m.

== More on the "announcer lite" coverage that Golf Channel will give Saturday's third-round coverage of the Nationwide Tour event (linked here).

== Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Harold Lederman are on the HBO pay-per-view call ($44.95) of the Sugar Shane Mosley-Sergio Mora fight from Staples Center (Saturday, 6 p.m.)

== Showtime announced a bantamweight division tournament that it will begin covering on Dec. 11 from Leon, Mexico. The group will be IBF champ Yonnhy Perez, former IBF bantamweight champ Joseph Agbeko, Aber Mares and Vic Darchinyan.

== Culver City-based Tennis Channel has the U.S.-Columbia Davis Cup match this weekend -- and the last one coached by Patrick McEnroe -- as Sam Querrery starts singles matches today at 8 a.m., doubles Saturday at 9 a.m. (the Bryan brothers are not with the team this time) and singles at 8 a.m. on Sunday. Ted Robinson and Leif Shiras will share play by play duties with analyst Justin Gimelstob.

== A feature slated for ESPN's NFL pregame show Sunday (8-to-10 a.m.): Kenny Mayne has a piece called "Soft Knocks" that is described: "While Jets head coach Rex Ryan drew a lot of attention this summer for his profanity-laced language in the HBO series Hard Knocks, the Titans and their head coach Jeff Fisher were filming a similar show that is only just making its way to cable TV on 'Mayne Event.'This week, Kenny Mayne features a special edition of the Titans' Soft Knocks."

== Next edition of HBO's "Real Sports" (Tuesday, 10 p.m., with many replays): A piece by Frank Deford on the how the remains of Jim Thorpe are being fought over, Bernie Goldberg goes to a mascot boot camp, a piece by Jon Frankel on Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, and another story from Frankel revisiting a story he did on the Rangers' Josh Hamilton.

== Fox sends L.A. San Diego-St. Louis for its MLB game of the week (Saturday, 1 p.m., with Chris Rose and Eric Karros, instead of Atlanta-N.Y. Mets and Detroit-Chicago White Sox). Sunday, TBS has N.Y. Yankees-Baltimore (10:30 a.m.) while ESPN takes Detroit-Chicago (5 p.m.)

== Your five-team United Football League TV crew for the upcoming season (again, one without an L.A. team, but one in Vegas, Sacramento, Florida, Omaha and Hartford): On Versus, Craig Minervini replaces Dave Sims as the lead play-by-play man, with Doug Flutie as the analyst, plus former UCLA star Ryan Nece and Sports Illustrated writer Damon Hack as the sideline guys. On HDNet: Kenny Rice, Paul Maguire, Ron Kruck and Paul Crane. There's one more crew on NESN broadcast, but seriously ... The season starts Saturday.

== AND FINALLY:

== Because you can't get enough quality fantasy football information, Sirius XM Radio has allowed actor Jerry Ferrara (Turtle from "Entourage") to host a weekly show that started Thursday (4 to 5 p.m.) on Sirius 211/XM 147. The press release says Ferrara, who grew up in Brooklyn as a diehard New York Giants fan, will host the show each week from Los Angeles taking calls from other fantasy football players around the country as well as do one-on-one chats with other celebrity fantasy football fans.

Actually, the only fantasy football information Ferrara could supply here is whether the "Entourage" storyline about the NFL returning to L.A. gets derailed or not.

Jacksonville Jags star and former UCLA running back Maurice Jones-Drew, this afternoon on the Mason and Ireland show on KSPN-AM (710), discussing the Bruins' situation -- especially when compared to how things are going with USC's football program:

"I believe in what coach Neuheusel is doing, and his staff, and I'm excited. We've got to get everything clicking at the same time. That's what the best teams do. Well, put it this way: At least we haven't done anything to ban ourselves from getting any type of exposure in bowl games or scholarships taken away. At least we're doing the right things. Everybody can cheat and win BCS bowls and go 14-0 and the coach skips town -- anybody can do that. It's doing it the right way that counts."

Take that back to your coach, Jack Del Rio.

Apparently, there's no 24-hour extension requested by the San Diego Chargers -- they have accepted that their Sunday home opener against Jacksonville won't be a sellout, and the blackout rule is in effect.

That is, in San Diego, where apparently enough people have co-ed over-the-line tournaments to complete before summer officially ends in October and they have no time for the Chargers until December when they decide to finally play.

In L.A., we still get a 1 p.m. contest for CBS, and KCBS-Channel 2 has graciously accepted New England at the New York Jets (following Miami-Minnesota).

The TV gods have spoken.

Chris Berry, hired in January of 2009 to be the VP and general manager of ESPN's KSPN-AM (710) all-sports station, has resigned today, according to LARadio.com. Berry had also been a point man in hiring writers and talent for the recently launched ESPNLosAngeles.com website.

Interesting, it was just two weeks ago when the station lost program director Larry Gifford, who resigned to help his wife's business.

Don Yaeger, the New York Times best-selling author whose 2008 book "Tarnished Heisman" (with Jim Henry, linked here) on Reggie Bush's final season at USC pretty much was a must-read by the NCAA, is the focus of Friday's media column. We sought his reaction on the news this week that Bush has decided that it's time to return his 2005 trophy before more tarnish collects on it.

Essentially, Yaeger has a sad satisfaction in being right about what he reported in the book, but some vindication because Bush tried to trash him and his credentials when the book came out.

In the book, by the way, Yaeger quotes New York Times sportswriter and unofficial Heisman historian Bill Pennington as saying Bush would be "the Richard Nixon of college football" if he were to ever lose the trophy.

Two years later, Yaeger still thinks that anology holds true.

"Pennington's right," said Yaeger. "(Bush is) the guy who resigned before he was impeached."

Yaeger, aside from being surprised that the NCAA took so long to release its investigation and lay its punishment on USC, said he could have added to his book with more information supplied by some Bush family members who corroborated facts supplied by others.

"We laid everything out that we had at the time," said Yaeger. "Some family members -- and we knew there was some family rivalry going on -- came forth after the book came out and offered to give us information if we were to retell the book. But we understood that we had to weigh the motives for everyone we interview. It doesn't mean the information is bad. In this case, it was good and detailed. But it didn't change the final outcome."

While Yaeger couldn't get Bush to cooperate with the book several years ago, he did include on the final page a quote Bush gave to the media on how he was handling the speculation about his Heisman acquisition: "At the end of the day, I know what's true. And it will come out and everybody will see that I'm still a good guy; that I'm still the same guy that I was from day one."

To which Yaeger added to finish the book: "At the end of these pages, I think everyone will know that is true."

Read more about it Friday. Meanwhile, catching up on some of Yaeger's previous works you may be familiar with:

== "A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring," with John Wooden, which came out last October (linked here)

== "Turning Of The Tide," with John Papadakis and Sam Cunningham, on the USC-Alabama game from 1971 (linked here)

== "Under the Tarnished Dome: How Notre Dame Betrayed Ideals for Football Glory" with Doug Looney (linked here).

== "It's Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered" (linked here)

== "Undue Process: The NCAA's Injustice for All" (linked here)

== "Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America's Youth" (linked here)

== "Shark Attack: Jerry Tarkanian and his battle with the NCAA and UNLV" (linked here)

== "Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL" (linked here)

== Yaeger's Amazon.com bio and list of books (linked here)

Numbers 71-to-80 will be covered in tonight's episode of "The Top 100: NFL's Greatest Players" on the NFL Network (6 p.m.). This would be episode three, and we're told this group of 10 will include a former UCLA lineman as well as a well-known Bruin quarterback.

The first 20 players revealed to date, for those keeping track but not having access to NFL Net:

100. Joe Namath
99. Michael Strahan
98. Lee Roy Selmon
97. Derrick Brooks
96. Mel Hein

95. Larry Allen
94. Lenny Moore
93. Sam Huff
92. Michael Irvin
91. Fran Tarkenton

90. Kurt Warner
89. Ernie Nevers
88. Ed Reed
87. Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch
86. Willie Davis

85. Marcus Allen
84. Joe Schmidt
83. Norm Van Brocklin
82. Ted Hendricks
81. Steve Young

The Top 100 is a 10-part series highlighting the 100 greatest players in NFL history, as determined by a blue-ribbon panel of football experts, including former players, historians, scouts, team executives and writers.

The Dodgers announced they will have a pregame ceremony on Sunday -- the day Mexico celebrates its bicentennial of independence -- to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Fernando Valenzuela's major-league debut, which actually took place today, on Sept. 15, 1980.

Juan Marcus Gutierrez Gonzalez, the Consul General of Mexico, will represent the Mexican government and participate in the ceremony. Valenzuela will also appear at La Gran Fiesta - Viva Los Dodgers festival at 10 a.m. before the Dodgers-Rockies game.

On this day 30 years ago, the 19-year-old from Sonora, Mexico pitched against the Atlanta Braves at Fulton County Stadium. He came on for the sixth and seventh innings (box score linked here) during a 9-0 loss, giving up two unearned runs and facing nine batters -- and committing a balk. Mike Scioscia was his catcher.

Valenzuela ended up with a 2-0 record in 10 games in the '80 season without allowing an earned run over 17 2/3 innings, striking out 16. His brief September call-up allowed him to pitch the 1981 season as a rookie, where he would win both the NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award.

Unless the Chargers find a way to sell 8,000 tickets by Thursday's 1:15 p.m. deadline -- and don't you think they ought to, considering its their home opener and they're coming off a miserable performance against Kansas City -- there'll be a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way where the mandatory NFL blackout rule will be put to the test right away.

The team could of course ask for an extension to Friday, but will it matter?

The franchise hasn't had a blackout since 2004. That's 48 consecutive regular-season home games. But this time, there's worry. Plenty. Not just on the field.

Chargers executive vice president A.J. Spanos said Wednesday he is "not optimistic the blackout will be lifted."

Neither are we (groovy)...

Without a blackout, L.A. escapes the "market of interest" blanket and can have access to the CBS marque matchup of the weekend -- New England-N.Y. Jets, which will be a late-afternoon-going-into-prime-time affair.

Yippie ka yay to that, Mark Sanchez.

SUNDAY:

== Miami at Minnesota: Channel 2, 10 a.m., with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf. CBS also has Buffalo-Green Bay (with Spero Dedes and Randy Cross), Baltimore-Cincinnati (Bill Macatee and Rich Gannon), Kansas City-Cleveland (Don Criqui and Steve Beuerlein) and Pittsburgh-Tennesse (Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots) in this window.

== Chicago at Dallas: Channel 11, 10 a.m., with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver (going to 56 percent of the country). L.A. misses on Fox's broadcasts of Tampa Bay-Carolina (9 percent, with Dick Stockton and Charles Davis), Arizona-Atlanta (8 percent, with Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick) and Philadelphia-Detroit (5 percent, with Sam Rosen, Tim Ryan and Chris Myers).

