December 2010 Archives

Following up from today's year-end media column (linked here):

== Orange County Register writer Kevin Ding wrote on his Lakers blog the other day (linked here):

"Hey, Will Selva of ESPNEWS. Glad you liked my last column so much. Try not to plagiarize it next time."

Ding explained that when he got to his hotel room late Tuesday night after the Lakers-Spurs game, he flipped on ESPNEWS' "Highlight Express" show and "imagine my shock" when Selva used the first several paragraphs of a story he did a couple days earlier.

We're pleased that ESPN has since suspended Selva, an anchor whose name we'd have otherwise never known if not for Ding's discovery (he's been there three years?) Others have been fired for such offenses. At least Selva owned up to it.

And Ding brought attention to something that is far too prevalent in the sports media rush to repurpose paragraphs in the rush to get an assignment done. You can't take that thing as a "compliment," as some suggest, and just ignore it.

== Check out the year-end sports media best and worst from SI.com's Richard Deitsch (linked here)

== As ratings will predictably drop during this year's college bowl season -- some, because almost all the games, including the BCS championship, has moved to ESPN, and others, because they're just poor matchups -- the Wall Street Journal (linked here) researched which teams over the last 10-plus years have lived up to their drawing power, and which haven't.

The winner: USC, on probation this season. The worst: Virginia.

== Universal Sports recognizes the recent passing of Olympic documentarian Bud Greenspan by airing nine of his works, starting Saturday (6 p.m.) with his piece on the 1984 L.A. Summer Olympics -- the original "Sixteen Days of Glory," that focuses on Carl Lewis (above), Edwin Moses, Rowdy Gaines, Mary Lou Retton, Zola Budd and Joan Benoit. It follows in subsequent days airing Greenspan's documentaries on the '88 Calgary Winter Games, the '94 Lillehammer Winter Games, the '96 Atlanta Summer Games, the '98 Nagano Winter Games, the 2000 Sydney Summer Games (includes a piece on Tommy Lasorda), the '02 Salt Lake City Winter Games, the '04 Athens Summer Games (with UCLA's Lisa Fernandez), and the '06 Torino Winter Games.

FYI: The U.S. Olympic Committee established a scholarship in 2007 at USC's School of Cinematic Arts to honor Greenspan, and his family asks that any donations be made to that fund. For more information: erica.hutchinson@usoc.org.

AND FINALLY:

== Former Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler Rulon Gardner appears on NBC's "Biggest Loser," (linked here) as the 11th season of the weight-loss reality show starts Tuesday.

The 39-year-old Gardner, who won gold in 2000 and the bronze in 2004, weighs in at 474 pounds and has developed high blood pressure and sleep apnea, could win $250,000 with his business partner joining him on the show if they out-lose 20 other contestants.

"The day that I won the bronze medal in the Olympics, I thought, 'You'll never step on a scale again, live life and enjoy, take a year or two years off,'" Rulon said in a promotional video, explaining his appearance on the show. "I allowed myself to really lose track of what I was doing and finally got to a point where I couldn't look in the mirror."

He now works as a motivational speaker and runs a training center and fitness gym in Logan, Utah.

Gardner and partner Justin Pope have been taping the show in L.A. since September but managed to keep it all a secret.

Half-truths, false advertising and more lip service about why living in an NFL-free Los Angeles environment doesn't provide all the Utopian benefits you'd come to rely on after all these years:

On the final day of the NFL's regular season, some of you will warm up the tubes in your TV set, wait for the picture to finally flicker on and, after fiddling with the needle-nose pliers to make the broken dial line up with the No. 2, have every reason in the modern world to go absolutely bonkers.

The San Diego Chargers-Denver Broncos game is on, and the Tennessee Titans-Indianapolis Colts game isn't.

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

MONDAY

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

The 12-2 Falcons hold a two-game lead over the 10-4 Saints in the AFC South but a New Orleans victory. Falcons QB Matt Ryan also has a 19-1 record at home -- he was injured the last time the Saints came to town and left with a 26-23 victory on their way to the Super Bowl.

NHL: Kings at San Jose, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

The first of two games in one week against the surging Sharks, but each of them are in different calendar years. Weird.

NBA: Clippers at Sacramento, 7 p.m., Prime:

The Clippers' two-game road winning streak could be the longest since Bob McAdoo was brave enough to be a Buffalo Brave.

College football: Independence Bowl, Shreveport, La.: Air Force vs. Georgia Tech, 2 p.m., ESPN:

Independent thinkers will find something else to do today.

TUESDAY

NBA: Lakers at San Antonio, 5:30 p.m., Channel 9:

Obviously, scheduling the Heat on Christmas Day was set up as a trap game for the Lakers, who were looking ahead to their first meeting of the year with the Spurs. Tim Duncan's guys have put together the best record in the league thus far by . . . we'd tell you, but it'd be boring. Even more strange, the Clippers actually handed them one of their three losses this year.

NHL: Ducks at Phoenix, 6 p.m., Prime:

In their last meeting, Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov made 39 saves and handed his former team a 3-0 shutout.

College football: Champs Sports Bowl, Orlando: West Virginia vs. North Carolina State, 3:30 p.m., ESPN; Insight Bowl, Tempe, Ariz.: Missouri vs. Iowa, 7 p.m., ESPN:

The Hawkeyes geared up for their trip to Tempe by suspending receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos when police found out he had unlawful possession of perscription drugs and was "keeping a drug house." He's Iowa's career leader in receptions and receiving yards, an All-Big Ten first-team pick with 10 TDs this year.

NFL: Minnesota at Philadelphia, 5 p.m., Channel 4:

Are you wusses ready to play yet?

WEDNESDAY

College basketball: UCLA vs. Washington State, Pauley Pavilion, 8 p.m., FSW; USC vs. Washington, Galen Center, 7:30 p.m., USCTrojans.com:

So this time next year, the Bruins and Trojans could be opening the Pac-12 regular season against Utah and Colorado?

NBA: Lakers at New Orleans, 5 p.m., Channel 9:

The Hornets have enough problems just looking for an owner. The league runs the show now, with Jerry Buss technically funding a 1 / 31 share of it. But don't beat yourself up over that.

NBA: Clippers vs. Utah, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Nope, not interested.

NHL: Kings at Phoenix, 6 p.m., Channel 13:

When they last met at the Coyotes place in late October, there was an announced crowd of only 6,706.

College football: Military Bowl, Washington, DC: Maryland vs. East Carolina, 11:30 a.m., ESPN; Texas Bowl, Houston: Baylor vs. Illinois, 3 p.m., ESPN; Alamo Bowl, San Antonio: Oklahoma State vs. Arizona, 6:15 p.m., ESPN:

That game in San Antonio . . . shouldn't USC be there? Illinois is back in the postseason action for the first time since the 2008 Rose Bowl against the Trojans.

THURSDAY

NHL: Kings vs. Philadelphia, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

FIrst of eight in a row at home through Jan. 15.

College football: Armed Forces Bowl, Fort Worth, Tex.: Army vs. SMU, 9 a.m., ESPN; Pinstripe Bowl, New York: Syracuse vs. Kansas State, 12:20 p.m., ESPN: Music City Bowl, Nashville: North Carolina vs. Tennessee, 3:40 p.m., ESPN; Holiday Bowl, San Diego: Washington vs. Nebraska, 7 p.m., ESPN:

Not enough bowl games here played in baseball stadiums. Try harder.

FRIDAY

NBA: Lakers vs. Philadelphia, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

If this one goes into a couple of overtimes, it could spill into 2011, and Larry Brown will be waiting to replace Doug Collins.

College basketball: UCLA vs. Washington, Pauley Pavilion, 1 p.m., Prime; USC vs. Washington State, Galen Center, 3 p.m., FSW:

These four will meet again at the end of the regular season, with it matters for Pac-10 tournament seedings.

College football: Meineke Bowl, Charlotte, N.C.: Clemson vs. South Florida, 9 a.m., ESPN; Sun Bowl, El Paso, Tex.: Notre Dame vs. Miami, 11 a.m., Channel 2; Liberty Bowl, Memphis, Tenn.: Georgia vs. Central Florida, 12:30 p.m., ESPN; Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Atlanta: South Carolina vs. Florida State, 4:30 p.m., ESPN:

See, USC did make it to a bowl game.

SATURDAY

NHL: Washington at Pittsburgh, 10 a.m., Channel 4:

The fourth year of a televised outdoor hockey game, this one inside the Steelers' NFL home of Heinz Field, shows that things have snowballed. Even up against the day of college football. "New Year's will never be what it once was when all the consequential bowls had greater cache," said Bob Costas, the host for this event. "Each of them now is reduced somewhat by the presence of the BCS championship game. They all kind of fade a little. This might not have been possible 10 years ago to put anything against the lineup. Now the landscape has changed. Because the Winter Classic has worked out so well the first three years, it can more than hold its own." So can the HBO "24/7" series leading into this. All three previous episodes are played on the network from 7-to-10 a.m. Check 'em out.

NHL: Kings vs. San Jose, Staples Center, 6 p.m., FSW:

There's an outdoor sheet of ice at LA Live just waiting for a game to break out. Meanwhile, Jim Fox must break out his lucky loud New Year's Day jacket.

College football: TicketCity Bowl, Dallas: Texas Tech vs. Northwestern, 9 a.m., ESPNU; Capital One Bowl, Orlando: Florida vs. Penn State, 10 a.m., ESPN; Outback Bowl, Tampa, Fla.: Alabama vs. Michigan State, 10 a.m., Channel 7; Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Fla.: Michigan vs. Mississippi State, 10:30 a.m., ESPN:

See what Costas was talking about?

College football: Rose Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Texas Christian, 2 p.m., ESPN:

Refrain from being badgered into watching this affair between the Big Ten tri-champ (it lost to Michigan State) and the highest-ranked, non BCS-title team that the Rose Bowl had to take. Talk about ruining a tradition beyond repair.

College football: Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, Ariz.: Connecticut vs. Oklahoma, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

How much Bailey's Irish Cream does it take for a viewers to get through a UConn football game? That Outback Bowl out back in Tampa could have swapped out the participants and perhaps saved itself for some better prime-time-ish viewership.

Mixed martial arts: UFC 125 in Las Vegas:

Frankie "The Answer" Edgar, coming off back-to-back wins over BJ Penn, defends his title in a rematch against undefeated No. 1 contender Gray "The Bully" Maynard in the main event. They're also throwing in a featherweight co-main between title holder Jose Aldo and Josh "The Fluke" Grispi. The local Appleby's may be holding a UFC viewing party, so check it out.

SUNDAY

NFL: Tampa Bay at New Orleans, Channel 11, 10 a.m.; Miami at New England, Pittsburgh at Cleveland, Channel 2, 10 a.m.; Chicago at Green Bay, Channel 11, 1 p.m.; San Diego at Denver, Channel 2, 1 p.m.:

Really, after all that, we have to see the Chargers end the season? The NFL schedule (linked here) says that on the day both Fox and CBS get a doubleheader, the later could also have Indianapolis-Tennesse in the late window.

NFL: St. Louis at Seattle, Channel 4, 5:15 p.m.:

The game NBC picked this one off Fox's schedule to see if it's true that a sub-.500 team can actually qualify for the playoffs. Pete Carroll hasn't ruled out Matt Hasselbeck, but Charlie Whitehurst may be the QB for his 6-9 team against the 7-8 Rams.

NBA: Clippers vs. Atlanta, Staples Center, 12:30 p.m., Prime: Lakers vs. Memphis, Staples Center, 6:30 p.m., FSW:

At least have the Jumbotron show NFL games to the fans in the stands that mean something.

John Ourand at the Sports Business Journal offers a list of sports media predictions for 2011.

If we didn't agree with most of them, we'd have avoided repeating them here (and wishing we only thought of them first):

== The NFL will decide to expand to an 18-game season, selling a new package to a cable network. And once the league's current TV deals end in 2013, NFL Network will wind up with a full season's worth of games. The NFL will carve out another 18-game schedule that it will shop to Comcast (who'll put it on Versus), Turner and Fox (for FX).

== The NHL will split its media rights package between ESPN and Comcast (on behalf of Versus and NBC).

== Comcast will pay less but still pick up the Olympic rights for the 2014 and 2016 Games (for NBC)..

== ESPN gives up on plans for a 24/7 3-D channel.

== Versus will change its name to something that incorporates the NBC Sports brand. Something like "The NBC Sports Network" or "SNBC." With a couple of Notre Dame football games farmed out to it.

== CBS College Sports will expand its programming lineup beyond just college sports.

== Fox will roll out more regular-season prime-time baseball games. And possibly signed Jon Miller to call games.

== Small sports channels will lose subscribers. Distributors ill drop channels that don't attract viewers.

== NASCAR TV ratings have hit bottom.

Jim Gray, you take it from there.

Following up on today's column on how ABC and ESPN eats up Christmas Day NBA games (linked here), there's more to fill in:

== The graphic included in today's print edition that goes with the lead media story reads like this:

How the Lakers have done from a viewership standpoint by appearing on every ABC Christmas Day games since 2002:

Year and Opponent: Game rating (Homes) vs. Final ABC NBA season rating

2002 vs. Sacramento: 4.5 (7.4 million) vs. 2.7
2003 vs. Houston: 4.1 (7.1 million) vs. 2.4
2004 vs. Miami: 7.3 (13.1 million) vs. 2.3
2005 vs. Miami: 4.8 (8.1 million) vs. 2.2
2006 vs. Miami: 3.5 (5.4 million) vs. 2.0
2007 vs. Phoenix: 3.5 (5.9 million) vs. 2.2
2008 vs. Boston: 5.3 (9.9 million) vs. 2.4
2009 vs. Cleveland: 4.4 (8.3 million) vs. 2.3
Note: All eight games were the highest-rated of that NBA regular season on ABC.

== ESPN Radio sends Kevin Calabro and analyst Dr. Jack Ramsay to call Saturday's Lakers-Heat game.

The rest of the day's ABC/ESPN NBA lineup:
Stuart Scott, Magic Johnson, Jon Barry and Mike Wilbon do the ABC pregame show.
Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown do Boston-Orlando for ABC (11:30 a.m.)
Dan Shulman and Doris Burke call the Chicago-New York game for ESPN (9 a.m., a noon tipoff at Madison Square Garden), which will also be on ESPN 3D.
Mark Jones and Tim Legler do the Denver-Oklahoma City game for ESPN (5 p.m.), while Terry Gannon and Fran Fraschilla are at the Golden State-Portland game for ESPN (7:30 p.m.)