== Jacksonville at San Diego: Channel 2, 1 p.m., with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker. If it's blacked out, expect New England-N.Y. Jets (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) over Houston-Washington (Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts). Also in this window, Fox won't be able to show you Seattle at Denver (with Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa) or St. Louis at Oakland (with Ron Pitts and John Lynch).

== N.Y. Giants at Indianapolis: Channel 4, 5:20 p.m., with Michaels, Collinsworth and Kremer.

MONDAY:

== New Orleans at San Francisco: ESPN, 4 p.m., with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden.

Shaun Larkin, the all-conference second baseman on the Cal State Northridge baseball's 2002 Big West championship team, has been added to new head coach Matt Curtis' staff as an assistant coach.

Larkin, a Northridge resident, will work with hitters and infielders as well as recruiting and fundraising with Curtis and pitching coach Tim Leary.

After spending two years at Cypress Junior College and one year at Texas Tech, the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Larkin hit .361 with 15 home runs, 49 RBIs and 16 doubles in 2002, his only year at CSUN, as the Matadors finished 41-17 and made it to the NCAA Regionals. He also had 59 walks and a .507 on-base percentage to go with a .668 slugging percentage.

A ninth-round pick by the Cleveland Indians, Larkin played six years of pro baseball and got as high as the Triple-A level before he was hired as a minor-league coach. His most recent jobs were as an assistant coach at Newport Harbor High School, focusing on leadership skills in the classroom, and an assistant at Orange Coast College.

== Larkin's minor-league statistics from BaseballReference.com (linked here)

Dear Reggie Bush:

We're not a media consultant, but we play one in the newspaper. At this point, we kind of know how the game is played, we have some contacts with people in the business, we watch a lot of TV, we have a computer.

Say, you got a second?

Just a few problems with your latest media fumble as you try to rectify your standing with the Heisman Trophy people specifically and with your college reputation in general.

Paragraph three, sentence two of your statement this week -- released on the New Orleans Saints website, and then left out there to be interpreted by whomever wanted to take a shot at it:

"The persistent media speculation regarding allegations dating back to my years at USC has been both painful and distracting. In no way should the storm around these allegations reflect in any way on the dignity of this award, nor on any other institutions or individuals. Nor should it distract from outstanding performances and hard-earned achievements either in the past, present or future."

First, this doesn't even sound like you. Congrats on finding someone who wrote this script for you. Except that's the first place you blew it. Make it your own voice.

Or, do you even have an opinion about this? It seems to this point you really don't. That's the problem.

About this "media speculation." You've touched on something that's really not going to help your cause here.

You probably heard of this book that Don Yaeger wrote way back in 2008 called "Tarnished Heisman: Did Reggie Bush Turn his Final College Season into a Six-Figure Job?"

I'm guessing you tried to ignore it, didn't read it, hoped it went away.

It's still out there. And, for those of us who do read, gleaned a lot of background on your time at USC, it's all laid out pretty clearly about what appears to have happened.

For those who need a picture and sound, we saw HBO reports on this a few times on "Real Sports," with the guy who said he loaned you money to fix up your car, gave your parents the house and pretty much admitted that if you had just paid him back, none of this would have come to light.

Media speculation is one of those generic phrases that get thrown around, because, when we don't have facts, we tend to speculate.

So, that said, why not come clean and give the media some facts to speculate with?

My point is: Let us help you help us.

This media that helped build up your image, documented your accomplishments, recorded the video that the Heisman folks could view before making their votes, can be a vehicle of redemption here if you allow it.

This is the point in the game where you find a reporter who you trust, you sit down in front of the TV camera, you let the questions come, you answer them honestly, then this gets out there, and there's no more "speculation."

You up for it? Apparently not. That's going to be another problem.

Instead, you've taken one step forward by giving the Heisman trophy back, but another step back by failing to apologize or explain further what you knew about what happened.
You've created more questions by coughing up the Heisman without admitting any wrongdoing.

Then why return it? It makes no sense.Your actions have spoken louder than your words -- there's no reason for it.

There may be, in your mind, a population of the media that relishes the fact that it can bring down a Heisman trophy winner. Realize there's a much bigger group that simply wants to report the truth about what happened.

You want more speculation? Some sports-talk guys have said they think you're taking the bullet for your family, wanting to protect them from the NCAA rules they violated.

That's honorable. Let's go with that one, if you're comfortable.

The statement you delivered Wednesday implies you want to help others not make the same mistakes. How can you do that? Explain it further.

Bottom line: Don't assume the media is trying to twist your arm for a confession. It just wants the truth. And some remorse, perhaps. And the more non-truth that is out there, the worse it will get.

If you want the media to push you in the same corner with Roger Clemens, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods . . . nicely done. But, really. From a media, damage-control point of view, you could put your USC education to better use and take a smarter path toward finding a hole and running through it.

Some media say this transparent gesture of giving the trophy back before the Heisman Trophy trust asked for it back is just the start. If you have stories to back up your innocence, let's hear it. If you don't, come clean.

"Don't take the ball 93 yards and now kick a field goal," Dan Patrick said on his nationally syndicated radio show today. He speaks for a segment of the media that would gladly like to get the end of this story so we can all move on, do some good.

Good can't be done if there's still too many bad feelings out there.

You've done a lot of great things in your time in New Orleans with helping the community there. You're looked up to by a lot of kids who wear your jersey. It's your life, but the more you keep the media out of it, the tougher it will be to run and hide.

Just pitchin' it out there to you. As always, what you do when you receive it is up to you.

On the 40th anniversary of the Jim Bouton ground-breaking book, "Ball Four," written about his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston 45s, the Pasadena-based Baseball Reliquary is gearing up for a celebration Saturday at the Burbank Central Library (110 N. Glenoaks Blvd.) from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The day starts with a Q-and-A panel discussion on "Ball Four" with Bouton, who has flown in for the event from his home in Massachusetts with his wife Paula, joined by director Ron Shelton, author Jean Hastings Ardell and David Kipen, a former Daily News writer who was Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts and is the current current proprietor of Libros Schmibros, a lending library and used bookstore in Boyle Heights.

The premier of the documentary, "The Seattle Pilots: Short Flight Into History" is at 1:30 p.m., and a 3 p.m. panel discussion on the history of the Pilots includes former players Bouton, Tommy Davis and Greg Goossen, the former Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High standout who played on the team during its one and only season in 1969 and led them with a .309 batting average.

The day ends with a book signing by Bouton.

More information at the Baseball Reliquary (linked here) or at 626.791.7647, or by e-mail Baseball Reliquary director Terry Cannon at terymar@earthlink.net.

Info on directions to the library: (818) 238-5600.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Listen to Vin Scully call a clip of Bouton's performance in the 1963 World Series, and then watch Bouton strike out Davey Lopes in his comeback with the Atlanta Braves):

More background on "Ball Four" from recent media submissions:

== MLB.com's Ben Platt has this look back at the book, with video that the MLB Network's Bob Costas did of an interview with Bouton (linked here).

== Rock music critic Robert Christgau's essay, "Bouton Baseball," written in the spring of 1971, about a year after the book's initial publication: (linked here).

== Wall Street Journal sportswriter Allen Barra's piece, "Pitching Deep and Inside," from April 7, 2010: (linked here).

== Ron Kaplan's three-part podcast interview with Bouton on his site RonKaplanBaseballBookshelf.com: (linked here and here and here).

== Kaplan's piece, "The Legacy of Ball Four," for the Huffington Post: (linked here).

== National Public Radio Weekend Edition's Scott Simon interviewed Bouton for his show last Saturday: (linked here).

== A recent Q-and-A from BlueWorkhorse.com (linked here)

Photo illustration from GolfDigest.com

Today marks Jim Nantz's 25th anniversary with CBS Sports -- Sept. 14, 1985, in the studio with Pat Haden for the Prudential College Football Report, as Brent Musburger, looking live at the Notre Dame-Michigan game, introduced the 26-year-old to the audience.

Between then and today, Nantz has won two Emmys for play-by-play and five National Sportscaster of the Year awards.

CBS had Nantz list his top 25 memories at CBS (with three of the top four happening this year):

1. April 12, 1992: Fred Couples, Nantz's former college roommate at the University of Houston, wins the Masters, and Nantz interviews him for the green jacket ceremony -- just as they had rehearsed in their dorm room back in 1979. "It's a perfect fit!... Fred Couples... Masters champion," Nantz said that day in Butler Cabin. Reflecting back, Nantz says: "I cannot imagine ever witnessing a moment that will touch me more deeply than this perfect fulfillment of a glorious dream that was shared by intimate friends for so many years."

2. February 7, 2010: The New Orleans Saints, with the hopes of a city that was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina that nearly destroyed their city five years before, defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17. Before an estimated average audience of 106.5 million viewers, the game became the most-watched program in television history.

3. April 5, 2010: Playing just seven minutes from their campus in Indianapolis, life was imitating art from the movie Hoosiers as the Cinderella Butler Bulldogs went up against the mighty Duke Blue Devils in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball National Championship. Trailing 61-59 with seconds remaining, Butler's Gordon Hayward heaved a half-court shot that missed by inches of giving Butler the title. Duke's win is the fourth for Mike Krzyzewski as coach of the Blue Devils.

4. April 11, 2010: With his wife, Amy, who had been diagnosed with cancer 11 months earlier, watching nervously from the gallery on the 18th green, Phil Mickelson birdies the 72nd hole to wrap up a three-shot win for his second Masters championship with a "Win for the family."

5. April 13, 1986: 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus wins his historic sixth green jacket with a final round 65 (including a back nine 30) to become the oldest man to win the Masters -- and increase his record of major victories to 18. Nicklaus' birdie on 16 elicited Nantz's famous summation: "The Bear has come out of hibernation!" About calling his first Masters at age 26, Nantz comments: "As much as I'd like to think that I had always been preparing myself for that moment, I must confess that I was so nervous my teeth were chattering involuntarily. I was worried that the noise emanating from my clicking molars would be picked up by my open microphone."

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

MONDAY

NFL: Baltimore at N.Y. Jets, 4 p.m., ESPN; San Diego at Kansas City, 7:15 p.m., ESPN:

The Jets' latest reality series continues. Or, rather, debuts for real. The last four teams who've yet to play a game get on the field, but the Jets have the most off-season buzz thanks to an HBO show that allowed coach Rex Ryan to be himself. Although the Giants played at the New Meadowlands in a game that counted Sunday, the Jets get their chance tonight. Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski are present for the ESPN broadcast. As soon as it ends, we go to K.C. for Brad Nessler and Trent Dilfer (thankfully, no Mike Ditka involvement) for the Chargers' opener in the newly renovated Arrowhead Stadium. It's the first MNF game in K.C. since November, 2004.

Tennis: U.S. Open men's final: Rafael Nadal vs. Novak Djokovic, Channel 2, 1 p.m.:

Whether or not you agree, the weather says to push this back a day to here, where it'll knock out "As The World Turns," "Rachael Ray" and "Judge Judy."