== ESPN Classic offers a 12-Hour NBA Christmas Marathon that starts today at 9 a.m. with the Denver-Oklahoma City game from 2009 and includes the '04 Lakers-Heat overtime game (5 p.m. Saturday) and the '09 Lakers-Heat game where Kobe Bryant's last-second shot wins it (8 p.m.).

== The NFL TV schedule the rest of the way this weekend for L.A.:

=Saturday:
= 4 p.m., NFL Network: Dallas at Arizona (with Bob Papa, Joe Theisman and Matt Millen).

=Sunday:
= 10 a.m., Channel 11: San Francisco at St. Louis (with Kenny Albert, Darryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa) instead of Detroit-Miami or Washington-Jacksonville. CBS also has N.Y. Jets-Chicago (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms), Tennessee-Kansas City, Baltimore-Cleveland and New England-Buffalo in this window.
= 1 p.m., Channel 11: N.Y. Giants at Green Bay (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman) instead of Seattle-Tampa Bay.
= 1 p.m., Channel 2: San Diego at Cincinnati (with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker) instead of Indianapolis-Oakland (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf) or Houston-Denver.
= 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Minnesota at Philadelphia (with Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Andrea Kremer)

=Monday:
= 5:30 p.m., ESPN: New Orleans at Atlanta (with Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski).

== Remember the 2010 NAPT Bounty Shootout poker tournament that took place at the Crystal Casino in mid November? Neither do we, but ESPN2 will televise it Sunday at 6 p.m.

== HBO replays seven of the year's best fights (that it covered) starting Monday at midnight and playing out over four nights. It begins with Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley and concludes with Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito (Thursday, 10 p.m.)

Or best offer?

It's a posting by someone named supermexxicn13, a top-rated seller with hundreds of previous sales. And he's got every Dodger bobblehead given away at Dodger Stadium over the last 10 years.

By it now for $1,250 (an average of $37.87 a statue). Or make a more normal bid (linked here).

Shipping is free.

If you need a checklist, here it is:

2001:
Tommy Lasorda 4/4/2001
Kirk Gibson 6/9/2001
Fernando Valenzuela 7/29/2001

2002:
Paul Lo Duca 5/31/2002
Shawn Green 7/18/2002
Hideo Nomo 8/24/2002

2003:
Eric Gagne 5/2/2003
Brian Jordan 7/1/2003
Fred McGriff 9/12/2003

2004:
Eric Gagne 4/30/2004
Don Newcombe 7/23/04
Don Drysdale 8/20/2004

2005:
Cesar Izturiz 6/1/2005
Jeff Kent 9/29/2005

2006:
Ron Cey 6/2/2006
Fernando Valenzuela 6/23/2006
Steve Garvey 7/28/2006


2007:
Nomar Garciaparra 4/26/2007
Rafael Furcal 7/6/2007
Russell Martin 8/2/2007
Tommy Lasorda 9/14/2007

2008:
Joe Torre 4/25/2008
Takashi Saito 6/5/2008
Brad Penny 7/25/2008
Joe Beimel 8/21/2008

2009:
Casey Blake 5/20/2009
Manny Ramirez 7/22/2009
Matt Kemp 8/19/2009
Manny Ramirez 9/16/2009

2010:
Andre Ethier 5/18/2010
Jonathan Broxton 6/8/2010
James Loney 7/20/2010
Matt Kemp 8/17/2010

Not included: The Dodger Dog Bobblehead, which goes for $30 in this eBay auction (linked here)

The dates for the 2011 bobblehead giveaways:
May 17
June 1
June 14
July 7
July 26
August 9

Keep up with all that is Dodger bobblehead at this site (linked here)

And where to find that Dodger bobblehead T-shirt above (linked here)

(AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)
Connecticut celebrates in the final seconds of its 81-50 win over Ohio State in the Maggie Dixon Classic at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

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

MONDAY

NFL: Chicago at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

Why wouldn't the Vikings have moved this to, say, their future home of L.A.? Paramedics will be standing by with snow shovels and chest paddles to treat those who needed to be here. Our plans include smuggling some Peppermint Schnapps into our living room.

NBA: Clippers vs. Minnesota, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Somehow, Kevin Love's T-wolves made it out of the Twin Cities just in time. The Clippers' home losing streak sits at just three for the time being.

NHL: Ducks at Boston, 4:30 p.m., Versus:

Nothing like a little national exposure for the Anaheimers.

TUESDAY

Women's college basketball: Florida State at UConn, 4 p.m., ESPN2:

UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after an historic Win No. 88 in a row on Sunday: "If we were fortunate enough to win Tuesday night, that just means we did something in women's basketball that's pretty special."

College basketball: UCLA vs. Montana State, Pauley Pavilion, 7:30 p.m., BruinTV.com:

It should be noted: After a four-game losing string, this Bruins team is just 85 wins from tying their school winning streak.

College basketball: USC at Tennessee, 4 p.m., Prime:

Vols hoops coach Bruce Pearl said it about the press he's received in the wake of an eight-game SEC suspension for recruiting violations: "What I was hoping for was that some other dumbass would get on the front page and take me off the hook. I miss Lane Kiffin." That's just as hilarious as the way Pearl's team has been playing lately. The former No. 7 Vols (7-2) followed a win over then-No. 3 Pitt with head-scratching upset losses to Oakland and Charlotte. See if Pat Summit has any answers.

NHL: Kings at Colorado, 6:30 p.m., Prime:

The Kings finish their roller-coaster roadie against an Avalanche team they knocked off, 6-4, back in late October, when Brad Richardson, who started the night with 30 career goals in 254 games, got his first NHL hat trick. Richardson, who missed the last four games with an upper-body injury, has been activated in time for this one. Marco Sturm could also be available by this one. Good deal. The Avs have been hot.

NBA: Lakers vs. Milwaukee, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

Check your tickets again. This is against "MIL," not "MIA." A huge difference.

College football: Beef 'O'Brady's Bowl, St. P'tersburg, Fla.: L'ville vs. Southern Mississippi, 5 p.m., ESPN:

How many 'postrophies can they get in one lousy b'wl game?

WEDNESDAY

NBA: Clippers vs. Houston, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Can Yao Ming at least visit his favorite Chinatown restaurant while he's in the neighborhood?

College football: Maaco Bowl, Las Vegas: Boise State vs. Utah, 5 p.m., ESPN:

A Pac-10 team could have should have been slotted for this one, but not enough were bowl eligible. Instead, we'll have to accept future Pac-12 participant Utah, against the team that should have been BCS worthy if they had a reliable field-goal kicker. That's the gamble you take in Vegas.

THURSDAY

NHL: Kings vs. Edmonton, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

These young Oilers have one of the worst records in the league, but they have that No. 1 draft pick, Taylor Hall, right? Continue . . .

College basketball: USC vs. Lehigh, Galen Center, 5:30 p.m., USCTrojans.com: UCLA vs. UC Irvine, Pauley Pavilion, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Here's the final tuneups for both teams before the Pac-10 season starts. Make it count.

College football: Poinsettia Bowl, San Diego: San Diego State vs. Navy, 5 p.m., ESPN:

It's a natural fit, these two, but an unnatural annual event in the bowl lineup.

NFL: Carolina at Pittsburgh, 5:20 p.m., NFL Network:

Neither of these two teams are on Bill Cowher's coaching wish list?

FRIDAY

College football: Hawaii Bowl, Honolulu: Hawaii vs. Tulsa, 5 p.m., ESPN:

It's not an Hawaii home game, it just seems that way. The Rainbow Warriors may someday return to the Sugar Bowl (remember '08, Colt Brennan's team lost 41-10 to Matt Stafford and Georgia). But for now, they'll have to settle for hosting a bunch of travelers from Oklahoma who don't mind roasted pig in a one-horse open lei..

SATURDAY

NBA: Lakers vs. Miami, Staples Center, 2 p.m., Channel 7:

Santa sez: Believe the hype. Snoop Dogg sez: I believe you're in my seat. The NBA has been dreaming of this Christmas, just like the ones it used to know when Shaq came back to L.A. loaded with gifts for the local kids. This time, the Lakers can't really be all that excited to face a squad that may be riding a 14-game winning streak and has been whipping their opponents by nearly 20 points a contest. Yet, can the Wade-James-Bosh trio stand up to the Gasol-Bynum-Artest front line? Let's just make sure no seat cushions are tossed onto the floor. And if this one isn't to your taste, the NBA has four others on TV today: Chicago at New York (9 a.m., ESPN), Boston at Orlando (11:30 a.m., Channel 7), Denver at Oklahoma City (5 p.m., ESPN) and Portland at Golden State (7:30 p.m., ESPN).

NFL: Dallas at Arizona, 4:30 p.m., NFL Network:

Nope, the league's own channel can't flex out of this mess.

SUNDAY

NHL: Kings vs. Ducks, Staples Center, 6 p.m., FSW:

Even if you believe the numbers -- it's all even in the all-time series now at 43-43-4 after the Ducks took a 2-0 win a few weeks ago in Anaheim -- the fact the Ducks have more Stanley Cup victories in a shorter time frame really gets under the Kings' fans skin. On the day after Christmas, it's back to getting into a fightin' mood.

NBA: Clippers vs. Phoenix, Staples Center, noon, Prime:

In their previous loss to the Suns back on the day after Thanksgiving, the Clippers fell behind by 21 after the first quarter in Phoenix. And some 17,000 Suns fans still witnessed it.

College football: Little Caesars Bowl, Detroit: Toledo vs. Florida International, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

This could be done in 30 minutes or less.

NFL: Minnesota at Philadelphia, 5:20 p.m., Channel 4:

NBC opted out of the previously-scheduled Chargers-Bengals bash for more Favre-Vick panache.

Why has the rejection of Mark Cuban trying to fix the BCS system turned into a mini Cuban Dismissal Crisis?

== Considering that an injury will prevent snowmobile champ Levi LaVallee from trying the latest New Year's Eve extreme stunt - he was going to vault his rig a world-record 300-plus feet across a water gap in San Diego - hasn't this whole Red Bull-oney circus event already jumped the shark?

Because we're a list maker and a risk taker, we'll go over the one that Eric Deggans did for the the Indiana University's National Sports Journalism Center site (linked here): The Top 10 Sports Media Stories of 2010.

No. 1: Tiger Woods and Brett Favre define new era in sports gossip reporting.
"Remember when journalists were too principled to admit paying for sources? Welcome to the Internet age, where Gawker Media owner Nick Denton can breezily announce his Deadspin sports site paid $12,000 for voicemails of superstar Favre hitting on a pretty sideline TV personality and nude shots sent to her by text message of a man who may be him. Golf superstar Woods already opened the Pandora's Box, cheating on his wife so brazenly it only took a 2 a.m. car crash for gossip site TMZ to unravel it all (though TMZ honcho Harvin Levin insists they didn't pay for their Tiger scoops). Considering that Favre's indiscretions happened in 2008 and Woods cheated for years, there may be a host of superstar athletes sweating over how fast the sports reporting game has changed, and the skeletons left in their closets to unveil."

No. 2: The Decision marks new low for LeBron James and ESPN.

No. 3: NFL ratings skyrocket.
"Given the high quality of most home-theater systems, it's no surprise professional football games have been the most-watched television shows of the week."

No. 4: NFL stands tough on blackout policy as recession lingers.
"Why not just carve out an exemption for economically challenged communities and take credit for helping the working man?"

No. 5: Mike Wise's fake tweet mostly proves he doesn't understand Twitter.
"In trying to mock how fast sports websites pass along inaccurate news items (the Washington Post columnist) only proved how little he understands the new media ecology.

No. 6: Dave Kindred takes on hypocrisy of Red Smith Award for Mitch Albom.
"I've never met or even spoken to my fellow columnist on this website. But I read in awe as he used superstar writer Mitch Albom's own acceptance speech to - in his words - raise a little hell about Albom receiving one of the highest sportswriting awards in the country five years after admitting he fabricated the lead to a Sunday column. Lots of writers have groused about Albom's ego and occasional hypocrisy; Kindred let the man's own words do most of the talking."

No. 7: Ines Sainz and Jenn Sterger revive talk of sex and sexism in sports.

No. 8: George Steinbrenner's hidden legacy as a media pioneer.
"In a world where everyone has a channel, whoever owns the best content is king."

No. 9: Jay Mariotti felled by same excess he criticized as a sports pundit.

No. 10: ESPN's 30 For 30 documentaries.

Heck of a job on this ... kinda reminds us of our dubious dozen. Maybe we should be more evolving and involve all the media stories of the year, dutiful and dubious.

Naw ....

And now, a delayed reaction to today's media column (linked here) about ESPNU's coverage of the UConn women, the SI "media" issue and other stuff:

== The NFL's week on L.A. TV:
Sunday:
= 10 a.m., Channel 11: Philadelphia at N.Y. Giants (with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver), instead of Washington-Dallas, New Orleans-Baltimore, Arizona-Carolina or Detroit-Tampa Bay.
= 10 a.m., Channel 2: Jacksonville at Indianapolis (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf), instead of Kansas City-St. Louis, Buffalo-Miami, Cleveland-Cincinnati, Jacksonville-Indianapolis and Houston-Tennessee.
= 1 p.m., Channel 2: N.Y. Jets at Pittsburgh (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) instead of Denver-Oakland. Fox also has Atlanta-Seattle in this window.
= 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Green Bay at New England (with Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Andrea Kremer)
Monday:
= 5:30 p.m., ESPN: Chicago at Minnesota (with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden). Monday's game marks the 29th anniversary to the day (Dec. 20, 1981) that the Vikings played their last home NFL game outdoors, a 10-6 loss to the Chiefs in their final game at Metropolitan Stadium. ESPN says the telecast will begin with a Frank Gifford MNF vignette highlighting the 2009 MNF season finale when the Bears defeated the playoff-bound Vikings 36-30 in overtime in frigid late-December conditions at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Thursday:
= 5:30 p.m., NFL Network: Carolina at Pittsburgh (with Bob Papa, Joe Theisman and Matt Millen)

== Mixed in with ESPN's college basketball coverage on Saturday: Dave Pasch and Bob Knight call USC's game at No. 3 Kansas (ESPN, 9 a.m.), while Dave Flemming and Miles Simon do Loyola Marymount's home game against Florida State (ESPNU, 8 p.m.).