TUESDAY

Soccer: Chivas Classico: Chivas de Guadalajara vs. Chivas USA, San Diego's Petco Park, 8 p.m.:

While the NL West-leading Padres are immersed in a 10-game, 11-day road trip, Petco Park will be torn up for an exhibition soccer game because the city wants to bring soccer to the downtown area. Why not have it at Qualcomm Park, the Chargers' home field? Although the Petco grass cutters will have more than a week to fix it up, some of the Padres players weren't happy to hear about this contest. San Diego relief pitcher Heath Bell told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the plan was "asinine. ... Let's see, they held a concert during Comic-Con and killed the grass in left (field). OK, so let's go to a soccer match. We're in a pennant race. Much of the nation will probably be seeing us for the first time. Shouldn't we be trying to put our best foot forward?" We are, with global football. Now, open the border and let the Mexico fans in.

MLB: Dodgers at San Francisco, 7:15 p.m., Channel 9:

Probably just as well the Dodgers continue their 10-game roadie away from the McCourt mess going on in the L.A. courts this week. Players wearing Dodger uniforms you may see competing in this series: Mitchell, Oeltjen, Ellis, Lindsey and Link. Have at 'em, Zito. The last 18 games of the year for the Dodgers are against NL West foes And all of them will be called by Vin Scully (no more Eric Collins).

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

We're so done with the Indians. But the Angels aren't. Play 16-inning affairs in each of the next three if you really want to get anyone's attention.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at San Francisco, 7:15 p.m., Prime:

ESPN has already locked this game into their schedule for this night, right after the Yankees-Rays telecast. This is the network, after all, whose reporter Buster Ulney revealed last week that the Giants' Aubrey Huff is "the guy wearing the lucky red thong ... and we know that's very crucial for their divisional hopes." Huff put it on to break out of a 3-for-32 slump last week. And it's working. Don't get huffy about the rally thong.

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

We suggest watching the movie "Major League" for the 158th time for two hours better spent memorizing lines.

Series debut: "Survivor," Channel 2, 8 p.m.:

Jimmy Johnson, the 67-year-old former Super Bowl and college football national champion coach, currently a Fox NFL studio analyst, allows his hair to get mussed up during this year's series that takes place in Nicaragua. We can't tell you if he won, but we're guessing at some point, Terry Bradshaw will let it slip. Talking to reporters later week, Johnson said he knew the reality series was popular, but he's surprised that more people he runs into wants to talk to him about the show instead of football. Or his use of ExtenZe. Johnson' came back not only thinner, but with shorter hair. No hair jell allowed on the island. "I did have my hair shorter than it has been since I've been in high school," he said. "A big part of the show, I was standing there in my underwear, so I wasn't really concerned what I looked like."

THURSDAY

MLB: Dodgers at San Francisco, 7:15 p.m., Channel 9:

The Dodgers' season-long 10-game road trip finally ends. You guess as to how many games below .500 they'll be at this juncture.

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

And, when this is done, we're leaving Cleveland and heading to Florida. LeBron-ja-vue.

MLB: Minnesota at Chicago White Sox, 5 p.m., MLB Network:

The last regularly scheduled matchup between the top two teams in the AL Central. Manny, the stage is set.

FRIDAY

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 7:10 p.m., Prime:

The Rockies come into this week with a 10-game winning streak before playing three against the Padres, and in theory could come into thie game against the Dodgers leading the NL West -- just as many predicted could happen before the season started. Jim Tracy's boys have found their late-season juice again. And if you want to see a real-life Triple Crown candidate? Rockies center fielder Carlos Gonzalez (.337 leads the league, 32 HRs is fourth and 100 RBIs is third) is right there with Joey Votto and Albert Pujols. And the 24-year-old Gonzalez is making just $406,000 this year.

MLB: Angels at Tampa Bay, 4 p.m., FSW:

The Angels' tour of the non-AL West continues in the great domed facility -- one of two remaining with fake grass. In their last series, back at Anaheim, the Rays won two of three but the Angels won the finale when Mike Napol drove in six runs off Jeff Niemann.

SATURDAY

College football: USC at Minnesota, 12:30 p.m., ESPN:

A breakdown in the latest ESPN Magazine of all 120 FBS mascots reveal there are 16 of them named after warriors (such as the Trojans) and just two named after rodents (in this case, Gophers). Looking for the other rodent? Go for it. These Minnesotans should not be confused with those from Minnesota State -- which, of course, doesn't exist, except in reruns of "Coach." Then again, Minnesota State would have never lost to South Dakota. The Gophers did that last week, 41-38.

College football: UCLA vs. Houston, Rose Bowl, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

We thought this "monopoly" ad would come in handy. Again. After a 35-0 loss to Stanford, dropping the Bruins to 0-2 with a game against No. 6 Texas coming up in two weeks, winning this one against the Cougars seems to be must or else 0-4 is looking mightly probable. Houston running back Bryce Beal is 15th in the nation in rushing yards (243), but the numbers that jump out the most after two games -- five TDs (tied for second) and a 10.1 yards-per-carry average (third overall). Teammate Michael Hayes also has four rushing TDs. Houston is also officially averaging 61 points a game so far.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 1:10 p.m., Prime:

Just be aware of this kid, Chris Nelson, when he's standing all by himself at third base with no one paying attention. He'll swipe home on you.

MLB: Angels at Tampa Bay, 4 p.m., Channel 13:

The talk continues that Hideki Matsui, who struggled in the first half of the season but has hit over .400 in August and Septebmer, may not have done enough to ensure the Angels will bring him back next year. The 36-year-old will go free after a one-year, $6 million deal with the Angels. He said when he joined the New York Yankees in 2003, his goal was to play 10 big-league seasons. "Right now, the way I see it, I really don't have a longterm goal," Matsui said. "I look at it year-by-year. I have to wait until the season finishes and then think about what will happen next. As of right now, I have no thoughts about going back to Japan." Why not? It's what most MLB players think about doing at the end of their careers.

Soccer: Galaxy vs. D.C. United, Home Depot Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

Becks is back, Buddle is scoring again and the Galaxy look united with a three-point lead over the Salt Lakers. Maybe it's best that Beckham stick to coming in as a reserve for a while. ESPN's Jeff Carlisle described his return last week against Columbus: "Even before he entered the game ... he looked set to take a Monty Python sketch to an even more absurd conclusion, threatening to lead the Ministry of Silly Walks, Lunges, Leans and Skips in an effort to keep his surgically repaired Achilles loose on the sideline."

Boxing: Sugar Shane Mosley vs. Sergio Mora, Staples Center, 6 p.m.:

The Mexican bicentennial rings in L.A. with 39-year-old Mosley, his best years behind him, taking on Mora (21-1-1 with six KOs). Not to split cabellos here, but both of them are U.S. Americans. "This should be a great fight," Mosley has said. "Sergio Mora is definitely a competitor and he's coming to fight. He's the right opponent right now because he's tough, he's bigger than me, it's in LA and fighting at the Staples Center in front of 20,000 people is exciting. It's very important for me to fight there and give the hometown fans a chance to see me up close, and I'm predicting a knockout." Mexican welterweight Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and top junior welterweight contender Victor Ortiz will fight co-featured bouts. The card starts at 2 p.m.

SUNDAY

NASCAR: Sprint Cup at New Hampshire, ESPN, 10 a.m.:

Again, we're not sure how NASCAR does its post-season. While the top 12 drivers are battling during the last 10 races, there's still a full field to race against. Any one of the "non playoff" racers can knock someone else out with a sharp left turn. Since "The Chase" was brought into the fold in 2004, only Jimmie Johnson has qualifed every year, and with a season-high-tying five wins coming into this, he's still in the thick of it, 10 points behind leader Denny Hamlin. Remember, the chase will run through Fontana again on Oct. 10.

MLB: Dodgers vs. Colorado, Dodger Stadium, 1:10 p.m., Prime:

Maybe this is the time Joe Torre allows Kenley Jansen to pitch and catch in the same game.

MLB: Angels at Tampa Bay, 10:30 a.m., FSW:

Good luck to the Rays when the playoffs start. Sorry the Angels couldn't have made it more competitive.

NFL: New York Giants at Indianapolis, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4:

The sequel to Manning Bowl I will be tough to match the first one -- on Sept. 10, 2006, Peyton Manning's Colts pulled off a 26-21 win over Eli Manning's Giants in East Rutherford, N.J. Peyton finished 25-of-41 for 276 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The two-time MVP also led the Colts to scores on five of their first seven possessions. Eli was 20-of-34 for 247 yards and two TDs. He also had two costly second-half mistakes -- a fumble and an interception, both of which came with New York down two points. Both led to Indianapolis scores. (By the way, there actually was a Manning Bowl, a football and soccer stadium in Lynn, Mass., that served as home to the Boston Yanks of the NFL from 1944 to '48 (linked here).

NFL: Jacksonville at San Diego, 1:15 p.m., Channel 2:

Early indications are this one won't even sell out, meaning L.A. could get to see CBS' coverage of Patriots-Jets instead. Chargers CEO Dean Spanos has told the media that slow ticket sales are "an unfortunate fallout of the economy. We haven't raised prices in over three years. We have payment schedules to ease the burden. ... " You could always close up and move back to L.A.

When the Kings hold their sold-out "Hockey Fest '10" today in El Segundo, perhaps a few in the team's organization will be aware that a 6-year-old gelding named Aces Mark is set tol run in the eighth race at Belmont Park in New York.

According to a story in the Canadian Press, on the Toronto Globe & Mail website (linked here), the horse is named for the two former Kings' scouts -- Ace Bailey and Mark Bavis -- who were killed nine years ago in the 9/11 attacks. They were aboard United Airlines flight 175 when it crashed into the World Trade Center.

The irony that Aces Mark is running today, on 9/11, hasn't escaped the ownership group.

"I'd like to tell you we planned this, but we didn't," said Lew Mongelluzzo, the longtime Ottawa Senators scout who operates Team Power Play Racing, which owns the horse and includes Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville and Carolina Hurricanes scout Bob Luccini owning a stake in Aces Mark. .

Bailey, 53, was the Kings director of scouting. Bavis, 31, was starting his second season as an amateur scout for the Kings. Aces Mark is a way to "keep their spirit alive in another fashion," Mongelluzzo said. "It's not about money. We'll never get even -- I can tell you that."

Aces Mark, which suffered from a number of serious ailments after being purchased, has four wins in 20 starts.

Mongelluzzo said he will skip the first day of the team's prospect tournament to watch the race in person.

"There's no better word for it than bittersweet," Mongelluzzo said Friday. "As much as you get excited about the race -- we feel the horse is doing well and going to perform well -- it takes a split second to remember everything that's gone wrong and why we're here. The reality is that it's not a happy time."

Here's a link to the Bailey & Bavis memorial fund set up by the Kings.

The show that makes us laugh so hard we often cry, "Tosh.0" on Comedy Central, had host Daniel Tosh go to a new website called CelebrityNetWorth.com to check out, well, a celebrity's net worth.

This otherwise wouldn't have led us directly to the laptop until one of the names Tosh pulled up, ESPN's Stuart Scott, really caught our eye. Both left and right.

"I assume he can't see all of his check," Tosh said before revealing the number: $15 million (linked here). Tosh had guessed it to be $2 mil.

As long as we're throwing darts, why not everyone at ESPN (linked here). What's their bank?

== CEO George Bodenheimer: $25 mil.
== Chris Berman: $12 mil.

That's all they've got. Compare that to an average salaries at McDonald's:

Fry Cook: $8.44 an hour
Swing Manager: $8.98 an hour
Cashier: $16,550
Crew Members: $18,693
Assistant Store Manager: $27,732
Assistant Manager: $28,825
Store Manager: $36,534 a year to $42,895

Life's not fair. If you were famished and didn't know where your next meal was coming from, who would you rather see at the end of the day?

Now, compare and contrast:

== Bob Costas: $32.5 mil.
== Billy Bob Thornton: $45 mil.
== Bob Arum: $200 mil.

== Al Michaels: $9 mil.
== Weird Al Yankovic: $10 mil.
== Bret Michaels: $18 mil.

== Verne Lundquist: (Does not compute)
== Verne Troyer: $10 mil.

See, Costas is worth three Troyers, although we're not sure really how that stacks up in real-world numbers.

Hell, we could play this all day if we didn't notice the sun was out and life was going by at an incredible rate of speed since we had our last 5 Hr Energy drink five minutes ago.

Tosh, by the way, is worth $1.5 mil if you punch his name into the site's search engine. On the show, he said it was $400,000 -- in the red.

Those at CelebrityNetWorth.com must really not be all that well known, since it says those watching "Tosh.0" on Wednesday crashed the site the next day (story linked here), apparently also trying to verify Scott's true net worth.

We see the world as a better place now. Thanks to men like Stu Scott keeping it real.

From today's Sports Business Daily:

A main reason for Twitter's appeal is its "ability to deliver breaking news instantaneously," but this week we were "reminded on two notable occasions -- both involving Tom Brady -- that the race to be the first to report something too often results in an incomplete or inaccurate story," according to Chad Finn of the Boston Globe (linked here).

The news that the Patriots quarterback was "close to signing a three-year contract extension," first reported on Monday on WEEI-AM's "Dennis & Callahan Show" and soon thereafter by the Boston Herald, quickly "blew up on Twitter, with varying levels of assuredness." ESPN's Adam Schefter was "all over the map as the story evolved." The NFL reporter first tweeted at 11:15 am on Monday: "Aware of Brady-contract talk. But two knowledgeable people say reports of deal being in place are 'inaccurate' and 'wrong.' We'll see."

Schefter again posted about Brady's contract talks at 4:27 pm, and then at 6:25 pm wrote in part, "Boston Herald was on to something."

Finn notes Brady was "at the center of a second Twitter sandstorm" Thursday when "news of his car accident early that morning began trickling out."

WEEI again was "ahead of the story." But one "crucial factor was inaccurately reported elsewhere," then "repeated and re-tweeted by other outlets and reporters."

Brady, contrary to those reports, "did not have to be extricated from his vehicle." That was a "critical detail to be wrong about, and a high-profile piece of evidence that racing to Twitter to report something can backfire."

Also, the Boston Herald's Steve Buckley writes (linked here) that while new media is "very much a part of our culture, and an important one, the old-fashioned rules of the 11 o'clock news and the morning newspaper should still apply: Get it right."

After Brady's car accident on Thursday, there "was some rushing to get the news out, and not all of it was accurate."

It is "doubtful anyone acted maliciously, but there are times when the quest to get a story online six minutes ahead of the competition can get out of hand."

Buckley notes Brady has "long since stopped being a mere local sports hero." His celebrity status is "at the point where he has transcended sports to the point that he is a pop icon."

Citizens, "whether sports fans or not, played a role in this in that they couldn't get enough Tom Brady news yesterday."

Added Buckley: "Was the coverage of Brady's car accident excessive? Well, sure. Were the television helicopters really necessary? Probably not. But it's a tad hypocritical for anyone in the media to use his or her platform to condemn those who use different tools to get out their message."

Why would anyone be surprised that Pete Rose has better plans than attend the Cincinnati Reds' ceremony Saturday night to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his breaking the all-time hits record?

Despite earlier reports, that's not the case this weekend. At Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, the Reds' great American dicotomy currently living in Sherman Oaks will be at a casino for a roast in his honor, but that will occur after Saturday's game honoring his achievement.

Note, this Hollywood Casino where he'll be participating in the event is about a half-hour away from Cincinnati, not the Hollywood Casino in Inglewood where Rose has appeared several times in his post-career for autograph signings.

Still, not a great PR move. But that's Pete being Pete.

Last month, when the Baseball Reliquary tried to induct Rose into its Shrine of the Eternals -- perhaps the only time Rose would be honored with a baseball-related Hall of Fame-sort-of induction -- he couldn't make it because of a committment to be in a Chicago suburb at an autograph show.

The logistics of this weekend's ceremony, and Rose's current lifetime ban from the make, also make his appearance problematic.

According to a story on MLB.com (linked here), the Reds have not previously been allowed to hold any on-field ceremonies to honor Rose or his achievements. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig had to approve this ceremony -- it will occur prior to the game -- and it will include a video to Rose, who will appear on the field and wave, but not allowed to speak.

He'll be with former teammates Tony Perez, Ken Griffey Sr., Tommy Helms, Tom Browning and Cesar Geronimo. Johnny Bench? Must have other plans.

Sunday, Rose and his family will also be in attendance at the Reds' series finale against Pittsburgh.

We side with Sports Illustrated's Pete Daugherty, who wrote (linked here) that Rose's decision "defies logic ... And good judgment and, to most of us, good sense. And it never ends."

As long as we're focused in today's media column (linked here) on Mike Florio's blogathon for ProFootballTalk.com, via NBCSports.com, we thought it was worth rehashing a post that popped up this week on the site (linked here) involving the NFL Network's hiring of Joe Theismann for game-calling later this season:

This is one of those decisions that makes you question everything about sports television executives. They decided to add a lot more money to their budget in order to drive a significant portion of their audience crazy.

We just hope they don't wait two years, like they did with Bryant Gumbel.

The post, however, wasn't by Florio, but by another who contributes, Gregg Rosenthal. Touche.

Some of the comments posted even left us laughing.

realitypolice says: "For the first time ever, I am happy my cable provider doesn't carry the NFL network."

Swive says: "Maybe this is their strategy to make Millen more credible - by comparison to Theismann, he's a freaking genius."

Slim Charles says: "When Theismann got floated for the Notre Dame broadcast gig, I almost became a USC fan. Nice job NFL Network."

FinFan68 says: "Find some hot chick that actually knows something about football. The guys there are getting for these jobs have their moments but are horrible most of the time...and that is not limited to NFLN coverage."

JackBurden says: "Theesman (intentional misspelling) has always been a joke. Agreed he is often unprepared and his stories are irrelevant to the game and self-serving. Most troubling are his seemingly racial comments. He often refers to white players as hard-working, playing with passion and leadership. They are "students of the game". Dark-skinned players are referred to as instinctual, natural athletes, etc... Very troubling."

Blackbeard says: "Please hire LT to break his leg again!"

nutbuster says: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOO!"

What else is there left to learn:

== Because the overhead shots are what we've come to expect (check out your kids' Xbox video games related to any sports contest), there has been some nice work done by the ESPN2 "SpiderCam," used this week over Arthur Ashe Stadium during the U.S. Open coverage. The camera is, according to ESPN information, is suspended by four thin Kevlar ropes connected to large winches via pulleys high above the court surface on light poles. The wiring for the images is on fiber optics within the Kevlar roping.

"We have started using SpiderCam as a live camera source, bringing a cinematic approach to the coverage," said Jamie Reynolds, vice president, ESPN event production. "As an analytical device we are using it for replays directly overhead, and then taking it into new areas, as we tie it to use of the Orad MVP tracking technology. This allows us new perspectives to breakdown strategy and deconstruct points."

CBS has the men's doubles final (today, 9:30 a.m.) with Camarillo's Mike and Bob Bryan trying to defend their title, as well as an attractive women's semifinals double dip (a window that goes until 3 p.m.). ESPN2 has the women's doubles final (Sunday, 10 a.m.). Otherwise, CBS has the rest, including the women's final Saturday (5 p.m.) after the two men's semifinals (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.), and the men's final Sunday (1 p.m.). Dick Enberg, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo are on the call.

With Venus Williams on board, the TV talk about whatever outfit she chooses will definitely be up for conversation. In her CBS appearance last week, McEnroe said at one point as Williams kept tugging on the tight outfit: "I think that dress has distracted (Williams)." Enberg responded: "It's distracting you."

More info: http://www.usopen.org/en_US/about/tv_us.html

== Kings' Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller will miss Saturday's "Kings Fest '10" at the team's El Segundo training facility because he's undergoing a precautionary surgical procedure on Friday that needs to be done early enough so he can be ready for the start of the season.

== Barry Tompkins and Petros Papadakis call Saturday's USC-Virginia game from the Coliseum (Prime Ticket, 7:30 p.m.), with Rebecca Haarlow (who's not shy about presenting her wares on her website) down on the sidlines. Lindsay Soto and John Jackson have post-game coverage. For the UCLA 7:30 p.m. home opener against Stanford at the Rose Bowl, ESPN sends Carter Blackburn, Mike Bellotti and Brock Huard back out (they did the Bruins' game last week at Kansas Sate).

== You have a problem with former Raider Tim Brown working as an ESPN analyst, and pimping a sports betting website? (linked here).

== Terry Gannon, Carolyn Peck, Rebecca Lobo and Heather Cox will cover the Atlanta-Seattle WNBA best-of-five finals starting Sunday (noon, Channel 7). The rest of the series is on ESPN2.

== We've noticed ESPN has now distinguished these two in press releases: Chris Mortensen is "senior NFL analyst" and Adam Schefter is "NFL Insider." What's the insider scoop on that delineation?

== Larry Gifford, who announced in a press release last week that he's leaving as the program director for KSPN-AM (710) as of Monday, Sept. 13, has started a website (linked here) to consult with those who could use some consultation. He and his wife are also opening the Body of Light Healing Arts center -- both are certified practitioners of energetic medicine.

== Your MLB national games: Fox (Saturday, 1 p.m., Channel 11) has San Francisco at San Diego (with Chris Rose and Eric Karros, going to 21 percent of the country, instead of St. Louis-Atlanta or Philadelphia-N.Y. Mets); The MLB Network takes San Francisco-San Diego on Friday (7 p.m.) and the N.Y. Yankees-Texas on Saturday (5 p.m.). TBS also has Yankees-Rangers (Sunday, 10 a.m.); ESPN has St. Louis-Atlanta (Sunday, 5 p.m.)