== Lakers radio play-by-play man Spero Dedes deviates from the team's current road trip (leaving Philadelphia after Friday's game and returning to Toronto for Sunday's game) to call Saturday's South Carolina-Ohio State game in Columbus, Ohio, for CBS (Channel 2, 11 a.m.) with Bill Raftery.

== A rundown of the CIF state high school football games tonight and Saturday on FSW:
= Today, 4 p.m.: D-IV Championship: Brookside Christian (Stockton) vs. Bishop's School (La Jolla) with Chris McGee, Mike Pawlawski and Courtney Jones.
= Today, 7:30 p.m.: D-I Championship: Palo Alto vs. Centennial (Corona), with McGee, Pawalski and Jones.
= Saturday, noon: D-III Championship: Escalon vs. Madison (San Diego), with McGee, John Jackson and Jones.
= Saturday, 3:30 p.m.: D-II Championship: Folsom vs. Serra (Gardena), with Jim Kozimor, Petros Papadakis and Dan Dibley.
= Saturday, 7:30 p.m.: Open Division Championship: De La Salle (Concord) vs. Servite ( Anaheim), with Kozimor, Papadakis and Dibley.
Brody Brazil and Jackson host the between-game desk.

== "The Climb: UConn's Quest for Perfection," a documentary four-part series on the women's basketball team that aired during the 2010 postseason in March, will re-air on ESPNU on Sunday from 5-7 p.m. prior to a reair of the UConn-Ohio State game (which is live at 2 p.m.).

== CBS annual one-hour special, "Championships of the NCAA" (Saturday, 10 a.m.) includes video of USC's men's water polo title, as well a stories and highlights from cross country, field hockey, soccer and volleyball. Sam Ryan hosts.

== A real-time coverage of a Jan. 15 no-limit Texas Hold 'em poker tournament in the Bahamas (albeit, on a one-hour delay) is ESPN2's next step in taking televised card playing to another level. The World Series of Poker is edited and aired on tape-delay, which prevents cheating and tightens the event for broadcast. This one is supposed to allow views to see things as they happen - including longer lulls - while knowing what cards the players are holding. "For the first time viewers at home will see a poker telecast from start to finish, with all the strategy of world-class poker players playing in real time and completely unedited," said Matt Volk, ESPN manager of programming and acquisitions.

Perhaps Sports Illustrated's decision to go this week with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale from the new movie "The Fighter" as a "Year in Sports Media" cover for the second year in a row might be a sign a big media company legitimizes the compelling influence of the big media in today's sports world.

Or, maybe it's just good timing.

SI associate editor Adam Duerson said in an e-mail the magazine certainly "didn't feel tied" to making this the cover piece, following Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert in the speed skating outfit a year ago. But it was "kind of a perfect storm" in having a "fantastic movie, arguably the best in sports of the decade with a close release date and an amazing story behind it."

This is the sixth year SI has expanded its "Scorecard" section for a sports-media theme retrospective of the year.

"We'd be kidding ourselves if we acted like broadcast networks, blogs and internet coverage weren't an enormous part of the sports experience," Duerson said. "If we could watch sports in a vacuum, maybe there'd be no need for this issue. But we don't.

"As an editor of the Scorecard section, I can tell you that plenty of stuff occurs throughout the year that can't hold up on its own as an item or review. But come the end of the year, packaged as a whole, I think readers enjoy the roundup."

The 13-page theme spread starts with a Steve Rushin piece about a new media company called StatSheet that has created software converting basketball game summaries into a template story.

And as for the way the section ends -- with a small commercial touting a list of 13 SI-related books that were pushed or written by the magazine's writers -- Duerson responds:

"The issue looks at what we consider the highlights of 2010 regardless of what company they were tied to. That said, I don't recall many items in the package that Time Inc./TimeWarner/Warner Bros. was involved in. In fact, I've noted blogs that seemed surprised at how much love we gave ESPN."

(AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)
Industriales's fans cheer during a game last week against Pinar del Rio during opening day baseball at the Latinamerican stadium in Havana, Cuba.

Peter Orsi
The Associated Press

HAVANA -- When Armando Rivero took the mound for Industriales with the score tied in the top of the 10th, he was already in a deep hole: Villa Clara had runners on first and second with no outs -- all before the first pitch of the inning.

Opening day in Cuba offered a new rule that tries to prevent extra-inning games from going on forever. But the Olympic-style format has irked many purists on this baseball-crazy island who say it cheapens the sport.

Under the rule, teams begin the 10th and any subsequent innings with two men on base. Managers get a one-time restart, meaning any hitter can lead off. After that, the lineup stays in place.

Think soccer penalty kicks, NHL shootouts or -- perhaps the closest analogy -- overtime in college football, where teams start within field goal range at the 25-yard line and trade possessions

The object in the top Cuban league this season is to make it easier to score, thereby shortening games that often top four hours.

"I don't like it," said 66-year-old Sixto Ramirez, wearing a blue Industriales cap as he watched a recent game from field-level seats behind third base. After six decades of coming to Havana's El Latino Stadium, the tiebreaker strikes him as "cold" and clinical.

"We are committed to ... a traditional game," Ramirez said. "When there's a tie in the ninth, it should keep going. There's nothing wrong with 15 innings."

AP Photo/Bob Child
UConn coach Geno Auriemma reacts during a win over Marquette, the team's 87th in a row, last week.

There is some kind of noise connected to the UConn women's basketball team as it approaches the iconic 88 - that is, the winning-streak standard that UCLA's men's basketball team accomplished in the early 1970s.

A blah buzz? A muzzled murmur?

A stifled media yawn?

In her column this week for USA Today (linked here), Christine Brennan called it a flagant foul, practically scolding the sports communications industry for failing to generate much of anything decibel-related for this pending achievement. Not even so much as giving it the obligatory apples-to-oranges sides that are drawn with any debate of such low-lying fruit.

On the flip side, a men's team that happened to be zoning on the Bruins' NCAA record would have every four-letter network turning upside down trying to produce daily countdown specials, websites and documentaries.

Yet, Brennan's disappointment that the UConn-Ohio State game on a late-season NFL Sunday that could celebrate the Huskies' 88th win in a row has "been relegated" to ESPNU and takes away from "the top billing" that the achievement deserves has merit, despite what one high-level ESPN person believes.

"ESPNU is in 73 million homes, and it's the network of college sports, and this is a huge college sports moment," Tina Thornton, ESPN's senior coordinating producer, said today. "So, you know . . . I guess people can say all they want about where we put it, but it's a great vehicle for a great game."

But definitely far from the greatest.

NFL Network said this morning that it will re-air the New York Giants vs. Minnesota Vikings game in Detroit at 9 p.m. (PDT) in its entirety following the live game tonight (5 p.m. kickoff).

The live broadcast of the game is on Fox affiliates in the local New York and Minnesota markets. It will also be live on DirecTV's "Sunday Ticket."

NFL Network will also have a special edition of NFL Total Access Monday at 3 p.m. today with the latest on the Vikings' Brett Favre and both games tonight.

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

MONDAY

NFL: Baltimore at Houston, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

As an L.A. NFL fan that saw the league award a franchise several seasons ago to the former home of the Oilers intead of the former home of the Rams and Raiders, do you find any glee in watching this Texans' season about to collapse like the Metrodome roof? After what many thought was a tailor-made carpet trip to the playoffs, Houston now knows it has to win its last four in a row, and then hope a couple teams ahead of it struggle? Yup, Houston has a problem. Go ahead. Smile at least.

College basketball: UCLA vs. UC Davis, Pauley Pavilion, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Put these 5-4 Bruins in the Big West Conference, and they'd be a shiny 3-0, with wins this year already against Cal State Northridge, Pacific and Cal Poly. The Aggies of UC Davis are next (with UC Irvine next week). And Ben Howland's record over the last two seasons is now 18-22?

NHL: Kings at Detroit, 4:30 p.m., Versus:

In the afterglow of a 3-2 OT win against the Red Wings at Staples Center last week, the Kings start a five-game road trip with a rare national TV exposure. They had none of these last year. The Red Wings ended their first two-game losing slide with back-to-back wins over the weekend.

TUESDAY

NBA: Lakers at Washington, 4 p.m., Channel 9:

Pardon the presidential interruption, but a day after a special meet-and-greet with Barack Obama -- again -- the Lakers have another scheduled appointment in pummeling the Wizards, probably not as irratically as they did last week at Staples Center. Last January, when the Lakers were in a 5-5 stretch after a 28-6 start, they had their champions meeting at the White House and were inspired to win nine of their next 11. And, if things to as advertised, Andrew Bynum will see his first action of the season here. Holding your breath?

WEDNESDAY

NBA: Lakers at Indiana, 4 p.m., Channel 9; Clippers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m., Prime:

If not for the Grammys, then why again has everyone been kicked out of Staples Center this week? That goofy Disney On Ice show starts tonight, and goes through Sunday. The Lakers, as a result, get to meet up with the team that beat 'em by three a couple of weeks ago, and the Clippers find out how life's been treating Elton Brand (averaging 16.1 points and 7.7 rebounds a game).

NHL: Ducks at Washington, 4 p.m., FSW:

As for this Ducks' extended roadie, it's not clear why they've been frozen out. They won't be back at the Honda Center until New Year's Eve, but Disney On Ice doesn't barge in until Dec. 21-26.

THURSDAY

NFL: San Francisco at San Diego, 5:20 p.m., NFL Network:

The Chargers, in their last home game, only wish they could face Brodie Croyle every week. The 49ers' Alex Smith, in his last win over Seattle, only wishes he could look like John Brodie every week. San Diego (and Pittsburgh) has the easiest remaining schedule left for AFC playoff-eligible teams -- their opponents' winning percentage for the last three games are a combined .354.

NHL: Kings at St. Louis, 5 p.m., FSW:

Andy McDonald was the Blues' leading scorer when he went out with a concussion on Dec. 4 - he hit a rut in the ice and crashed into the leg of Edmonton's Shawn Horcoff. McDonald hasn't played since. Remember, he missed the last 29 games of the Ducks' Stanley Cup run in '03 because of post-concussion syndrome. He also missed seven games earlier this season for the same reason.

NHL: Ducks at N.Y. Islanders, 4 p.m., Prime:

The best lead to a story last week in the Orange County Register: "ANAHEIM - Everything about Teemu Selanne's game is fine except for that nagging pain emanating from his groin muscle." He's gone missing again, maybe for some of this trip.

FRIDAY

NBA: Lakers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m., Channel 9:

All those things that Doug Collins used to say about Phil Jackson from the broadcast table may come back to haunt him now that he's back coaching the Sixers.

NBA: Clippers at Detroit, 4:30 p.m., FSW:

TheBigLead.com contributor Stephen Douglas wrote it last week: "The Clippers are a garbage fire and Baron Davis is fanning the flames with an excrement-covered blanket. But Blake Griffin... man he's a joy to watch."

High school football: California state Division I championship: Corona Centennial vs. Palo Alto, Home Depot Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Centennial (15-0) won the Division I state title in '08, and has scored as many as 82 points in a game this season.

SATURDAY

College football: New Mexico Bowl, Albuquerque: BYU vs. UTEP, 11 a.m., ESPN; Humanitarian Bowl, Boise, Idaho: Fresno State vs. Northern Illinois, 2:30 p.m., ESPN; New Orleans Bowl: Ohio vs. Troy, 6 p.m., ESPN:

To kick off the bowl season, it's two 6-6 teams meeting in the only live televised sporting event in the state of New Mexico. At the end of the day, they'll still combine for a .500 record. It can only get better.

High school football: California state open-division championship: Concord De La Salle vs. Anaheim Servite, Home Depot Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

Perennial power De La Salle, the open division winner in 2009, is 13-0, having won its division title 19 straight seasons. Servite, 14-0, the defending Division II title winner, and ranked No. 1 by MaxPreps, has won its last 25 in a row. In the 3:30 p.m. Division II championship, Serra of Gardena (14-0), with a 29-game win streak having won the Div. III title a year ago, takes on Folsolm (13-1) from the San Joaquin Valley.

NHL: Kings at Nashville, 5 p.m., Channel 13:

The Kings registered a 4-1 against the Predators in early November behind Jonathan Bernier.

NBA: Clippers at Chicago: 5 p.m., FSW:

See: Friday, at Detroit, Clippers.

College basketball: UCLA vs. BYU, Honda Center, 2:30 p.m. FSW:

For the first time since the inception of the John R. Wooden Classic, its namesake won't be present. The Hall of Fame coach's passing in June left some doubt about whether it could go on, but soon afterward, the family said in an a statement that it was "proud to continue the Wooden Classic in honor of our father, grandfather and great grandfather," said Jim Wooden and Nancy Muehlhausen, John Wooden's son and daughter. This is the 17th year of the event, and UCLA has been in 15 of them. The day begins with St. Mary's against Long Beach State.

College basketball: USC at Kansas, 9 a.m., ESPN:

What UCLA couldn't accomplish two weeks ago, maybe the Trojans can: Ending the Jayhawks' home winning streak. Depends on what moods the referees are in.

SUNDAY

NBA: Lakers at Toronto, 10 a.m., Channel 9:

We're looking at a list of the leading scorers this year for the non-D League Raptors and ... nope, don't see Chris Bosh. We've lost track of his whereabouts. Blame Canada. At least this one will end early.

NFL: Green Bay at New England, 5:15 p.m., Channel 4:

Aaron Rodgers may not remember much about the Pack's last loss to Detroit - and might have even been more confused watching the Vikings play the Giants on the Lions' home field on Monday.

NHL: Kings at Chicago, 4 p.m., FSW:

They've already lost twice to the defending Stanley Cup champs in the first 22 games. Is Marco Sturm ready yet?

Our biggest Beef 'O' Brady with the current college football bowl system?

This season, it looks as if someone from the NCAA went to Overstock.com and bought up all the naming rights nobody else wanted.

So maybe the economy hasn't fully bounced back to those glorious, disingenuous dot-com days where companies could sponsor a meaningless bowl game by swiping a credit card that they never intended to pay off.

But if this is supposed to be some sudden embarrassment of riches among the Big Lots of the world, maybe we should feel fortunate that UCLA and USC had a) not enough victories or b) too many violations to completely avoid the further embarrassment of having to ask their fan base to cough up full-price plane fair and game tickets for a tacky-named exhibition.