== With the Dodgers in Houston this weekend, pay attention to the MLB Net's feature on J.R. Richard, which Bob Costas narrates (Saturday, 4:30 p.m.).

== Mighty decent news for Anaheim Mighty Ducks fans on the TV schedule coming up (linked here). Where's the Kings' schedule?

== Sirius XM satellite radio has added former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach for a daily college football show as part of a new college football channel (Sirius 122/XM 143). Leach will also debut as a CBS College Sports channel analyst when he's Roger Twibell's partner on the North Carolina State-Central Florida game (Saturday, 4:30 p.m.). The net starts its college football coverage with Hawaii-Army (9 a.m., Dave Ryan and Jason Sehorn) and Georgia Southern-Navy (12:30 p.m. with Craig Bolerjack and Randy Cross).

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

== There's no reason why Cincinnati Bengals receivers Terrell Owens and Chad OchoCinco need more TV time, but Versus said this week they'll give it to 'em in return for some presumed attention to their network. Owens and OchoCinco will do "The T.Ocho Show" starting Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m., right after an NHL telecast. This is more a warning than an announcement or endorsement that it even exists.

Versus notes that "The T.Ocho Show" will be "the first ever weekly national football talk show to feature two active players." A yet-to-be-named host will "referee the on-screen mayhem sure to take place."

Both Owens ("The T.O. Show") and OchoCinco ("The Ultimate Catch") had reality shows recently wrap up on VH-1.

Versus programming VP Andy Meyer told USA Today earlier this week: "We'd love this to be the creation of a new genre of television" where athletes can speak "without layers of editors or beat writers filtering them out."

For these two, having someone filter them out is probably to their benefit. God bless Versus, but this will probably be viewed in the NFL offices by as many punishment police as possible. It's a suspension waiting to happen.

AND FINALLY:

== More lowlights from a post-Hawaii trip and pre-Virginia game from USC radio play-by-play man Pete Arbogast blogging on WeAreSC.com:

From Sunday (reviewing the Sept. 2 opener): "Our broadcast felt like we had been together in the booth for the past ten years. The flow was nice and easy. The only troubles came when the old wiring from the press box to the locker room failed on us during the post game interviews. We tested it over and over before the game and it was fine. Of course. Oh, and we had no stat keeper nor stat monitor, which never worked from the moment it got plugged in."
(Amazing the broadcast even made it to air, doing it with two coconuts and a string).

Also from Sunday: "Good reports from the few who had pre-purchased the small radios that will be available by the thousands at the Coliseum, for fans to be able to listen to the Trojan Radio Network broadcast without the irritating ten second delay. Bring 25$ and get one, it's good for road games too, and word is you can use it again in following seasons with a small calibration (for a fee) that will set it up at the start of each season."
(Play-by-play men are the ones we've discovered over the years most irritated by the delay on a game call, because they think the fans listening to radios in the stands consider them to be slow on the call. Simple solution: Have the station take off the delay. Then these extra devices for 25 bucks -- ! -- aren't needed. We also believe they refer to twenty-five dollars as "25$" in preschool when the kids are mixed up about how to use the dollar or cents symbol.)

Wednesday: "Who are the geniuses who put the SC and UCLA games on against each other in the same general geographic location? How bout one at noon, the other at night? Bigger crowds at both and TV watchers in So Calif could watch both games."
(It's called TiVo. Try it. Want to guess which of the two has more national attention? The one in Pasadena).

Also from Wednesday: "I miss the Tuesday press luncheons, and redundant or not, I think it was a bad idea to stop them. We all enjoyed hearing the coach in an informal setting, and spending time with practice being run around us, just hobnobbing with our friends in the business. How much could it have cost for that pasta and salad lunch every week, really? Bring it back -- and I think I speak for most of the men and women who would attend.
(And enjoy a free lunch).

Again from Wednesday: "And at the risk of sounding like I am a shill (and I am most certainly NOT in this case) don't forget to bring enough dough Saturday to the Coliseum to buy one of the little radios that allows you to listen to the Trojan Radio Network without that lousy delay we had last year, and still will have if you don't have one."
(Only a shill would say he isn't one before shilling).

Did Tony Danza write the final stanza to the Dodgers' annual Hollywood Stars Night?

We don't remember a year when the Dodgers didn't hold the event -- whether it was a full-fledge star-studded affair, or a B-list of softball players looking for some publicity shots.

That's because it's never happened. Until this year. Which pretty much sums up the way the Dodgers' year has been going.

When the Dodgers planned the original 52nd Hollywood Stars night for Aug. 7, they announced in a press release last June (linked here) that those participating would include Billy Crystal, Kaeem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin James, Joe Mantegna, Thomas Jane, Jon Hamm, Rob Reiner, Garry Marshall and Sean Astin.

But then, for some reason, it didn't happen. The team said it would be postponed to Saturday, Oct. 2 -- the second to last game of the season.

With a little research, we find that VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com (linked here) reported back on Aug. 24 that the Dodgers sent a message to ticket holders that read:

Attention Ticket Holders,

Sincerely,
Los Angeles Dodgers

And with that, no game.

Dodgers director of communications Josh Rawitch said: "We had originally not put it on the schedule at the beginning of the year, but later added it. And then we found that there were operational issues that came up to cause us to reschedule it. Then, once we had rescheduled it, we had a tough time promoting it with such a short time frame so we decided to reevaluate it during the winter."

So the team really wasn't all that hot on having one anyway. That's Hollywood.

The L.A. Times' Steve Dilbeck noted that the game was called off on Aug. 21 (linked here) and included for the tombstone: "It just disappeared, kinda like Rene Russo. Killed off without an announcement, without fanfare, without a famous last scene. Died from lack of Hollywood interest. The A-list guys who used to populate the game are no more, and haven't been for years. Maybe they all live in the south of France now."

By the way, the Dodgers have also canceled their Sept. 17 Manny Ramirez poster giveaway promotion. Without making an announcement about it. But that's pretty understandable.

(This photo to the right, with Louis Prima, Nat King Cole and Chuck Connors, was actually from the Angels' Hollywood Stars night when they were at Dodger Stadium in 1964 -- note the different "LA" cap).

Former Ohio State running back Archie Griffin, who defies the odds year after year as remaining the only two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy, has registered his opinion about whether former USC star Reggie Bush should give back his 2005 trophy.

Let him keep it, Archie says.

On a Sirius XM show today, Griffin told host Gary Williams:

"Personally, I look at it that Reggie Bush won the Heisman out on the field. He was in college at the time at USC, he was playing against college competition, and the voters voted for him to win the Heisman Trophy. And it would be, I think, devastating to take it away after having won it right there out on the field.

"My feeling is that during that season Reggie Bush played college football and he won it as a college football player and he got the vote. And, to me, that should stand."

So maybe when the Heisman Trust gets together to discuss whether it'll recall Bush's trophy, Griffin can register two votes against it.

The manner by which Mike Florio, a one-time labor lawyer from West Virginia, has turned an NFL's fans' clearing-house blog into a segment on a national network's pro football coverage seems to be too good a story to keep ignoring.

We've tried. We can't do it any longer.

Starting with NBC's "Sunday Night Football" coverage of Dallas-Washington, Florio will be part of the post-game show with Bob Costas, talking about the storylines of the week ahead, and promoting the NBC-related ProFootballTalk.com site, which has become the template and driving force of the NBCSports.com model.

In the bivalve habitat of bloggers who feed off whatever's floating atop the water level, Florio will hold himself accountable for not doing deeper into stories before he posts them. He says quality over quantity is his goal now, even though there could be more than 50 posts a day on his site with four other free-lance contributors.

Maybe begrudgingly, the traditional fact-diggers appear to be more accepting of Florio's nine-year Internet grind for credibility, especially after experiencing the benefits of his cross-promotional linkage.

While making mistakes along the way, he'd also drudge up nuggets of exclusive content. As the reader revisits PFT for more of Florio's findings, chuckling at some of his snarky responses (without any mean-spirited pouring-it-on) and accepting the premise that the news' truthiness couldn't always be 100 percent verified, the gameplan is established.

To make this somewhat timely, Florio became entwined in last week's story involving the eventual suspension of Washington Post columnist Mike Wise, who admitted to posting a false report on Twitter to see, as he says, how many others in the media would pick it up and run with it.

We admired Wise's premise, but are now confused about his motives. Wise, when admitting later that it was a hoax, singled out Florio and ESPN's Adam Schefter as two who did "take the bait" -- but not so much in the way Wise may have envisioned. Both credited Wise for the information he assumed to be giving (Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlesberger was presumably having his six-game suspension reduced to five games), tried to verify it and left it as such until Wise confessed to what he was doing -- trying to show how Twitter has been misused as a source of information.

Here's how Florio couched the Wise report in the first place on Aug. 30 (linked here).

Florio posted this on his blog Wednesday as he continues to be amazed at how he got dragged into Wise's web (linked here):

"We've moved on (really, we have) from last week's fabricated-report fiasco ... .

"I can't guarantee it, because I refuse to waste my time contacting respected journalists from respected news organizations to ask them, 'Is there any chance that you're simply squandering your own credibility and the credibility of the company that employs you to prove that people will believe the things that you say?'"

Florio added to that in our conversation this morning:

"I think Wise was making an assault on the new media as a whole, but I think in his mind I'm the embodiment of the new media fears that maybe he doesn't quite understand yet. I didn't understand his motivation. I guess what this ultimately proved to me is that he doesn't understand how things work. If I (had stolen his information and reported it as my own) then I guess there'd be some validity to it. But that's now how it works for the Washington Post. Aggregators will repeat things that respected media members reporter. We have a right to assume they're legitimate. But I think this somehow struck a chord and created a conflict with people who are with the old media."

The blog KissingSuzyKolber.com (linked here) wasn't so much on Florio's side through all this, especially after he posted about how he agreed with the Washington Post ombudsman who opined that Wise would be best off resigning or getting fired for what he did:

"Who exactly do you think are, the David Broder dean of the football press corps? No one cares who you think should be fired. You've carved yourself a nice and probably lucrative place among the great sports media borg, Florio, but don't let your success floating rumors and theories fool you into thinking you've achieved some elevated place from which you can impose your demands."

We demand more ink on Florio's career in the blogging biz. We'll get to that Friday.

But first, one of the original posts Florio had this week, on what's going on with a pending lockout.

He said based on what "a league source explained" to him, players currently subject to repeated and random drug tests based on prior violations could welcome a March 2011 lockout because, with the labor deal expired, the league could not require testing any longer.

Wrote Florio: "Look for plenty of guys to 'celebrate' a lockout by engaging in the consumption of the controlled substances of their choosing and/or to supplement their training and/or rehab with all sorts of supplements that are on the list of banned supplements, without having to worry about urinating in or on anything other than a toilet, a urinal, an outhouse, a wall, or someone's grave.

"It's all the more reason for both sides to roll up their sleeves and continue to try to get a deal done, even as we prepare to collectively ignore the situation and enjoy the football season."