Go down the list. It's like a who's who of never was.

A Wilmington, Ohio-based trucking firm. A discount paint-and-body repair shop. A Japanese automaker with a name we still can't pronounce, and whose top-selling model ranks No. 14 on the American best-seller list.

A multi-vitamin retailer whose customer service complaint hotline expands from 10 p.m. to midnight on Mondays and Tuesdays. An online ticket broker that has neither "Stub" nor "Hub" in its name. A website where you go, daddy, to buy a website domain name.

Two pizza delivery joints. A credit union that's supposed to be looking out for your investment but is instead paying out $750,000 a team in appearance fees. And a U.S. defense contractor.

Who's got a spare Poulan WeedEater to come in and clear some of this dry brush?

There are 34 minor-league, preliminary bouts over the next four-plus weeks before the Oregon-Auburn heavyweight battle to determine this season's pretend national champion. There are just about 34 minor-league names to match.

Either the giants of the Forbes 500 weren't bold enough to spend a little walking-around money and slap their logo on the midfield stripe, or this is an ingenious way for major corporate America to protest the whole charade.

There will be no drove to be humanely put down after the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl wraps up this Saturday in Boise, Idaho. This company that "replaces in-cab paperwork for the transportation industry from your smart phone" might want to add an app to monitor if anyone's really paying attention in Spudville, USA.

Some think we've reached a new era with the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. But it's really an opportunity for good ol' 7-5 Syracuse, with stunning victories over Colgate, Akron and Maine but unable to upend UConn for the Big East title, to boldly offer travel packages to anyone willing to take a same-day, 250-mile round-trip charter from the campus to New York City. It comes with ground transportation, a pre-game reception and a "trip souvenir." But no game ticket. All for just $720 a person.

That Emerald Nut-Job Bowl that the Trojans ended up winning last year in San Francisco? Now it's the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. A noble cause, but really, is the best way to tackle this kind of global problem with gobs of Mac-and-Cheez Whiz?

Beef 'O' Brady's, by the way, is an Irish pub chain. The closest one to us is in Phoenix. That's not far enough.

These bowls that do get (but don't necessarily need) NCAA certification have the option of going without a shady business partner. But then they have to figure out a way to pay the teams off for participating. Most guarantee at least the three-quarters-of-a-mil payout.

Yet, something called the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., on Jan. 8, can only afford $300,000 apiece for Pittsburgh and Kentucky. The R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl really got carried away and has committed $325,000 each to Troy and Ohio.

Why even bother?

The salad days of college football's Salad Bowl - it was Phoenix's precursor to the Fiesta Bowl, sponsored by Tostidos - make us wonder even more: How low will they go with lame names?

Tom Hagel, a senior director of marketing at ESPN, which is the network televising 34 of the 35 games this bowl season, told Bloomberg News recently that he has never had a title sponsor name rejected by the NCAA's Football Issues Committee, which grants bowl licenses.

"We have our own filter," Hagel said. "When you're in the bowl business, it's almost like you're buying a house in a neighborhood. You don't want a real bad house in the neighborhood."

Unless it's been sitting vacant for a few years and the neighborhood's value is plummeting.

In that case, the ExtenZe Bowl has just been added to someone's short list.

In the New York Times' obit on the passing this week of former ABC "Monday Night Football" analyst Don Meredith, it notes:

Joseph Donald Meredith was born on April 10, 1938. In high school, he acted in school plays, scored 52 points in a basketball tournament game, graduated second in his class and won a statewide contest for identifying shrubs.

Some of the quotes that came out this week on his life:

== Frank Gifford, who got choked up when talking about Meredith when interviewed live at halftime on ESPN's recent "MNF" telecast, told New York's Newsday he went to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a final visit: "I saw him about three months ago. [His wife] Susan called me and said he was a little down in the dumps. He really wasn't talking to anyone. He would just sit there and was on oxygen at the time and just every now and then he'd try to sing. She had an around-the-clock nurse for him. I figured it was getting close to the end. I just flew out one afternoon and spent two days with him and came back. He didn't take very good care of himself, to say the least. Once he got to where he couldn't do anything he just fell apart. Sad."

== Dan Dierdorf, who did 12 years on "Monday Night Football" for ABC: "He was not a professional announcer and I think that's really what endeared him to people. I think a lot of people looked at Don Meredith in the booth and thought to themselves, 'That could be me.'"

== Randy Galloway, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist: "As a huge Meredith fan, I once asked (Cowboys coach Tom) Landry about him while walking back from the practice fields at training camp in Thousand Oaks, Calif. 'Coach, did you enjoy Don Meredith back in the day?' A slight grin appeared, then Tom answered dryly, 'he was different.'"

Personal aside: Without Meredith, there's no Terry Bradshaw, Paul Maguire, Lee Corso, or anyone else who injects their over-the-top personality into a broadcast. You knew Meredith knew what he was doing, he was perfect for that time when "MNF" was bigger than just a game, kind of an interloper who played his role but had the credibility.

They say that all good things must end. This ended too soon.

The Cowboys plan to pay tribute to Meredith before Sunday night's game against Philadelphia. The Dallas Morning News reports that Meredith never did attend a game at the new stadium before his death. He was invited for the regular season opener against the New York Giants in 2009, but was the only living member of the Ring of Honor at the time to decline the invitation.

Following up on today's media column (linked here), the rest of the stuff that passes for our media ring of honor this weekend:

== The NFL slate for your L.A. television stations coming up:

= Sunday:
= 10 a.m., Channel 11: N.Y. Giants at Minnesota (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman), instead of Fox's other offerings: Green Bay-Detroit, Atlanta-Carolina and Tampa Bay-Washington.
= 10 a.m., Channel 2: Oakland at Jacksonville (with Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots). CBS also has Cleveland-Buffalo and Cincinnati-Pittsburgh.
= 1 p.m., Channel 2: Kansas City at San Diego (with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker) instead of New England-Chicago (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms), Denver-Arizona and Miami-N.Y. Jets. Fox also has St. Louis-New Orleans and Seattle-San Francisco.
= 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Philadelphia at Dallas (with Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Andre Kremer).
= Monday:
= 5:30 p.m., ESPN: Baltimore at Houston (with Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski).
= Thursday:
= 5 p.m., NFL Network: San Francisco at San Diego (with Bob Papa, Matt Millen and Joe Theisman).

== With today's updated technology, would any network ever try an announcer-less NFL game again? The NFL Network experimented with it by replaying a recent Thursday night game with only the game sounds (and eliminating the call of their three-broadcaster booth). Thirty years ago, NBC tried it, and whether it succeeded or not is debated on the latest ESPN "Outside the Lines" Sunday morning show (6 a.m.) with then-NBC executive producer Don Ohlmeyer (the current ESPN.com ombudsman) and director David Neal talking about how it went during that contest featuring the 3-12 New York Jets and 8-7 Miami Dolphins in an otherwise meaningless season-ending game (link to video preview here). Dick Enberg and Bryant Gumbel also are interviewed for the piece.

== How ESPN plans to handle Saturday's Heisman ceremony with Cam Newton and all that stuff (linked here).

== Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson call the 111th Army-Navy game (Chanel 2, 11:30 a.m., Saturday), the second year that the game is played on the second Saturday in December to end the college football regular-season, as part of CBS' extended agreement to do the game through 2018. Tim Brando, Spencer Tillman and Aaron Taylor do the pregame show (11 a.m.) that includes an interview with Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs, who says his future plans which include becoming President of the United States in 2040.

== JP Dellacamera and John Harkes call the NCAA men's College Cup, starting with the semifinals today (North Carolina-Louisville, 5:30 p.m., ESPNU; Michigan-Akron, 7 p.m., ESPN2) and the final on Sunday (1 p.m., ESPN2) from UC Santa Barbara.

== Big Ten Network has Fox Sports Detroit's coverage of the Michigan-Michigan State outdoor hockey game (Saturday, noon) that is expected to fill the Big House -- more than 109,000. The two teams played an outdoor game in 2001 at Spartain Stadium in East Lansing before 74,554. The 16-camera production uses Matt Shepard (play-by-play), former Michigan player and ex-Islanders colorman Billy Jaffe (analyst), Fred Pletsch (between the benches analyst), along with Mickey Redmond and John Keating (hosts/intermission interviews).

== ESPN has decided to unlease online columnist Bill Simmons as a guest analyst on tonight's Miami-Golden State telecast (7:30 p.m.), joining Dan Shulman and Mark Jackson. At least it won't happen during the ESPN coverage of the game preceeding it -- Lakers at Chicago, with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy.

== HBO's final boxing event of the year sends Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Roy Jones Jr. (subbing for Emanuel Steward) to Las Vegas to see Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana and Victor Ortiz-Lamont Peterson (Saturday, 6:30 p.m.).

== Because it can, TNT has decided to send its studio team of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to Staples Center prior to its coverage of the Lakers-Oklahoma City game on Martin Luther King Day (Monday, Jan. 17). Yes, they've been trying to get out more this season. They were at the Oct. 26 Boston-Miami opener, then at the Dec. 2 Miami-Cleveland game.

== A new ESPN-created college basketball "Champions Classic," featuring "four of the sport's winningest programs" playing each other in prime time on neutral sites over the next three years - and UCLA didn't get an invite? In mid-November during the 2011, '12 and '13 seasons, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State (who all play in conferences tied to ESPN contracts) have agreed to matchups played as a double header in New York, Atlanta and Chicago. The ESPN director of programming and acquisitions calls it an event that creates "a tremendous pillar for the start of the college basketball season." Maybe it gives the current UCLA program something to shoot for. Or organize their own event with the help of Fox Sports Net.

AND FINALLY:

== Dreaming of a White Christmas and the 1960 World Series? MLB Network has it, thanks to Bing Crosby.

The black-and-white kinescope of the '60 World Series Game 7 which was thought to be lost but rediscovered earlier this year at the home of the late singer (who was part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time) will be seen on TV Wednesday at 5 p.m. on the MLB Network for the first time since it was originally aired 50 years ago.

Bob Costas will include interviews with Bill Mazerowski, Dick Groat, Bill Virdon, Bobby Richardson, Vera Clemente (the widow of Roberto Clemente) and actor and Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton.

Interviews were recorded in front of a live audience of more than 1,000 at the historic Byham Theater in Pittsburgh on November 13, 2010, where the film of Game 7 was screened.

Hall of Fame broadcasters Mel Allen and Bob Prince alternate each half inning of the broadcast, which MLB Network worked with the Technicolor company to restore the picture and sound quality. The original production includes limited on-screen graphics and no instant replay.

Before the telecast, Costas will host a special "Bing and Baseball" at 4:30 p.m., to feature Crosby's involvement with baseball. Interviews are done with Crosby's widow Kathryn and his son Nathaniel

Things to do while waiting for the kickoff to the next Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Track down the new Adam Carolla book, "In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks." (linked here).

Man up, the former "Man Show" co-creator and current podcast radio host rants. Next time you get a flat tire, change it yourself instead of grabbing a hand sanitizer and calling Triple-A like your wife or girlfriend would do.

And while we're on the emasculating subject: Why did it take 30-some years for ESPN to finally start its own chick network?

Stop fighting it.

Not that there are immediate plans for newly minted espnW to morph soon into the latest ESPN cable channel - if it happens, it'll be because of a demand for it and financial incentive for the Disney corporation.

But for the time being, you've been warned: Those five letters represent the launch of a not-so-demure website blog, the planting of a beachhead to an initiative to see who's initiated into sports media reform from the female perspective.

The mission statement reads (linked here): "A destination for women who are passionate sports fans and athletes. We hope you find it surprising, informative and inspiring, because we created it just for you."

For who? "The View"?

"It was conceived to serve females," says espnW vice president Laura Gentile, "but we're happy to have men enjoy it, too."

Go ahead, take the bait. It may not be in your DNA, but there's a double-helix of information to pour over.

Gentile's pilot project into luring more women to ESPN's platforms of sports consumerism involved nearly two years of research to decide on the best form of infiltration.

The gameplan here, as if fits in ESPN's big picture: Nurture more female viewers (its research shows men make up more than 75 percent of all network viewership) beyond the Olympics, the Spelling Bee or cheerleading shows. And then find out why there are dozens of hours of women's sports programming offered each week that go unnoticed by both genders.

To cut through the clutter of male-enhanced sports noise, espnW starts with a group of personalities posting mini-columns such as Melissa Jacobs (thefootballgirl.com), Amanda Rykoff (OCDChick.com) and Sarah Spain (ESPNChicago.com), plus former athletes like Julie Foudy, Tamika Catchings, Summer Sanders and Jessica Mendoza.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
Jessica Mendoza, right, poses with tennis legend Billie Jean King, center, and then-Woman's Sports Foundation president Aimee Mullins in New York at an awards ceremony in 2008.

Mendoza, the former Camarillo High and Stanford star Olympic softball player, did her first piece (linked here) on lessons learned from a recent women's self-esteem talk she heard Billie Jean King do at an espnW retreat.

"When I heard this was going to be a place for women's sports - high school, college and pro -- things like Sports Illustrated for Women come and go because it seems like they're just thrown out there," said Mendoza, president of the Women's Sports Foundation and an ESPN college football sideline reporter. "I think it's cool for a female to know what's happening in men's sports, just as it's OK for guys to know what's going on with women's sports. I see this website doing that."

Gentile says the "pressure is self-imposed" to succeed with this out-of-TV-tube fertilization.

"The three lessons we've learned from those kind of cautionary tales is that, one, you have to have a long-term commitment to develop and listen to the audience and mold the product," said Gentile. "There aren't very many overnight success stories in this business. You also need to do a lot of homework, and we've been methodical in our research. And then you need a dedicated team who is accountable and responsible and isn't treating this as a side project. We have support on all three of those."

Feedback from those who visited espnW.com during this week's launch (linked here) comes from a survey where they're asked to concede if they are a "woman (it's espnW after all)" or a "man (curious about this whole espnW thing)."

Mendoza said she asked her husband, Adam, to check out the site this week when they had some downtime at their Moorpark home.

"He rolled his eyes, and in his mind he had this picture of an all-women's thing, so I left him alone," she said. "I saw him reading some of the stories. The first question he asked me was, 'Do they have an app for this?'"

Chick-ification is just a sports click away.

== More:
== On Facebook (linked here)
== On Twitter (linked here)
== A New York Times story on espnW from October (linked here).
== In USA Today from September (linked here)
== "Why I hate the idea of ESPNW" by Julie DiCaro (before she's ever seen it) (linked here)
== A review from BusinessInsider.com (linked here)

Dodgers radio play-by-play man Charley Steiner will give the mid-year commencement address at his alma mater, Bradley University, on Dec. 18, where he will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

The 1971 Bradley grad was inducted into the school's Sports Hall of Fame in 1995 and into the Centurion Society in 2003. He established an endowed scholarship at the Peoria, Ill., institute of higher learning in 2000.

Steiner's address will also be the first time the university's new $50 million arena that was completed last August and is used to house the school's athletic department and games for the women's basketball and volleyball teams.

"We are honored to have such an accomplished alumnus like Charley Steiner address our graduates," Bradley President Joanne Glasser said. "We strive to bring speakers of national stature to inspire our students with their passion, wisdom and life experiences. I am confident that Charley will offer memorable reflections to our graduates and their families as they celebrate this important milestone in their lives."

Steiner began his career as a newscaster for WIRL radio in Peoria while he was a Bradley student.

== And this just in from the memorabilia market: A signed Charley Steiner baseball is going for $59.10 on BestShoppingCenter.net (linked here).

All the best-selling sports books for this holiday season -- you know how to find 'em.

The Mickey Mantle book by Jane Levy (linked here). The Andre Agassi autobiograph (linked here). Even the annual best sportswriting book (linked here) has the usual good stuff.

We're attempting instead to characterize some of the somewhat under-the-radar but still-fresh sports page-turners out there for purchase, general perusal or possibly using as a doorstop, in 140 words (not characters), no more or less:

== "Carry the Rock: Race, Football and the Soul of An American City"
By Jay Jennings, $25.99, Rodale, 255 pages
Find it at this link
Summary: Fifty years after the historic Arkansas' Little Rock Nine integration incident -- look it up if you're not familiar with it -- home-town-bred Jennings examines the 2007 Central High School football team, in a "Friday Night Lights" sort-of treatment. Thanks to coach Bernie Cox, who previously shunned the spotlight, for giving Jennings amazing access to the underfunded program, exposing how this team didn't bond the same way as others did. "You go to school at lunchtime and you'll see," one player says. "The white students are sitting together and the black students are together. They don't ever get close." Social change doesn't always guarantee acceptance, and Cox's new Code of Conduct pushes things back in the right direction and strikes a chord. As does this book.

== "Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe"
By Kate Buford, $35, Knoff, 480 pages
Find it at this link
Summary: Buford decided to dig into this subject after doing a biography of Burt Lancaster, who played Thorpe in the movies. And there's a lot of digging to do. Thorpe, voted the greatest athlete of the 20th century by the Associated Press, is a much more complicated historical figure, but also a bridge from the Wild West to today's professional sports structure. The 1912 U.S. Olympic decathlon champ (who had his gold later stripped because of a stint as a semi-pro baseball player) was the victim of double standards and racism, and "looms larger (these days) because there wasn't more concrete evidence (via media)," says Buford. "He's kept this aura; he just kind of sits out there, pre-technology." He's definitely flawed -- alcoholism, failed marriages, poor money decision. But it's refreshing to have his story finally told as complete as possible.

== "One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL"
By Josh Bleill and Mark Tabb, $22.95, Triumph Books, 206 pages.
Find it at this link.
Summary: The Marine phrase "adapt and overcome" didn't hit Josh Bleill until he was in Miami, an invited guest to watch his Indianapolis Colts play in Super Bowl XLI. Having lost both legs on combat patrol in Iraq in 2006, he wasn't sure how to move his life forward. Amidst the nightmares and flashbacks, a dream came true: The Colts hired him as a community spokesman. "It wasn't some pity job," Bleill writes. "They haven't gone easy on me. ... The Colts brought me in and taught me how to use my full potential." His goal: Have every NFL team partner with a wounded vet to make a difference in the community. "No Marine wants people to fell sorry for them. I wanted to work with a purpose, to accomplish something far greater than can be measured in dollars and cents."

== "Baseball: An Illustrated History (With the Tenth Inning)"
By Geoffery Ward and Ken Burns, $39.95, Alfred Knopf Publishing, 563 pages.
Find it at this link.
Summary: "What can baseball tell us about who we are as a people?" is the rehashed question by Ward in his re-intro updating the companion book to the PBS "Baseball" 1994 documentary series. Slap the new "Chapter 10" in and send it back out. Again, the errors are frustrating. One of the 590 pictures is splashed across pages 456-457 captioned: "Oakland pitcher Dennis Eckersley, left, watches his slider disappear into the bleachers of Dodger Stadium as the injured Kirk Gibson begins his painful trot around the bases." Guess again. Gibson is hobbling toward first, but with A's first baseman Mark McGwire in his way. Eckersley, with his back to the camera, is coming over to cover the bag. This has to be before the moment, when he dribbled a foul ball and tried to leg it out. Way too obvious?

== "Bad Asses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death and John Madden's Oakland Raiders"
By Peter Richmond, $25.99, Harper Collins, 353 pages
Find it at this link.
Summary: Summary: Richmond's caveat is that "the passage of time has a way of producing permutations" in men's memories, and "while 'Badass' intends to be a definitive history, it is also an oral history of a long-gone time, and it's hoped readers will approach this work with the full knowledge that history, as retold by several voices, is an elastic thing." True enough, consumption of this book is as tasty as rubber chicken. Richmond's exhumation of the "beloved" bunch of "violent rebels ... castoffs, psychos, oddballs and geniuses" known as Stabler, Biletnikoff, Atkinson, Villapiano and Hendricks from Oakland's 1970s is often left to him pulling out info from previously written books by and about them. New info is sparse, and living players and coaches don't seem to want to relive it. This story seems to be lost in a black hole.

== "The Little Book of Indoor Golf Games: 18 Sure-fire Ways to Improve Your Game at Home or in the Office"
By Adrian Winter, $10.99, Sourcebooks.com, 82 pages.
Find it at this link.
Summary: Putting is 40 percent of golf, and 100 percent boring. So Winter makes a game of it - more than miniature golf, but practical stuff that aims to improve your aim on the green. The key is setting targets that are 4¼ inches wide - the diameter of the hole. A putter, a ball, and some tees, plus a string, a deck of cards and patience. The exercises are simple and can be altered to be more of a challenge. Some look more like tennis, croquet, soccer or bowling -- the trick is to make the mind think they're interesting instead of tedious. We like the old standby: Put a dollar bill on the floor, stand eight feet away, and try to putt the ball so it rests on the bill. Now, replace it with a postage stamp. Remember those?

== "Locals Only: California Skateboarding 1975-1978"
By Hugh Holland, edited by Steve Crist, $39.95, Ammo Books, 84 pages.
Find it at this link.
Summary: X-Gamers can see what hardcore skateboarding was like some 30 years ago, beyond the Dogtown and Z-Boys fantasy. Holland's photographic journal of these sidewalk surfers in almost larger-than-life presentation (the book is the size of a small billboard) captures the bronze-and-gold images that stay real. A great Q-and-A with Holland, with Crist, tells about how he started finding skateboarders zipping around in abandoned swimming polls in Laurel Canyon, and there's that "certain golden glow you get from the haze and the smog in the afternoon light (in L.A.), and (it) hits the figures balancing on the edge of a bowl, with the light reflecting back from the concrete below." Like pages 18-19, with Scott and Kent Senatore in a San Fernando Valley school yard in 1976. Stacy Peralta and more are frozen in time, in Redondo, Carlsbad, Reseda, Coldwater Canyon, Santa Monica. Intense and beautiful.

== "The Gipper: George Gipp, Knute Rockne, and the Dramatic Rise of Notre Dame Football"
By Jack Cavanaugh, $24.95, Skyhorse Publishing, 294 pages
Find it at this link.
Summary: Not so much a gripping tale of how George Gipp came to Notre Dame as an unknown in the fall of 1916, and four years later was one of the best-known athletes in the country. OK, so maybe we've got a Ronald Regan movie character etched too deep in our mind for the facts to supercede the legend. Gipp, the first All-American player in Notre Dame history, died at 25 years, 10 months on Dec. 14, 1920, and this is as much an attempt to document his athletic abilities (he excelled in baseball and billiards, too) as it is his relationship with Knute Rockne and the program. Truth is, most of the Gipp and Rockne myths have some legitimacy, and here's a chance for real Irish fans to wake up some retro history.

== "Raising Stanley: What It Takes to Claim Hockey's Ultimate Prize"
By Ross Bernstein, $22.95, Triumph, 368 pages
Find it at this link
Summary: Someday, stories from Kings players may be in the updated version. For now, fans of the team must read about the joys others have had with the Cup -- yes, it's superstition that you can't touch it until you've won it. "One thing you don't want to do is disrespect the Cup, otherwise the hockey gods may punish you," Bernstein writes. Former Kings coach Barry Melrose, referencing his trip to the '93 Finals and the loss to Montreal, writes: "I have never touched the Cup and that is something I will just have to live with. (In '93) I never got the job done. I didn't earn it. .. To be honest, I don't even like to be near the Cup. I just feel as though I don't deserve to be that close to it. ... I've had my chances."

== "Da Bears: How the 1985 Monsters of the Midway Became the Greatest Team in NFL History"
By Steve Delsohn, $24.99, Crown, 260 pages
Find it at this link
Summary: Memories of the Monsters of the Midway fade as the years go by - they won three playoff games by a combined 91-10 -- so capturing the 25-year mark of the Ditka-McMahon-Singletary-Payton-Refrigerator Perry-46 Defense team by those still around makes sense and adds new perspective. Our local guys like Tim Wrightman, the UCLA star who joined the team after three years in the USFL, even chime in. Better, Delsohn investigates: Why didn't this team win more than just once? Former USC star Keith Van Horne: "I remember coming into a team meeting and Ditka's yelling at us, 'You forgot what it takes to win' ... Then I went home and on channel 2, 5 and 7, Ditka had three different commercials, not for the same product. I think that sorta encapsulates what happened to that team." Answers Ditka: "That's all bullshit."

More holiday book ideas:

== Endless winter: The top 10 surfing books of the last half year (linked here)

One of our favorite sites to check out for material -- old, out of print books mostly -- is abebooks.com, a place that a used-book store owner turned us onto several years ago.

A recent search for specificially-autographed books led us in a strange direction.

Such as Ernest Hemingway and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Here's a document for sale (linked here) -- just $12,500, plus $8 shipping -- that a New York bookseller has: A typed letter from 1942, signed by "Ernie," to Hemingway's boxing coach and trainer, George Brown, regarding a visit he had recently in Cuba from several Dodgers -- including a fight he had with pitcher Hugh Casey. It had to be during the team's spring training in March, and it had to be some interesting meeting.

The text of the letter:

"Early this morning I though of sending you a wire to see if you could come down and get me in shape in about ten days to fight a guy named Hughey Casey who pitches for the Dodgers. We went five one-minute ones last night and I was under the impression that I needed a lot of work in order to come up against Casey again.

(He includes a pencilled-in note: "Maybe he still thinks he can beat me but I really know he can't if I get out and run and lay off. Have drunk very little all month except twice and have been feeling good")

"But when I saw him today it looks as though there won't have to be any again. So it is all right. Marty [Martha Gellhorn] is still very sore about it on account of it taking place in the living room which it seems took a lot of trouble to construct and maintain and will perhaps never be quite so good again.

(Another pencilled-in note: "My left middle tow is broke but otherwise nothing but lots of loose skin on all the old marbles in my mouth. I had him down twice and he hit me with everything he had all the time and it didn't do me any harm. You would have enjoyed it. All the punches landed and there were lots of them he being a crowder like I have become")

"There are a lot of really good guys on the Dodgers (he pencilled in: "Casey, Billy Herman, Augie Gulan, Rizzo, Art Davis, Larry French"). We have shot pigeons against them three times and have now won $115 odd from them in the three shoots, and I would hate to think that any bitterness had sprung up from that."

(A final pencilled post script: "Don't say anything about the Casey business. REALLY. It was one of those good ones not the publicity kind. I know I can beat him because he is throwing hundreds of right hands. He is one of those good Irishmen that likes to fight and is sure he can beat anybody."

This kind of sets straight some reports we've read that Hemingway challenged Casey in 1948 (linked here), unless that was some kind of rematch.

The same bookseller has this Hemingway note (linked here) for $10,000.

From June, 1942, Hemingway refers to a visit from the Brooklyn Dodgers during that summer, where they spoke of Leo Durocher, the team's player-manager from 1939-1945:

"That Saturday Evening Post of May 17 didn't get here unitl yesterday. I read the story right away. The player it refers to is who you think all right. One night I was out with Billy Herman, Larry French, Curt Davis and Augie Galan and were talking about the man in question and how much he was loved and admired by all who work under him (all the players hate his guts) and they asked if I knew he started out as a thief. If he wasn't he could certainly get himself a nice chunk of money by sueing the man who wrote the story."

Please, Papa, more details ...

Something didn't add up to Jerry Palm over at CBSSports.com. Or, he just had some time to kill, and it was worth checking other people's math to make him sleep better at night.

In a column that the long-time computer rankmeister did Monday for the website (linked here), he discovered that a "glitch" in Wes Colley's final rankings, that are used in the BCS tabulation, incorrectly put LSU a spot ahead of Boise State. Palm says that Colley's ranking didn't include the Appalachian State-Western Illinois playoff game. Why does it matter?

"I will spare you some of the gory, mathematical details," Palm wrote, "but the net result of that omission in Colley's rankings is that LSU, which he ranked ninth, and his No. 10, Boise State, should be switched. Alabama and Nebraska, which he had 17th and 18th, would also be swapped."

Today, Boise State President Bob Kustra showed he's more than just a steamed potato.

From his own private Idaho, Kustra sent an e-mail to fellow university presidents and conference commissioners Tuesday, a day after Palm's discovery and story. The BCS has since moved Boise State up to No. 10, and LSU to No. 11, but it apparently won't affect their bowl pairings. Boise State is still stuck in the Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas instead of a BCS game.

But it gave BCS critic Kustra something to bite into.

Here's the email that Kustra sent to the Associated Press:

I trust that you have heard about the news from CBS sports analyst Jerry Palm that the BCS rankings erroneously ranked the positions of four teams in the final BCS rankings of the season.