Former Dodgers and UCLA pitcher Tim Leary, a finalist in the recent Cal State Northridge head baseball coaching position search, has agreed to join the staff as the Matadors' new pitching coach.

"I'm excited to get back into college coaching," said Leary, on the UCLA staff under Gary Adams from 1997 to 2000 as a pitching coach after his 13-year major-league career ended in 1994. He returned to UCLA in 2004 and also worked with the Loyola Marymount's staff in 2006, and has been coaching individual players aged 8 through high school for the last three years.

"I love the real grass roots of local youth baseball and it will be great to build a winning program again at CSUN. I feel there's a big demand for better coaching with kids coming up from Little League, Pony Leagues and high school travel ball."

With a degree in economics from UCLA, Leary (pitching for the Bruins, right) also understands the fundraising aspect of college sports and how he can help improve the facilities at CSUN.

"It's adequate enough to do what we need to do here, but starting with getting lights so we can play and practice after dark, there are things we can do to make improvements," said Leary. "It's mostly about getting the student-athletes motivated and wanting to win. We can build some winning teams here.

"(New head coach) Matt Curtis is a great hire and he knows the drill. I'm flattered to be in the final three (candidates for the head coach spot) and this (pitching coach position) is a good fit for me."

Curtis said Leary's "track record of success at the collegiate and professional level as a player is unmatched among Division-I pitching coaches. He's earned great success at the collegiate level as a pitching coach in his time at UCLA and is a proven winner at every level.

"What excites me the most is that Tim was a successful major league player who was also committed to earning his degree. He possesses a strong commitment to the academic development of our student-athletes and, in my opinion, is the right person to build and develop a culture of success both on the field and in the classroom."

Leary, 51, a Santa Monica High grad and the second overall MLB draft pick by the New York Mets in 1979, was both a Sporting News All-America player and earned Academic All-American honors in his last of three years at UCLA. He was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991. Only two other baseball players -- Jackie Robinson, and former American League president Bobby Brown -- were in the UCLA athletic hall at the time of Leary's induction.

"Matador baseball is determined to become one of the premier teams in the Big West Conference both on and off the diamond and the addition of Tim Leary to our staff is further proof that Matt Curtis is looking to make an immediate and positive impact on our program," said CSUN Athletic Director Rick Mazzuto.

-------------

(Left: UCLA pitching coach Tim Leary makes a visit to the mound to talk to Jim Parque during the 1997 College World Series. Photo courtesy of UCLA.).

There's got to be one or two more perfect games left in this MLB calendar as we head to the final few weeks of the season.

Thanks to Howard Cole at BaseballSavvy.com (linked here), we can flash back to the one Sandy Koufax threw against the Chicago Cubs 45 years ago today -- a game that incredibly also set an MLB record for fewest hits in one game.

That would be one, by the Dodgers' Lou Johnson. Which didn't even figure into the 1-0 Dodgers victory that happened, by the way, in an hour and 43 minutes.

So many weird numbers to note. Koufax improved to 22-7 in what would be his next-to-last season. Losing pitcher Bob Hendley, who walked just one and had one error behind him, fell to 2-3 with the complete-game one-hitter. He was pinch-hit for by Harvey Kuenn, who struck out for the final out, as you may have once heard Vin Scully describe.

If you were one of the 29,000-plus in attendance and can produce a ticket stub (box score linked here), boast all you want.

As an aside: We've seen the photos of Koufax holding up the four "0" baseballs after this one as he posed for photographers. We couldn't help but noticing in some of the photos (not necessarily this one we found below, however) how dirty Koufax's hands were -- particularly his index fingers and thumbs. Anyone know if he batted with a pine-tar stick without using batting gloves? Could that have actually helped a pitcher back in those days?

The Lancaster JetHawks ended their season Monday with an 11-4 loss to Rancho Cucamonga. It capped a 54-86 record -- the worst in the 15-year history of the franchise.

Before turning the page, focus on a rather mesmerizing nine-minute mini-documentary on the Houston Astros' single-A team by filmmaker Alex Jablonski and cinematographer Michael Totten.

As they explain on their site (linked here), the two are involved in a project called "Sparrow Songs," where they create and show one doc a month, each month, for a full year.

All the docs are on their website, www.thesparrowsongs.com.

JetHawks play-by-play man Jeff Lasky is the first, and last, person you hear talking in this one, setting and carrying the storyline of how everyone involved with the team -- including him -- is trying to get to the big leagues, and how they endure by keep grinding it out.

Watch Episode 10, filmed in July and released last month (which was also publicized on the MiLB.com website):

Sparrow Songs - Episode 10 - The Farm from Sparrow Songs on Vimeo.

In a blog that goes with the video (linked here), Jablonski adds:

"Listening to these guys, watching the way they played the game it reminded me that we do this because - to put it simply - it's fun. Making and exhibiting these films is a source of joy. Sometimes the pressure, the praise and the desire to make something concrete out of the opportunities this project has afforded us obscures that. It was nice to be conscious of just how much fun this project is, to be aware of how much I've learned not only about filmmaking but also about the world itself. I think that line of thinking brought me to an understanding similar to what the players, coaches and broadcasters in minor league baseball all have: the work is the reward, desire and ambition are part of that, but the work is the reward.

"I love baseball and the chance to sit in a professional dugout for two games was a privilege. It offered an entirely different perspective. In the dugout, no one talks stats, you can't hear the PA system or the incessant music pumped through it and the game seems much simpler, more pure - there's the ball and the batter and the subtle drifts of the fielders and there's a chance to start at home and a desire to make your way along the base paths and then return."

Lasky, by the way, has already left town and started calling games again for Montana State football. His grind has no off season.

In what organizers call "the largest event on the U.S. lawn bowling green calendar," seven venues across Southern California will host about 375 participants at the 87th U.S. Open for the sport of lawn bowls from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1.

Australia and Canada will have the largest international representation in singles, pairs and fours, but players from South Africa, Wales, Hong Kong, China, Israel and other countries are also expected to compete.

The venues: Newport Harbor LBC in Corona del Mar, The Groves LBC in Irvine, Laguna Beach LBC, Laguna Woods LBC, Long Beach LBC at Recreation Park, Casta del Sol LBC in Mission Viejo and Santa Ana LBC.

Matches will daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., free of charge. Results will be posted on www.usopenlawnbowls.com.

Opening ceremonies are Friday, September 24 at 4:30 p.m. at the Newport Harbor LBC, complete with a traditional bagpipe procession.

Yell and scream all you like that the punishment doesn't fit the non-crime, but Fox will send Pete Carroll's first NFL game in the post-USC era to just nine percent of the country on Sunday -- Seattle, the home market; San Francisco, the visiting market, plus Portland and Sacramento. Otherwise, L.A. has to settle for Green Bay-Philadelphia.

It's not that Fox doesn't understand the importance of Carroll's NFL rebirth. They're allowing Jimmy Johnson, planted in the Fox studio in Century City, to somehow join the broadcast team of Sam Rosen, Tim Ryan and Chris Myers because Johnson "knows first hand how difficult the transition Carroll has had to make from college to pro and can offer that unique perspective," according to the network press department.

That said, here's how it lays out for Week 1 for the Southern California, non-DirecTV "NFL Sunday Ticket" market:

THURSDAY:

== Minnesota at New Orleans: Channel 4, 5:20 p.m., with Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Andrea Kremer.

SUNDAY:

== Oakland at Tennessee: Channel 2, 10 a.m., with Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts (instead of other CBS games: Cincinnati at New England, with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms; Indianapolis at Houston; Denver at Jacksonville; Miami at Buffalo and Cleveland at Tampa Bay). Note: CBS has no 1 p.m. game because of the U.S. Open men's final.

== Carolina at New York Giants: Channel 11, 10 a.m., with Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa (going to 59 percent of the country; L.A. misses on Detroit-Chicago, which goes to 17 percent, and Atlanta-Pittsburgh, which goes to 15 percent).

== Green Bay at Philadelphia: Channel 11, 1:15 p.m., with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver (going to 84 percent of the country; L.A. misses on San Francisco-Seattle, which goes to 9 percent; and Arizona-St. Louis, which goes to 6 percent).

== Dallas at Washington: Channel 4, 5:20 p.m., with Michaels, Collinsworth and Kremer.

MONDAY:

== Baltimore at N.Y. Jets: ESPN, 4 p.m., with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden.

== San Diego at Kansas City: ESPN, 7:15 p.m., with Brad Nessler and Trent Dilfer.

It's Tyson, in Vegas, with a hangover.

This one, called "One Night in Vegas," directed by Reggie Rock Bythewood, debuts today at 5 p.m. on ESPN, the latest in the ESPN documentary series. The focus is on the night rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas -- 14 years ago today.

It has do with sports how?

Mike Tyson fought Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand earlier that night, and Tyson invited Tupac to watch it, then meet him afterward. That didn't happen.

Among those interviewed in this piece is a cocktail party we'd sure like to attend: Al Sharpton, Maya Angelou, Mickey Rourke, Suge Knight, Nas and Seldon.

Can't recommend enough hanging out at the ESPNZone across the street from Staples Center over in LA Live when it comes to watching a live event. The giant screen -- it must be 200 feet wide -- with the other TV screens around it in the main viewing room is something to behold.

Try it out Thursday, for what's been called the "first annual NFL Preview and Kickoff Special," leading up to the Vikings-Saints game at 5:15 p.m. The events starts at 4:30 p.m. with former USC and NFL QB Rodney Peete and former NFL coach and NFL Network analyst Steve Mariucci as the hosts and taking questions from the audience.

The ESPNZone will also have a special Cajun special to celebrate the New Orleans flavor of the event: Check out the "Zone Gumbo": Shrimp, sausage, crab, crayfish, chicken and sweet peppers over rice.

And don't forget: Free wireless internet.

There are only two ESPNZone's left: L.A. and Anaheim. More info (linked here)

Putting the Frank and Jamie McCourt divorce into some national context, because we alone on our island of celebrity isn't always the best perspective, Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins writes in the Sept. 13 issues:

"The current owners' public sparring is not the only thing that sets them apart from what once was the Dodger Way. (Former owner Peter) O'Malley worked 12 hours a day at Dodger Stadium; the McCourts work at separate offices in Beverly Hills. O'Malley went more than a decade without raising ticket prices; the McCourts revealed a plan to nearly double ticket prices during their ownership. O'Malley employed two general managers and two managers in 28 years as president; the McCourts plowed through no fewer than seven public-relations gurus alone, one of whom plotted a course for Jamie to become president of the U.S. 'They have complete turnover all the time,' says a former executive. 'It never stops.' "

Jenkins also notes the court documents "detail the lifestyle of the vulgar rich, stretching even L.A.'s relaxed boundaries of excess: eight properties with values totaling more than $108 million, seven country-club memberships, $800,000 per year paid for private security, $600,000 per year paid to sons who did not have titles with the team, $400,000 per year paid to an employee to run a charity and $150,000 per year paid to a hairstylist who coiffed the McCourts five days a week."