When C. Wright Mills wrote of the "power elite", I doubt he was speaking of universities and intercollegiate athletics. If he were still around, there could be a great second edition, this time focused on where elitism really runs rampant and takes Division 1 football players from some conferences and restrains their ability to compete. I hope you noticed my choice of the word, "restrain." I trust we will all be hearing more about "restraint" unless presidents step up and do the right thing.

Does "restraint" here mean "restraint of trade," one of those phrases that seem to send up the red flags in Congress when it comes to monopolies and breaking up illegal cartels?

That's no glitch in his computer. He meant to type that.

The first 15 installments of ESPN's gotta-see-it "30 for 30" documentary series have been released in a six-disc gift set, with two hours of bonus features.

Actual retail price: $74.95 (although we see Walmart is already undercutting the competition). Almost every documentary has been sold individually for $14.95.

They say this is the first of a three-part collection. You want to wait for the whole thing to come out? They've still got (at least) one more to go -- "Pony Excess" on the 1987 "death penalty" levied on the Southern Methodist University football program by Thaddeus D. Matula , airs Saturday, 6 p.m., after the Heisman Trophy show. That's No. 30 on the list. But another one on Steve Bartman has been pushed back to early 2011. That was replaced earlier this year by "Fernando Nation," about the Dodgers' Fernando Valenzuela.

Local interest in what's included for this first box:

-- Peter Berg's "Kings Ranson," on Wayne Gretzky coming to L.A., the first doc in the series.

-- Brett Morgan's "June 17th, 1994" about what else happened on the day of the O.J. Simpson freeway chase up the 405.

-- Ice Cube's "Straight Outta L.A." on the Raiders' journey through L.A.

-- L.A.-based Mike Tollin's "Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?"

-- Bill Couturie's "Guru of Go," on Loyola Marymount's Paul Westhead.

== More:
= The ESPN 30 For 30 official website (linked here)

No matter how you shake the ballot box, Steve Garvey's Hall of Fame chances grow dimmer and dimmer.

The 16-member Expansion Era Committee -- which includes Hall of Fame members Johnny Bench, Whitey Herzog, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Tony Perez, Frank Robinson, Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith, plus major league executives Bill Giles, David Glass, Andy MacPhail and Jerry Reinsdorf, and veteran media members Bob Elliott, Tim Kurkjian, Ross Newhan and Tom Verducci -- couldn't even generate a majority opinion about the former Dodgers' entrance into Cooperstown.

We may not know, or even guess, as to who left Garvey off their ballot, but the fact that he received less than eight votes is more than disappointing. It's disrespectful to a career that ... we don't want to even start crunching the numbers again.

Only one person on the special ballot got due respect -- Pat Gillick, who built three World Series champions and has served baseball for nearly 50 years -- who had the necessary 75 percent (12 votes) to make it in, the Hall of Fame announced today.

The results of the Expansion Era Ballot (12 votes needed for election): Gillick (13 votes, 81.25 percent; Marvin Miller (11 votes, 68.75 percent; Dave Concepcion (8 votes, 50 percent). Those receiving less than eight, aside from Garvey: Ted Simmons, Vida Blue, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Billy Martin, Al Oliver, Rusty Staub and George Steinbrenner.

Garvey's next chance at making it in won't come until 2013. In a new three-year cycle of reformmated voting, the new "Golden Era Committee" will meet for the first time in late 2011 to consider managers, umpires, executives and long-retired players whose most impactful contributions came between 1947 and 1972. Then, in 2012, the "Pre-Integration Era Committee" will consider candidates whose main career contributions came from 1871-1946.

At least Garvey doesn't have to live with knowing he came up only one vote short.

Miller, the former executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, may be the most influential of the bunch not to make it. Reaction to his snub is more interesting, perhaps, than listening to someone make a case for a former player by rehashing all his stats.

Not to sound bitter or anything, but a statement released today from Miller said that he said his lack of induction "hardly qualfies as a news story. It is repetitively negative, easy to forecast, and therefore boring.

"Many years ago those who control the Hall decided to rewrite history instead of recording it. The aim was to eradicate the history of the tremendous impact of the players' union on the progress and development of the game as a competitive sport, as entertainment, and as an industry. The union was the moving force in bringing Major League Baseball from the 19th century to the 21st century.

"It brought about expansion of the game to cities that had never had a Major League team. It brought about more than a 50 percentincrease in the number of people employed as players, coaches, trainers, managers, club presidents, attorneys and other support personnel, employees of concessionaires, stadium maintenance personnel, parking lot attendants, and more.

"It converted a salary structure from one with a $6,000 a year minimum salary to a $414,000 a year salary from the first day of a player's Major League service. The union was also the moving force for changing the average Major League salary from $19,000 a year to more than $3 million a year, and the top salary from $100,000 to more than $25 million a year. The union was a major factor in increasing the annual revenue of all Major League clubs, combined - from $50 million a year before the union started in 1966 to this year's almost $7 billion a year. That is a difficult record to eradicate - and the Hall has failed to do it.

"A long time ago, it became apparent that the Hall sought to bury me long before my time, as a metaphor for burying the union and eradicating its real influence. Its failure is exemplified by the fact that I and the union of players have received far more support, publicity, and appreciation from countless fans, former players, writers, scholars, experts in labor management relations, than if the Hall had not embarked on its futile and fraudulent attempt to rewrite history.

"It is an amusing anomaly that the Hall of Fame has made me famous by keeping me out."

Pete Rose couldn't have said that better.

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

MONDAY

NFL: New England at N.Y. Jets, 5:30 p.m., ESPN:

"I never realized how similar that I am to Tom Brady," New York Jets coach Rex Ryan said last week, referring to the New England Patriots quarterback. "I mean, the obvious physical appearance would be the first thing. The fact that he's married to a supermodel? Hello?" Apparently, no one's picking up on the other line. Since both the Jets and Pats won on Thanksgiving, they're 9-2, tied for the league's best record. A scroll across the bottom of ESPN the other day also pointed out: "Based on computer projections, winner of game has 80-plus percent chance of winning AFC East." We weren't aware that the BCS had anything to do with this. What do the computers say now that the Jets are without safety and punt returner Jim Leonhard?

NBA: Clippers vs. Sacramento, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

These Kings - losers of seven in a row, 4-14 overall, 1-9 against the Western Conference, 0-4 against the Pacific Division -- were a cure for the Lakers' woes the other night. Nice of them to come back for more punishment against the only other team challenging them for worst record in the entire league.

Series: "Men of a Certain Age," 10 p.m., TNT:

The second season of the dramedy starring Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher continues with the storyline about how Joe (Romano) seems confident enough to work on his golf game and possibly try out for the Champions Tour. Somehow, his friends Terry and Owen will try to help. But not. It's a longshot, but Joe seems to like to gamble on such odds.

TUESDAY

NBA: Lakers vs. Washington, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

After a rumor was floated last week that the Wizards were about to trade Gilbert Arenas to the Orlando Magic, team owner Ted Leonsis told either Woodward or Bernstein at the Washington Post that "Gilbert is not going anywhere." The former Grant High of Van Nuys High star, whose been coming off the bench, has seen his minutes shrinking. These Wizards are an eclectic collection -- with rookie John Wall (averaging a team-best 18 points a game), former USC guard Nick Young averaging 11, and center JaValle McGee, the son of former USC womens' All-American Pam McGee. But they need something shaken and stirred into their potion. They were 0-9 on the road, a franchise record, going into Sunday's game at Phoenix.

NHL: Ducks at Edmonton, 6:30 p.m., Prime:

A recent list in Forbes magazine listed the Ducks as the 19th-most valuable team in the NHL, worth $188 million. Edmonton was right below, at $183 million. At least they aren't Phoenix.

WEDNESDAY

NBA: Lakers vs. Clippers, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., Prime, Channel 9:

We've come to marvel about the play of Kobe Bryant, and Blake Griffin. About how a team with them on it could possibly even lose. It's happened. Quite a few times more than the Lakers and Clippers would have liked so far this year. With the Lakers, it's the confidence of having won the last two NBA titles that seems to keep everyone calm. With the Clippers, who haven't been to the playoffs since 2006, when they were a win away from the conference championship, its taken for granted. The two teams meet four times a season, and it's only taken 21 games for this first one (they'll have one meeting in January, February and March). The Clippers have actually won two of the last three meeting against the Lakers. Technically, it's the first of seven road games in a row for them. They won't be back until four days before Christmas

NHL: Ducks at Vancouver, 7 p.m, KDOC:

We hear the spots on DirecTV promoting the NHL Center Ice package. In one of them, the announcer says: "If Luongo stands on his head in Vancouver, will you stand on your feet in Los Angeles?" In this case, Kings fans would.

THURSDAY

NHL: Kings vs. Calgary, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

A deserved three days off for these rebounding Kings after back-to-back home wins against Florida and Detroit - thanks to two game-winners by Anze Kopitar. The Kings are 6-2 when he scores a goal this season.

NFL: Indianapolis at Tennessee, 5 p.m., NFL Network:

Jeff Fisher's Titans, 0-5 after a 5-2 start, are 31st in the league in passing yards a game, and 26th in allowing passing yards per game. Peyton Manning's eyes just got a little bigger.

FRIDAY

Movie: "The Fighter," opens in theatres nationwide:

The story of how Irish" Mickey Ward, played by Mark Walhberg, rose from adversity to become a champion boxer, with his brother, played by Christian Bale, fighting as well to stay out of jail and unite their family. And there's a scene with Amy Adams in her underwear. Check out the trailer.

High-school football: Oaks Christian vs. Westlake, CIF Southern Section Northern Division championship, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

Westlake (12-1) beat its cross-town rival 31-12 in early October. Will Oaks Christian (11-2) be up to the rematch challenge?

NBA: Lakers at Chicago, 5 p.m., Channel 9, ESPN:

Another opportunity for Phil Jackson to say something and have it run crazy around the rest of the league.

NHL: Ducks vs. Calgary, Honda Center, 7 p.m., Prime:

Before flaming out, the Flames go over to Anaheim to continue their road trip.

SATURDAY

College football: Heisman Trophy announcement, 5 p.m., ESPN:

Knowing how things work now, Cam Newton's dad may have something to say about how the voting is tabulated for this one. And the feeble-minded NCAA has no jurisdiction.

College football: Army vs. Navy in Philadelphia, 11:30 a.m., Channel 2:

The first one was played 120 years ago, when Cadet Dennis Mahan Michie accepted a challenge from the Naval Academy. But from 1894 to 1898, they were forbidden by President Grover Cleveland to play each other, after "a reputed incident" between a Rear Admiral and a Brigadier General that nearly led to a duel after the 1893 Navy victory. Finally, they agreed to a neutral site -- Philadelphia. Next year, the game takes a break and goes to Washington, D.C. Navy (8-3), already slated to play San Diego State in the Poinsettia Bowl, leads the series 54-49-4 against Army (6-5), which is going to the Armed Forces Bowl in Dallas -- its first bowl game in 14 seasons.

NBA: Clippers vs. Memphis, Staples Center, 12:30 p.m., Prime; NHL: Kings vs. Minnesota, Staples Center, 7:30 p.m., FSW:

Another of those two-games-in-one-day deals at Staples Center, unless there's an extended encore from Andrea Bocelli (he'll be in concert there the night before).

College basketball: UCLA vs. Cal Poly, Pauley Pavilion, 5 p.m., Prime:

Ben Howland has instructed all those monitoring the entrances not to allow any Big 12 officials into the building.

College basketball: USC vs. Northern Arizona, Galen Center, 1 p.m., FSW:

James Dunleavy, Mike's son, has actually appeared in two games so far. Logging a grand total of three minutes. And one point.

Mixed martial arts: UFC 124 in Montreal, 7 p.m.

Georges St. Pierre faces the top welterweight contender, Josh Koscheck. But in an undercard, 6-foot-7 Sean "Big Sexy" McCorkle (10-0) takes on 6-foot-11 Stefan "Skyscraper" Struve (20-4). Both have significant reaches.

High-school football: Servite vs. Mission Viejo, CIF Southern Pac-5 Division championship, Angels Stadium, 7:30 p.m., Prime:

The top-two seeds are both 13-0, and Servite has a 24-game winning streak, including a 19-18 win over Mission Viejo in last year's division semifinals.

SUNDAY

NFL: New England at Chicago, 1 p.m., Channel 2:

The NFC North-leading 9-3 Bears face the Patriots in the game of the year - after the Patriots' game against the Jets six days earlier.

NFL: Philadelphia at Dallas, 5:15 p.m., Channel 4:

The Cowboys and Eagles will play each other twice in the last four weeks of the season, and this is their first meeting since Dallas topped Philly on Jan. 6 of last season for their first playoff victory since '96. It was also the third time it topped the Eagles last season. "Can we all together on three say it? The demons are -- what? -- gone!," exclaimed exuberant Cowboys owner Jerry Jones afterward.

NBA: Lakers at New Jersey, 10 a.m., Channel 9:

Jordan Farmar's ears are burning. See if he tries to stow himself aboard the Lakers' team charter after this one ends. Chew on that.

NBA: Clippers vs. Orlando, Staples Center, 6:30 p.m., Prime:

Remember Jason "White Chocolate" Williams? The Magic still have him on their roster, but in his 11th NBA season, he's only getting about eight minutes a game, barely enough time to average less than one assist and two points a game. The Clippers remember him. They signed him as a free agent in August of 2008. A month later, Williams announced his retirement. A year later, he came back, with Orlando. And it's been less than Magic ever since.

Soccer: NCAA Division I men's final, Louisville or North Carolina vs. Akron or Michigan, at UC Santa Barbara, 1 p.m., ESPN2:

UCLA had a chance to be here, but lost to 19-0-3 Louisville, 5-4, in the quarterfinals under snowy conditions. Early weather forcast for this one in Santa Barbara: No snow.

For all practical purposes, Petros Papadakis is pretty used to being peppered with pickled, poison-pen proclamations.

"The Twitters and texts and emails all blow up this week," he was saying the other day.
It's the buildup for USC-UCLA. It's part of the deal. You can't always just shoot the messenger. Unless . . .

"Friday, my mailman left me this elaborate drawing of a Bruin squashing the head of a Trojan," he said.

So now, they're going postal on him.

If neither the Trojans nor the Bruins had anything to really gain from Saturday's annual meeting at the Rose Bowl - aside from city bragging rights -- Papadakis might have had more to lose. Having to step into the broadcast booth for the second year in a row, attempting to convince everyone watching and listening that he has no agenda, might seem like a losing cause.