Meanwhile, the latest from DodgerDivorce.com: "The parties break for two weeks to accommodate Judge Gordon's calendar and -- ostensibly -- attempt to make some progress toward a settlement. Because of where we're at in the proceedings, I'm not sure Frank's side is in a position to demand its goal in a deal -- whatever that is. For the same reason, I wouldn't be surprised if Jamie's team is trying to negotiate from a stronger position than it might have earned."

So it's back on Sept. 20, probably resuming the week of Sept. 27, and once it finishes, Gordon has up to 90 days to rule, then "the statutory deadlines are set for any potential appeals. We're not close to through yet," writes DodgerDivorce.com's Josh Fisher.

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

MONDAY

College football: Boise State vs. Virginia Tech in Landover, Md., 5 p.m., ESPN:

Bring in da Boise, bring in da blue noise. If Boise State is to be among the BCS elitists, it starts here, with more cowbell from last season's Fiesta Bowl squad, against another preseason Top 10-ranked squad on a "neutral" (non-blue) field. Check your credentials at the door.

MLB: Dodgers at San Diego, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

There was a Vegas line last spring posted that had the over-under for San Diego Padres victories this season at 71 1/2. The Pads passed that in mid August. Not long, in fact, after they split a four-game series at Dodger Stadium by taking a 5-0 win in the series finale -- remember, with Andre Ethier finishing the game at first place, Chris Denorfia motoring around the bases on a stupid inside-the-park homer, and George Sherrill making a token inning of relief appearance -- 1 IP, 0 ER -- to lower his ERA to a cryptic 6.66. For the moment, however, these Padres are in a strange tailspin, having lost 10 in a row. Oh, my. The Dodgers are actually closer to the top of the NL West now than they are to the NL wildcard. Meanwhile, the Padres are supposed to have 22-year-old pitcher Mat Latos on an innings count this season -- 170 to 180 this season. To get his 13-5 record and a league-leading 2.25 ERA and 0.98 WHIP, he's one out shy of 156. In his last 14 starts, he's given up two runs or less. Since June 5, Latos has only lost once -- that was 2-1 to the Dodgers on Aug. 3 at Dodger Stadium. He's in there tonight.

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

Sorry, Chief. The first of three against the less-than-.400 winning percentage Indians, and there are no promotional giveaways planned. Good luck with attendance.

Golf: Deutsche Bank Championship, final round, Channel 4, 11 a.m.

Held over for the holiday by popular demand. You can take that to the bank.

Basketball: FIBA World Championships: U.S. vs. Angola, 8 a.m., ESPN2:

Love to watch Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook work the fast break again. What's Angola's angle for this one?

TUESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at San Diego, 7 p.m., Channel 9:

Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw has only one victory since the end of July. Seriously. Yet, in going 1-4 with two no decisions in his last seven starts, his ERA has increased from 2.96 to 3.01.

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

Do you realize that MLB Properties still sell merchandise with the Indians' 1948 mascot logo? Not that it's racist or anything.

WEDNESDAY

MLB: Dodgers at San Diego, 7 p.m., Prime:

With Wade LeBlanc bumped from the starting rotation, the Padres are scheduled to throw 6-foot-4, 215-pound left-hander Cory Luebke (0-1, 7.20) out against Chad Billingsley. Luebke, an Ohio State grad, gave up four runs on five hits over five innings in his major league debut last Friday against Colorado.

MLB: Angels vs. Cleveland, Angel Stadium, 4 p.m., FSW:

Arte Moreno has a pretty solid marriage, right?

THURSDAY

NFL: Minnesota at New Orleans, 5:30 p.m., Channel 4:

Kickoff. We have a kickoff. And if we are to believe a report from TMZ Sports, the Lakers' Derek Fisher has been asked by Saints coach Sean Payton to come to the Superdome and give his team a pre-game speech about how to go back-to-back. Because, Fisher knows something about that. Fisher might also go to the other locker room and tell Brett Favre how to plan for retirement.

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

The last time these two played each other, Xavier Paul was the Dodgers' starting right fielder (as Andre Ethier went on the DL with a broken finger), Russell Martin was in the leadoff spot, Blake DeWitt started at second base, and Garrett Anderson came off the bench to pinch hit in a 7-3 win.

Golf: PGA's BMW Championship, first round, noon, Golf Channel:

From Cog Hill G&CC, in Lemont, Ill., a quick turn around after the previous event ended on Monday in Boston. Golf Channel has Friday second round; NBC has the third and final rounds Saturday and Sunday.

FRIDAY

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

Whatever became of the Astrodome? the city won't allow it to be demo'd because of concerns it might mess up the surrounding structures. Historical preseverationists would also protest such a move, even though it isn't on any National Register of Historic Places lists. Over the last two years, it has been cited with numerous code violations, meaning only maintenance workers and security guards are allowed in. Someone wanted to convert it into a luxury hotel with a big glass roof (pictured here). Another thinks it could be made into a movie production studio. What, to film another "Bad News Bears"? Whatever. It's not the Astros' problem any more.

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

Another three games against the Mariners.

SATURDAY

College football: USC vs. Virginia, Coliseum, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

The two schools played each other just two years ago -- a 52-7 Trojan victory in Charlottesville, Va. The USC quarterback at the time, redshirt junior Mark Sanchez, dislocated his kneecap three weeks earlier and had limited practice before this one, but completed 26 of 35 passes for a career-best 338 yards and three TDs. Talk about some hard knocks.

College football: UCLA vs. Stanford, Rose Bowl, 7:30 p.m., ESPN:

The Cardinal's 24-16 win over the Bruins a year ago in Palo Alto wasn't so much luck-related. Stanford freshman QB Andrew Luck had just 14 of 20 passing for 198 yards, without a TD or a pick. The difference was from running back Toby Gerhart (29 carries, 3 TDs). Bruins kicker Kai Forbath had three field goals and a PAT.

MLS: Galaxy vs. Columbus, Home Depot Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

It's the game David Beckham has targeted for his return from a torn achilles tendon back in March, which kept him out of the World Cup. "The doctors' original date was October 1, but I always kind of said I want to be ready before then," Beckham said. "I'll keep my fingers crossed and hopefully will play in part of the game here against Columbus. ... hopefully I'll get on the field for 15-20 minutes.That's what I'm looking at."

Tennis: U.S. Open, women's final, 5 p.m., Channel 2; men's semifinals, 9 a.m.:

No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniack, born in Denmark, lives in Monaco, could walk onto center court for this one and no one would recognize her. Or would they?

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

Jeff Kent's living in H-town, from last we heard. If he knows the Bush family could come down and sit behind the backstop, would Kent stop by for some face time?

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

Felix Hernandez, again. Not good. He threw seven shutout innings against the Angels on Aug. 31, but didn't get the win. Again, his 11-10 record is deceiving, considering he leads the AL in innings pitched and strike outs, is second in ERA and third in WHIP and complete games. He's given up just one earned run in his last 45 innings pitched over six starts.

SUNDAY

Tennis: U.S. Open, men's final, 1 p.m., Channel 2:

Guaranteed not to be here: Andy Roddick. The top-seeded Bryan Bros should also be here, somewhere, competing for the men's doubles final. Again.

NFL: Dallas at Washington, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4:

New Redskins QB Donovan McNabb has been critical of his performance in coach Mike Shanahan's offense. After he suffered an ankle injury in the second exhibition game against the Baltimore Ravens, he hasn't practiced or played since. If he starts the opener against Tony Romo and the Cowboys, how sharp will he be? "I don't think anyone has to worry about Donovan," wide receiver Devin Thomas said. Just don't let McNabb answer the door if Michael Strahan is standing there with a pizza and a Dr. Pepper.

NFL: Oakland at Tennessee, 10 a.m., Channel 2:

Two places where Lane Kiffin isn't allowed within 500 feet of a football stadium, sports bar, or sewage treatment center.

NFL: Carolina at N.Y. Giants, 10 a.m., Channel 11; San Francisco at Seattle, 1 p.m., Channel 11:

Pete Carroll, let's see what you've got.

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

At last they won't have to face Roy Oswalt again here.

MLB: Angels vs. Seattle, Angel Stadium, 12:35 p.m., Channel 13:

This series over yet? OK, kids, run the bases.

Basketball: FIBA World Championships, final: 11:30 a.m., ESPN:

The Americans could be here. They should be here. But then, worse things have happened along this routine trip before. It may behove U.S. player Andre Iguodala to take more pictures of this trip, so it'll last longer. The game repeats at 4 p.m. on ESPN2 for anyone who was watching football during the original airing.

Having spotted (and purchased) the new, hot shirt for sale at the Dodger Stadium gift shop -- blue teess with the logo "Los Doyers," going for $30 -- we were a bit surprised it took this long.

The blog, VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com (linked here) seems to have figured it out -- Frank McCourt's boys have trademarked the phrase and have launched their own Majestic-brand shirts.

From our reference point, the phrase has been made popular by local sports-talk show host Petros Papadakis, who since his days on The Ticket 1540-AM liked to riff on the way Dodgers coach Manny Mota has pronounced the team's name for years. (Ironically, that 1540 station is now Korean language programming).

Howevermundo, "Los Doyers" has some history worth acknowledging.

According to a link on the Urban Dictionary (linked here), the phrase was already logged in back in 2008. That's about when a blog called "Los Doyers" went up, but apparently wasn't maintained very long (linked here).

A Twitter account for Los Doyers is up with about 600 followers (linked here).

Meanwhile, at various websites around, you can find "Los Doyers" shirts already produced -- such as here at LatinLingoClothing.com (linked here). We actually like this gray-shirt model better than what the Dodgers have for sale.

WildStyleTees.com (linked here) also has one. So does Zazzle.com (linked here).

It reminds us of when the late Angels play-by-play man Rory Markas used to say, "Just another Angels victory!" during the 2002 World Series run. Before long, the team trademarked the phrase and was selling T-shirts with it in the team store. Markas never saw any residuals.

Neither, apparently, will those who made "Los Doyers" famous in the first place.

As of Aug. 18, the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office officially logged "Los Doyers" as a phrase the Dodgers could use on clothing, namely: headwear, shirts, sweaters, vests, bottoms, dresses, skirts, athletic uniforms, jerseys, underwear (or undergarments), sleepwear, robes, swimwear, jackets, ponchos, wraps, infant wear, cloth bibs, ties, belts, footwear, socks, hosiery, scarves, gloves, mittens, wristbands, Halloween or masquerade costumes. It also trademarked the phrase as it's used in the media.

Does that cover it all? Maybe not.

VinScullyIsMyHomeboy blog host Roberto Baly asks: "Yesterday I asked my mom to say Dodgers. She said 'Doyers.' I asked my dad to say Dodgers. He said 'Dogers.' I guess Mexicans say 'Doyers' and Cubans say 'Dogers.' Maybe the Europeans pronounce it 'Dojers.' Shoud I trademark it? :) "

Si.