"There's so much pride, and anger, and bile," Papadakis said of the rivalry game. In some sense, it's the same with the reaction he gets.

As a former Trojans tailback who also shoots his mouth off daily on his sports-talk radio show, Papadakis exposes himself to criticism from either side when, as the Pac-10 analyst for Fox Sports Net, his job is to explain what's going on.

"It's fun and I love doing it," he admitted before Saturday's game. "But it's really a challenge to sound impartial."

Not to be impartial. But to simply come across that way.

"All the USC people think I overcompensate and I'm too critical," he lamented, "and all the UCLA people just hate me without hearing what I say. It's a hard perception to get around."

New USC athletic director Pat Haden has admitted that, during his many years analyzing Notre Dame games for NBC, he would deep down be pulling for USC in their annual rivalry game but had to make sure he called things down the middle.

Papadakis says he's trying to do the same thing. But for him, maybe that's tougher. It reminds us of a line that Papadakis once used to describe himself: "I'm a walking contradiction. I'm the only person in the world who can sit on the fence and watch myself go by."

Sure, Papadakis (1997-200), his father, John ('70-'71) and his older brother Taso ('94-'96) played at USC. But then, his younger brother, Demetri, walked on as a fullback at UCLA and was on the roster last year. A shoulder injury at the start of this season caused him to leave the team and concentrate on his studies. His cousin, Ana, was also a UCLA pole vaulter.

For what it's worth, Papadakis was all but sure he'd be going to UCLA out of Palos Verdes Peninsula High until the school canceled his recruiting trip.

"They dropped me," said Papadakis, who ended up taking a scholarship to Cal before transferring to USC. "But I never harbor any animosity."

Take the way last year's game ended, when USC faked running out the clock, scored on a long touchdown pass, and then jumped around in celebration on the sidelines, leading to UCLA players yelling back and coming on the field.

"I thought USC's reaction inflamed UCLA - that was a bad deal -- and in that moment, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to handle it," said Papadakis.

Play-by-play man Barry Tompkins ended up saying during the fracas: "This takes the shine off the win, to be honest with you . . . funny game, isn't it?"
"Hilarious," Papadakis replied with heavy sarcasm.

"That rubbed UCLA the wrong way," he said later. "Not that you can be rubbed the right way playing your arch rival."

Or that anything Papadakis says can rub anyone right.

So, today, where does Petros stand in the rivalry? As far away from those trying to dissect his every word.

At around dusk today, he was asked to join the UCLA radio pregame game with Wayne Cook and Matt Stevens. Producer David Vassegh tried to convince Papadakis it wouldn't be wise, saying he feared for his safety. Papadakis had a TV production meeting anyway and couldn't make it. Just as well - he snuck into the UCLA radio booth and had a hot dog pre-game meal with Bruins play-by-play man Chris Roberts.

"No one threatened me," Papadakis said.

During the broadcast, there weren't many opportunities for the viewers to second-guess his observations. Usually, it depended on whether you watched the game with your heart instead of your eyes.

Late in the second quarter, the ball came lose on a carry by UCLA's Johnathan Franklin. USC's Malcolm Smith picked it up and ran 69 yards for a touchdown.

It only took one replay for Papadakis to calmly say: "That ball is out well before the knee came down."

After further review, the officials confirmed as much.

Moments earlier, UCLA linebacker Jordan Zumwalt was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit on USC receiver Robert Woods.

"They kind of ran into each other," Papadakis said during the replay. "Not exactly sure Zumwalt meant for it to be that way, but at real speed, that's a vicious hit. Woods did a good job protecting himself trying to absorb it. . . (Zumwalt) is explosive and instinctive."

A USC fan's response had to be: Why didn't Papadakis come down harder on Zumwalt? A UCLA fan's response could have been: How was that vicious? It was unintentional.

At the end of the day, Papadakis said he'd hope that not just USC or UCLA fans, but all of those who watched on Fox Sports Net, wouldn't have any idea what school gave him a diploma.

"I hope I impart insight and emotion and the overall unique feel of our rivalry here in L.A., not just to the local audience but to the national audience, that's all," he said. "It's nothing more than what we try to do every week."

Interpret that as you may.

There was 8:45 left in Auburn's eventual victory over South Carolina in the SEC title game, when the CBS cameras caught Tigers quarterback Cam Newton handing a green squeeze bottle to CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson.

== MikeLengel‎: Careful people, that Cammy Cam Juice costs $180000.

The most tortuous, arm-twisting, just-plain-wretched wager you've ever followed through on based on the outcome of the USC-UCLA football game?

== A Chicago Tribune online poll Friday asked readers: In your estimation, should Ron Santo be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Of the first 10,000 respondents, how stunning is it that 1,055 actually voted "No"?

Some of the USC alum viewing parties that will take place around Southern California for Saturday's football game at UCLA:

== USC Alumni Club of Beverly Hills-Hollywood: Cabo Cantina (8301 West Sunset Boulevard, L.A., (323) 822-7820). Featuring: Complimentary appetizers and 2 for 1 drink specials. RSVP needed (linked here).

== USC Alumni Club of Downtown Los Angeles: ESPN Zone at LA Live (1011 S. Figueroa St., L.A., (213) 765-7070). Featuring: Raffles, hosted appetizers, 15 percent off all food purchases, and 10 percent of all bar sales are donated to the scholarship fund. More info (linked here).

== USC Alumni Clubs of Long Beach & San Gabriel Valley: Tailgate at the Rose Bowl golf course lot 1 or 2 from 3 to 7:30 p.m. featuring food from Tacos Don Chente. $25 includes food and drinks. More info (linked here, linked here and linked here).

== USC Alumni Club of San Fernando Valley: Hamburger Hamlet (4419 Van Nuys Blvd.
Sherman Oaks, (818) 784-1183) Features a special priced happy hour. No RSVP necessary. More info (at this link).

== USC Alumni Club of Los Angeles Westside: V Lounge (2020 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 829-1933. No RSVP necessary. More info (at this link).

Note: A UCLA spokesman said he expected most Bruin viewing parties to take place inside the Rose Bowl.

When the readership of the Sports Business Journal/Sports Business Daily takes the time to fill out a survey, you listen. The numbers are very weighted.

This is a core group of high-paid professionals in the sports business world -- many in the high-stakes field of running franchises, marketing and advertising, movers and shakers. They don't have time usually to take these kind of surveys, but they do so because they know the results mean something in their strategies.

In the sixth annual reader survey, conducted online over three weeks starting Sept. 27, these were some of the findings:

== Do you use Twitter?
1. No. (57.6 percent)
2. Yes (42.2 percent)
3. What is Twitter? (0.3 percent)
Responses: 1,949
(Note: 35 percent said yes in last year's survey)

== What is the most powerful brand in sports?
1. ESPN (34.9 percent)
2. Nike (25.7 percent)
3. New York Yankees (18.4 percent)
Responses: 1,964

== Favorite major league website:
1. MLB.com (33.3 percent)
2. NFL.com (25.3 percent)
3. NBA.com (11 percent)
4. NHL.com (8.6 percent)
5. MLSsoccer.com (7.3 percent)
6. PGATour.com (5.3 percent)
Responses: 1,104

== The media company that will win the rights to become the IOC's TV partner in the U.S. for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics:
1. NBC (58.2 percent)
2. ESPN/ABC (32.1 percent)
3. Fox (5.7 percent)
4. CBS (4 percent)
Responses: 1,013.

== Favorite studio show:
1. ESPN SportsCenter (34.6 percent)
2. ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" (23.64 percent)
3. ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike in the Morning" (9.1 percent)
4. HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (7.6 percent)
Responses: 1,138

== Favorite TV play-by-play personalities:
1. Al Michaels (29.1 percent)
2. Bob Costas (29 percent)
3. Jim Nantz (21 percent)
4. Joe Buck (18.9 percent)
5. Mike Tirico (16.3 percent)
Responses: 1,137

== Favorite TV game analysts:
1. Cris Collinsworth (26.3 percent)
2. Kirk Herbstreit (24.1 percent)
3. Troy Aikman (19.7 percent)
4. Jon Gruden (18.2 percent)
5. Jay Bilas (13.4 percent)
Responses: 1,120

== NFL pregame show you enjoy the most:
1. ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown (35.7 percent)
2. Fox NFL Sunday (28.3 percent)
3. CBS The NFL Today (16.8 percent)
4. NBC Football Night in America (14.4 percent)
5. NFL Network GameDay Morning (4.8 percent)
Responses: 1,077

== Favorite sport-specific studio show:
1. ESPN College GameDay (24.4 percent)
2. ESPN Baseball Tonight (10.8 percent)
3. MLB Network Tonight (9.5 percent)
4. TNT Inside the NBA (5.4 percent)
5. Fox NFL Sunday (5.4 percent)
Responses: 1,077

== Favorite sports-related mobile app:
1. ESPN ScoreCenter (27.3 percent)
2. MLB.com At Bat (23.7 percent)
3. NFL Mobile (7.2 percent)
4. CBS Sports Mobile (5.8 percent)
4. ESPN Fantasy Football (5.8 percent)
6. NBA Game Time (4.5 percent)
Responses: 1,067

== Favorite non-league sports website:
1. ESPN.com (50 percent)
2. Yahoo! Sports (9.3 percent)
3. SI.com (6.9 percent)
4. Deadspin (6.8 percent)
5. CBSSports.com (6.5 percent)
Responses: 1,141

== Who produces better sports documentaries?
1. HBO (56 percent)
2. ESPN (44 percent)
Responses: 1,136

In another question that relates to our media column lead today on Tiger Woods (linked here), the readers were asked: What's the biggest challenge facing professional golf?

Outside of developing more widely known stars (35.5 percent) and creating more interest outside the majors (31.7 percent), the answer "getting Tiger to win" brought 15 percent response. That was more than twice as much as "television ratings" (6 percent). The two, of course, usually go hand-wedge-in-hand, which is why, despite a heavy college football and NFL weekend, Tiger's Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks on Golf Channel and NBC could use some viewership, if only to see how Tiger responds and possibly wins his first event of the year.

It ain't the Masters, but it's an incredible simulation, with a condensed, world-class field, and a strange trophy given out to the winner -- and $5 mil at stake.

Aside from that we have these media notes to crunch:

== Another intriguing question that Golf Channel's Steve Sands put Woods in the interview that aired Wednesday and was repeated during the first round of the Chevron World Challenge on Thursday:

Q: How much does the public have a right to know about its heroes?

Woods: "This is a different day in age. Something I really didn't grow up with. My day in age was my dad making me get up and turn the dial on the TV. Our rabbit antennas, making sure we could pick up a Laker game ... this day and age had changed. The fans want to know more and there's a fine line of what's too much. The gray areas become bigger."

Added Terry Gannon after that clip was replayed: The fans will ultimately judge the gray areas as he's trying to open up.

Frank Nobilo: "You've got to appear to disconnect, but from a fan's point of view, they vote. As prolific as Tiger Woods has been on the golf course, for every dollar he's earned, the public has really contributed nine dollars in his endorsements. So that's why there's always the fear, 'Should they have that much?' or 'Should they not have that much information?' The public can vote heavily with their pocketbook."

== Jim Watson and Tony Moskal will call the CIF Northern Division semifinal between Valencia and Oaks Christian, live streaming on foxsportswest.com tonight at 7:30 p.m., while Chris McGee and John Jackson call the other Northern semifinal between St. Bonaventure and Westlake at 10 p.m., delayed on Prime after the Clippers-Nuggets telecast. On Saturday, foxsportswest.com will stream the Pac-5 semifinal between Alemany and Servite at 7 p.m., with Justin Alderson and Moskal.

Also Saturday, the website will stream the CIF State Girls Volleyball Championship at 7 p.m. between Long Beach Poly and Palo Alto, with McGee and Mike Dodd.

== Your L.A. NFL TV weekend stacks up this way:

= Sunday:
= 10 a.m., Channel 11: Washington at N.Y. Giants (with Kenny Albert, Darryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa), instead of Chicago-Detroit, New Orleans-Cincinnati or San Francisco-Green Bay). CBS also has Buffalo-Minnesota, Cleveland-Miami, Jacksonville-Tennessee and Denver-Kansas City in this window.
= 1 p.m., Channel 2: Oakland at San Diego (with Jim Nantz and Dan Fouts). The Chargers announced Wednesday that they've sold enough tickets to get the TV blackout lifted. Three of the previous five home games this season were blacked out. Nantz and Phil Simms, out this week recovering from back surgery, are scheduled to reunite for New England at Chicago next week.
= 1 p.m., Channel 11: Dallas at Indianapolis (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman) instead of Atlanta-Tampa Bay, St. Louis-Arizona and Carolina-Seattle.
= 5:15 p.m., Channel 4:
= Monday:
= 5:30 p.m., ESPN: New England at N.Y. Jets (with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden).

== ESPN's College GameDay ends up in Oregon again -- Corvallis, this time -- prior to the Oregon-Oregon State game that ABC will cover Saturday (12:30 p.m., Channel 7). Afterward, Kirk Herbstreit has to jet over to Arlington, Tex., to do the Big 12 Conference championship game.

== Prime Ticket has a one-hour pre and one-hour post game show Saturday surrounding the 7:30 p.m. kickoff at the Rose Bowl of USC-UCLA.

A look at the best from Saturday's TV lineup:

= 12:30 p.m., Channel 7: No. 2 Oregon at Oregon State, with Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge and Erin Andrews.
= 1 p.m., Channel 2: No. 1 Auburn vs. No. 19 South Carolina, SEC title game from Atlanta, with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson with Tracy Wolfson.
= 4:45 p.m., ESPN: No. 21 Florida State vs. No. 15 Virginia Tech, ACC title game from Charlotte, with Sean McDonough, Matt Millen and Quint Kessenich.
= 5 p.m., Channel 7: No. 9 Oklahoma vs. No. 13 Nebraska, Big 12 title game from Arlington, Tex., with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe.

== The Sports Business Journal also reports that ESPN is close to securing the inaugural Pac-12 football title game for 2011, and would probably air it head-to-head against Fox's coverage of the Big Ten title game. SBJ reports that if ESPN and the conference can't reach an agreement soon, the Pac-10 will take the championship game's rights to the open market. Recently, Fox, which has a stake in the Big Ten Network, paid $30 million to air the Big Ten title game from 2011-16. The soon-to-be Pac-12's TV rights are up for negotiations after the 2011 season.