Mike Wise took one for the team this week.

The Washington Post columnist, one of the better writers remaining in this business, accepted a one-month suspension for posting a factually incorrect piece of informaton on his Twitter account -- done so to prove how stupid sports journalism has devolved.

Monday, Wise's false rumor was that he had been told Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's susension would be reduced by the NFL from six to five games (linked here).

He then watched others play fast and loose with it.

An hour later, Wise reported that it was a hoax. Then others who repurposed it found out what they had was wrong and got mad. Then the Post had to do something.

"I tried to showcase the absurdity of bad journalism," Wise said on his Washington-based radio show. "I could give you 10 reasons why I did this and what went wrong in the execution. I made a horrendous mistake, using my Twitter account that identifies me as a Washington Post columnist. ... I'm paying the price I should for careless, dumb behavior."

Thankfully, others have Wise's back here. Washington Post colleague Dan Steinberg noted Wise's intention with the tweet was to "test an idea he's been interested in for several months: that in 2010, one sentence from one writer is enough to create a cascade of news stories published without any real vetting or sourcing."

But other Post people weren't happy that their "brand" had been compromised. Don't worry, Woodward and Bernstein. You're still our heroes.

Washington Post Social Media Producer Katie Rogers tweeted: "Why would you take your platform for granted like that, especially when thousands of people would kill for your job?"

The ruse got Columbia University digital media professor Sree Sreenivasan to be quoted in the New York Times about a journalist's reputation: "(It is) on the line with every tweet, for better or worse ... People have a reasonable expectation that it's accurate or the best of what you know at the moment."

Wise proved his point. We're all the wiser for it. Now maybe those who trick 'n' tweet will think twice about how they're using this mode of information delivery.

With that, some other things to extort readers with after today's media column (linked here):

== More from Mike Bellotti, the former Oregon coach now part of ESPN's broadcasting crew -- he'll do UCLA-Kansas State on Saturday (with Carter Blackburn and Brock Huard, Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.), UCLA's home opener against Stanford on Sept. 11 (7:30 p.m., ESPN), then Wake Forest-Stanford and Oregon State-Boise State before doing Stanford at Oregon on Oct. 2.

On taking the TV job now: "It's something I've considered in the past and was put on hold with the AD job (at Oregon last year). I had been offered some things at ESPN, and what it came down to is, when you're hot, you're hot, so the timing of things matters because this opportunity might be here next year."

On what the questionmarks loom for UCLA going into their oopener: "In talking to the coaches, they're optimistic about the payers they have and avoid the topic of the players they don't have. The quarterback issue permeates a lot of things. They've got seniors on the offensive line, but not a lot of who've played. Given this new offensive philosophy, we'll have to see how it works. I think defensively they feel good even when they don't have a lot of guys back in the front seven. The real thing in looking at how they'll play at Kansas State, which is so well coached, is they recognize it'll be tough, facing a hostile crowd. Their thoughts are not giving up the big plays, or the easy ones, and avoid letting the crowd get into it."

On the new UCLA "Pistol" offense: "We've used elements of it at Oregon, and I've seen Nevada-Reno run it. I interviewed their offensive coordinator once and we went over all of it. It works for them. UCLA will feel like they're on a downhill running track with this. The balance doesn't allow the defense to overload. The first steps of the quarterback and running back is lateral, so the backs will get a better track. Rick (Neuheisel) and Norm (Chow) are committed to running it, and they're trying to fix a running game they've felt wasn't there. It's really the Veer concept from the Shotgun I that Washington use to run with Marques Tuiasosopo. Until they get it going, they won't know how it works. That's what everyone wants to see.

== If it's not Chris Mortensen upsetting Al Davis, then it's Adam Schefter (linked here).

== If ESPN comes to your town wanting to cover your high school sports event, do some due dilligence (linked here).

== In light of how Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley "rewarded" some beat writers by letting them into a scrimmage while excluded others (linked here), and the reaction by one of the "rewarded" writer's bosses (linked here): I've got no problems if I'm one of those who wasn't allowed in. In fact, if I'm not part of the "Vols Rewards Program" at this point, it might even get me to work harder. Dig deeper. Find something, perhaps, that won't be so flattering to the Tennessee program. See what kind of culture Dooley has created here? He'll have to live with it now. Journalistic karma has a way of coming back on this. Let's see who's more motivated to "cover" the team now.

== Rob Dibble, with more on why he's no longer the Washington Nationals analyst (linked here).

== Sean Salisbury, on his "sophomoric mistake" (linked here)of "the cell phone incident of 2006" leading him into the world of Internet radio host.

== If there's an integrity of content to protect with ESPN's "SportsCenter," why threaten to compromise it into becoming a version of "America's Home Videos"? Broadcasting & Cable reported this week (linked here) that ESPN is preparing to launch a tie-in between "SportsCenter' and YouTube where people will submit sports highlights - featuring themselves or their families - and having a shot at getting it on TV during the news show. John Kosner, the senior VP and general manager for digital media, says ad sale development in social media programs will also push to get commercial programming as well on Facebook and Twitter.

== Other journalists included on the NFL Network's project to determine the Top 100 players in league history, other than those cited in today's column: Don Banks, Rick Gosselin, Bob Gretz, Ron Borges, Paul Domowitch, Howard Balzer, Michael MacCambridge, Jarrett Bell, Ray Didinger, Sam Farmer, Hub Arkush and Jerry Izenberg. Google them at your leisure.

== Was Erin Andrews ever on David Letterman?

== FoxSports.com announced an expanded deal with ever-expanding columnist Jason Whitlock, who recently left his position at the Kansas City Star. Whitlock already does two columns a week on the site as well as podcasts, chats and whatever other gizmos are around, "often taking a position most columnists lack the courage to take," according to the Fox release. The same release quotes him: "My relationship with FoxSports.com has been very successful so far and this is only the start. I'm very pleased that my editors have shown the wisdom to let me be me, and very soon there will be a lot more of me to love on the web site." Whitlock spent six years with ESPN (2000-06) writing for the website and appearing on the network chat shows.

== NBC says that part of the new wrinkles in its 20th season of Notre Dame football coverage, starting with Saturday's game against Purdue (Channel 4, 12:30 p.m.), in addition to replacing Pat Haden with Mike Mayock as the game analyst, is adding an ActionCam overhead cable camera system, live streaming on NBCSports.com with an additional camera angle, and an international distribution agreement with Eurosport to carry the games in Europe and Asia.

== AND FINALLY:

== Did ESPN's "Around the Horn" do the right thing in talking out the Jay Mariotti situation? Why weren't any points awarded? Why didn't Colishaw get to chime in? Does anyone really care?

When the Sports Business Daily ran an item this week covering the Mariotti discussion, it included a tweet from author Jim Miller, who is working on a book on the history of ESPN: "If ATH hadn't brought up J. Mariotti they would have been slammed, so give em credit for taking it on. But was it also cathartic?"

It also included this reader comment from someone posting as JG: "Mariotti is an ass and gets what he deserves. He always tried to sound as if he was the moral compass of this country whether it was sports or any other topic. Maybe he'll learn to shut his mouth or use filters when speaking. I hope they trhoe (sic) him off of Around the Horn."

Was that cathartic for JG?

You try to imagine what someone like Vin Scully, or Bob Miller, or Spero Dedes would blog about if they had the time, patience and desire to do so. You'd find out, perhaps, some interesting tidbit about their preparation. Their attention to detail. A story that popped into their head about something they remembered happening.

And then, again, there's Pete Arbogast, for whom two sentences is enough to know that the Internet was created to give him just enough space to complete make himself look like a boob.

The USC football radio play-by-play man, entering his 10th season, has been blogging in the off season, but the posting he's just put up on WeAreSC.com (linked here) is about as fine a start to the season as we could have expected with the Trojans visiting Hawaii for the opener on Thursday night (8 p.m., ESPN, with Mark Jones, Bob Davie, Robert Smith and Shelly Smith).

The Arboramblings are still snuck in on the Publisher's Forum, a place for Garry Paskwietz to keep them accessable, but not advertised with a link on the cover. Meaning, you have to know where mine the gold.

Again, we're not deriving any sick pleasure from reprocessing these, but simply astonished they're allowed to continue. His multiple back-handed compliments, grumblings, rumor-spreading and plain jealosy is a poor reflection on him, and the program.

You can read it this Sept. 1 posting for yourself if you desire, or accept our highlights of his multiple back-handed compliments, grumblings:

He wasn't happy with leaving late from LAX: "slightly delayed from taking off due to a late fuel truck, and since you don't want to run out of gas on this particular flight we waited."

He wasn't happy with the transporation out of Hawaii: "At this end the busses all took a wrong turn en masse out of the airport but here we are in paradise."

He's not happy he couldn't take his spouse with him: "almost everyone from athletic sept who could make the trip has made the trip with their spouses. What a nice perk!"

He's not happy with the hotel: "Awakened at 6:30 by construction on a to-be major Disney resort going up next door. "

And we're only four sentences into this thing.

Sentence eight: "Wifi at five star hotel costs 13 dollars a day. Why is it that it is free at motel 6 though? I choose not to participate." Then how was this blogpost sent, you cheapskate? Never mind.

We're just glad he's there, and there's a season of Arboblog posts ready to reveal the good, bad and ugliness of his existence on the job.

Some other gems from past postings this summer, and we promise, we'll try to stop, but it again is that shooting-fish-in-a-barrel, rubber-necking reflex that keeps it going:

== "If you are going (to Hawaii), don't forget to buy your little headset radio so you can tune us in home and away with no delay. I have heard it's 25 bucks. Worth it not to have the call come in ten seconds late. If I was a fan of football and radio (and I am) I would get one first thing. No sales plug, just a fact."

== "I still miss the "Rewind" shows (on FSN). But then I miss Tom Kelly interviewing John McKay on Sunday's following games on KTTV. I would do that show with Lane (Kiffin) for no money, just to have something like that back on the air."

== "I am told of a rumor that says at least a couple of families have tried to slip in non family members by placing their names on the official pass gate list--including at least a couple of names that may or may not be "agent types". Don't know if it's true (nothing surprises me any more) but hope if it is true that these families have to sit through a mandatory 8 hour class in NCAA ethics....sort of like traffic school. After that......."

== "My legs and back are giving me some serious trouble....so I met with Dr Watkins in HH today after conferring with my friend Bryan Bailey. Watkins thinks I need an MRI on my back to confirm what he thinks is wrong based on my description. That will show how bad it is (or not). Spinal stenosis with a touch or arthritis thrown in perhaps.
Trouble is, being an independent contractor in my duties for USC football does not afford me the "luxury" of being covered by medical insurance of any kind. This could pose problems if I turn out to need surgery of some kind. My wife is also not covered, so as we progress (especially me) into our middle years, this can become a serious issue. It's scary out there. I could use your good thoughts right about now."