== Halfway into an eight-year, $4.48 billion deal with Fox, ESPN and Turner, NASCAR's final ratings for the 2010 season dipped for the fourth year in a row, according to data surveyed by the Sports Business Journal. NASCAR has lost nearly 2 million viewers in the past four year, more than 23 percent of its market. "With the racing where it is now, I have no doubt it's going to take hold, and the excitement we've built coming out of this season will build into next season," Steve Phelps, NASCAR's chief marketing officer, told SBJ. This season, NASCAR dropped 6 percent on Fox, 9 percent on TNT and 14 percent on ESPN/ABC.

== One of the newest "This is SportsCenter" commercials highlights SportScience host John Brenkus, who will be doing a "The Perfection Point" book signing at ESPN Zone/L.A. Live on Tuesday, December 7 from 6-7 p.m. before the Lakers-Wizards game.

== L.A.-based Tennis Channel has the Serbia-France Davis Cup finals from Belgrade this weekend, with live and same-day replays today through Sunday.The two matches today started at 5 a.m., with doubles on Saturday at 6 a.m. and reverse singles Sunday starting at 4 a.m. Every night at 4 p.m., the events are replayed.

== CBS starts its college basketball coverage with Kentucky-North Carolina (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), with Gus Johnson and Clark Kellogg on the call.

== ESPN's "Outside the Lines" (Sunday, 6 a.m.) looks back at 30 years ago when the shooting death of former Beatle John Lennon was announced by Howard Cosell on an ABC "Monday Night Football" game (Dec. 8, 1980). There was 40 seconds left in the game as Patroits kicker John Smith was about to line up for a field goal, and Cosell was uncertain about how to braek the news that had just been confirmed by the WABC news desk in New York. This ESPN piece promises to present a "rarely heard, off-air discussion between Cosell and Frank Gifford seconds before millions of football viewers would become the first to learn of Lennon's death." Tom Rinaldi reports on how it was WABC news producer Alan Weiss who was admitted to the hospital moments before Lennon, called his office, and ultimately got the breaking story to the "MNF" broadcast booth in Miami.
"My ears are still ringing from the impact of the road, and two police officers come out and they are literally standing over my head," said Weiss, who was in a Central Park motorcycle accident and taken to nearby Roosevelt Hostpital. "I got my eyes closed and I hear one officer say to the other one, 'Can you believe it? John Lennon.'"
In addition. ESPN.com's Jeff Ausiello has a story from the point-of-view of Smith as he was preparing to attempt his field goal.

== Any attempt by the U.S. Olympic Committee to launch a cable network would be in the distant future and would only come with approval from the International Olympic Committee and cooperation with its American broadcasting partner, USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"It's not on the back burner; it's not on the radar screen today," Blackmum said about a USOC cable channel. In 2009, the USOC had a deal with Comcast to launch a network, which would have put it in direct competition with NBC Universal. That didn't rub NBC right, since the IOC makes $2 billion in its contract with NBC to carry the Olympics to the U.S. audience. Comcast has since reached a deal to buy NBC Universal, and negotiations for the 2014 and 2016 TV rights have been delayed, with bidding among all the major networks expected to take place next month.

AND FINALLY:

== Not long after UFC chief Dana White laid out some loose plans for an all-MMA channel sometime down the road, WWE boss Vince McMahon's promise to launch an all-wrestling cable channel has been declared for a 2012-early 2013 date, reported Reuters this week.

"It's taken us longer to galvanize the troops and figure out where we're going."
WWE COO Donna Goldsmith said, noting that the model for the WWE channel is similar to what Major League Baseball has done -- an could include pay-TV operators as part of the network ownership.

That's got to make Bud Selig feel good -- he's rubbed off on Vince McMahon.

Above: The first issue of Surfer magazine, in 1960, black and white and 36 pages selling for 75 cents, to promote the third movie made by John Severson called "Surf Fever."

Entry 10, back to sofa surfing and surfing the Internet:

The book: "Surfer Magazine 50 Years"

The author: Edited by Sam George

The vital info:strong> Chronicle Books, 191 pages, $40 (released in July)

The curl: Our natural curiosity is to compare this to the copy of "The Perfect Day: 40 Years of Surfer Magazine" that's been on our shelf awhile -- five years (it's a softbound edition that came out five years after the hardbound). They are far more complimentary than recycling material. The first, in four chapters, looks at the magazine's body of work through the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, and focuses more on the writing that carried the magazine through those eras, with the photgraphs there as visual markers. This new version breaks the sport down over the last 50 years with five chapters on travel, who we watch, design, performance, culture and photography. The stability and influence of San Clemente-based Surfer magazine is also discussed in the forward by Shaun Tomson, who says: "These magazines have been studied as intently as the Talmud is studied by a yeshiva student, and probably with even more fervor. These journals mark moments in the life of each other ... a freeze-frame of its owner's youth. Surfer is not just a magazine but is the framework for a surfing existence." Sam George's intro also includes: "(Surfer) remains the most personal of publications, inexorably bent to the creative will of an eclectic parade of editors and contributing writers."

The excerpts: Page 50-51, a giant quote from the late Andy Irons, from a March, 2009 story, next to a photo of him carrying a board that just broke in half: "I just want to fall in love with the sport that gave me everything."

Page 60: Top 10 male surfers whose names sound like porn stars: "1. Nick Wood, 2. Pete Rocky, 3. Love Hodel, 4. Taylor Steele, 5. Damien Hardman, 6. Bonga Perkins, 7. Wingnut, 8. Buzzy Kerbox, 9. Alex Cox, 10. Shane Stoneman." And the top 5 female surfers: "1. Daize Shayne, 2. Vernoica Kay, 3. Gidget, 4. Kylie Webb, 5. Kim Hamrock."

Page 122: The Top 10 surfers of all time: 1. Kelly Slater, 2. Laird Hamilton, 3. Gerry Lopez, 4. Nat Young, 5. Layne Beachley (the only woman in this list), 6. Tom Curren, 7. Shaun Tomson, 8. Mark Richards, 9. Tom Carroll, 10. Andy Irons.

Page 124: Ben Marcus writes about his times nera Half Moon Bay: "Toward the end of the '70s I bought a hot dog wagon on the beach in Santa Cruz called Surfer Dog. i had a concession with the State Parks Department to sell hot dogs and cold drinks on a beach that was called Twin Lakes Beach, Seabright Beach or Castle Beach, depending on who you talked to. Surfer Dog was a good business. ... Whenever I hear Van Halen's 'Jamie's Crying,' I can smell the mustard and the Coppertone."

Page 145, from a Surfer editorial by John Severson called "The Sign of the Kook" in 1963: "The simple message of this editorial is that obnoxious behavior, seedy appearance or badges and symbols don't make the surfer. By his fellow surfer he may be laughed at or looked down upon, while at the same time he is creating a bad image in the eyes of the public. Don't be a badge wearer -- be a surfer."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells, plus the publisher's website.

By Clark Little for Surfer Magazine, pages 188-189.

The previous nine books reviewed and celebrated:
== "Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave"
(linked here)
== "The History of Surfing" (linked here)
== "LeRoy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s, 25th Anniversary Edition"
(linked here)
== "Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results" (linked here)
== "The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean" (linked here)
== "The Surfboard: Art, Style, Stoke" (linked here)
== "Some Like It Cold: A Sheboygan Surfin' Safari" (linked here)
== "Surfing Handbook: Mastering the Waves for Beginners and Amateur Surfers" (linked here)
== "Ultimate Surfing Adventures: 100 Extraordinary Experiences in the Waves" (linked here)

Entry 9, looking for a towel to dry off:

The book: "Ultimate Surfing Adventures: 100 Extraordinary Experiences in the Waves"

The author: Alf Alderson

The vital info:strong> Wiley Nautical books, 210 pages, $39.95 (released this month):

The curl: It's not just the spots with the biggest, gnarliest waves that make a spot on the planet perfect for surfing. Alderson, knows how to pick his spots -- from Antartica (be aware of the cold, remote region, orca whales, sea lions, rocks, choppy currents and collapsing icebergs, otherwise, you're good) to Zuma Beach, with stops in Sri Lanka, China, Madagascar, Panama, Northwest Italy, Morocco, Israel, Easter island, South Korea, Iceland, Munich and Central Chile in between. Every continent is covered, and photographs galore capture the scene at each spot.
The places are also divided by tropical waters, temperate waters and cold waters, starting with the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia known as "Disneyland for surfers" -- jade green water, shallow reefs and plush conditions with levels of waves to suit each surfer. Each place is given ratings for its difficulty, hazards, seasons, wetsuit needs, access, other local breaks and what else to do while you're there.
If surfing in the mind is a game you can play, this book is much more in your travel budget than actually going. For now, read and dream.

The excerpts: Page 128: Orange County, California: "In many respects, Orange County is the home of modern surfing in the same way that nearby Hollywood is the home of movies. Neither is the birthplace of its defining activity, but each has taken it to their heart and fostered what many would agree is a bit of a bastard child. ... Everyone seems to surf in Orange County and unless you're out of bed before daybreak ther's very little chance of getting a wave to yourself. The best way of dealing with this is to head for the less accessible spots such as Cottons, or simply grin and bear it. This being California, you'll probably do a lot of grinning anyway, at the regular assortment of wackos of all ages and both sexes riding every form of surf craft every invented. Stick it out, though, and you're bound to catch a few good waves for youself."

Page 110: "If your idea of a great time is surfing long, walling right handers feathering in an offshore breeze, then the area of Central Morocco focusing on Agadir is definitley one to put on your tick list."

Page 64, at Sao Tome: "Now here's a unique surfing opportunity: The chance to take off on a wave in the southern hemisphere and kick out in the northern hemisphere. ... the only break on Earth with saddling the Equator."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

Entry 8, riding into the whitewash:

The book: "The Surfing Handbook: Mastering the Waves for Beginning and Amateur Surfers"

The author: Ben Marcus

The vital info:strong> MVP books, 260 pages, $19.95 (released in June):

The curl: Before you get out there and try it, at least read what you should be doing. Like, for starters: How big is your board? The bigger, thicker and wider, the better for a beginner because it has more flotation -- "which is like training wheels for a beginner," Marcus writes. Even better, try a softoard, or a foamie. From there, it's all about walking the novice through wetsuits, dry runs on the sand, how to duck under a wave, etiquette, and being safe. It helps if you know the lingo, too.

The excerpts: Page 10: "I repeat: Learning to surf is not easy. The equipment is confusing, the ocean is scary and even experienced athletes must learn to use new muscles, new balance points, new skills. Learning to surf is complicated ... (it is) a matter of knowing yourself, learning the secrets of the sea and making the two come together."

Page 24: The Hollywood factor: "'Movies like 'Blue Crush' and the numerous other Hollywood surf films over the years have a huge influence on novice surfers' visions of the gear they need to surf like the stars. At Zuma Jay's surf shop, he gets many men and women who walk through the front door with no experience who want to do what they saw in the movie, he way they saw it in the movies. 'The biggest travesty in surfing are the 'Blue Crush Babes,' Zuma Jay says. 'These are people who saw the movie and think, 'I'm doing that. I'm ready to go. I want a board just like she had.' And I say, 'Well, that was Pipe. She was surfing Pipeline (in Hawaii).' And they don't understand that the filmmakers used special effects to put Kate Bosworth's face on other stunt surfers. .. You aren't going to surf like her, you aren't even going to paddle like her until you get some muscles going and time going in the water. The skills they saw in an hour-and-a-half movie -- it takes years to get to that level.'"

Page 25: "The best move for a beginner buying a first board is akin to someone going tin Victoria's Secret and walking out with new woolen underwear: Use common sense."

Page 121: "First Point Malibu is quite possibly the most crowded, least polite, most chaotic surf spot in the world. Some say that Australia's Super Bank is worse for surfers taking off in front of each other and competing for waves. But the surfers at Super Bank are experienced ... The problem with First Point is that it's only 20 minutes from the huddled millions of Southern California, adn in this age of surf forecasts that predicts swells two weeks in advance and surf cameras that scan the sacred surf zone like a prison yard and can effectively beam surfers into the lineup, First Point doesn't have a chance. ... For the most part, Point Break is a zoo -- a free-fire zoo that brings together longtime locals and clueless visitors in swift collision."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

Photo credit: Mike Lee, Out East Adventures (linked here):

Entry 7 in our surf search wipeout:

The book: "Some Like It Cold: A Sheboygan Surfin' Safari"

The author: William Povletich

The vital info:strong> Clerisy Press, 198 pages, $14.95 (released in June).

The curl: When we last saw Lee and Larry Williams, in the 2003 Dana Brown documentary "Step Into Liquid," the novelty of surfing the Great Lakes and seeing something called the Dairyland Surf Classic wasn't so much amusing as it was inspiring. When you're 2,000 miles from any ocean, and you've got the urge, you're as welcome to try it out as much as those who surf the waves in the Gulf of Mexico behind tankers that create the ripples. It even got a mention in the animated "Surf's Up" movie about the surfing penguins. Povletich, whose previous books were about the Milwaukee Breaves and Green Bay Packers, now lives in L.A. hasn't forgotten the tale of these brothers and wanted to make sure their story had been fully told here.

The excerpts: From page 180-182: "Since 'Step Into Liquid' had made them the new face of freshwater surfing, Lee and Larry .. (had) an invitation to surf several of Southern California's breaks. (With lifelong friend Kevin Groh, who had never been farther west than the Dakotas, they flew to California and started surfing early one morning in San Clemente). They headed out to catch the ten-foot surf. Not long after they were in the ocean, they noticed schools of fish jumping out of the water all around Kevin. As seagulls swooped down, attacking the airborne fish, Kevin looked in awe at the wildlife bursting around him. The Williams brothers realized something more sinister was brewing underneath their friend.
"'Gripper!' they called out to him. 'Get out of the water!'
"Kevin didn't hear them, consumed by the arcing fish and the seagulls snapping them up.
"'Kevin!' Larry finally blasted at the top of his lungs.
"Kevin looked over at him. 'What?' he shouted back.
"'SHARK!' Lee screamed. 'They're eating the fish below you. That's why they're jumping. Get out of there!'
"Startled, as if out of a trance, Kevin paddled toward Lee and Larry, who stood closer to shore.
"Reaching the brothers, Kevin finally realized what he had just witnessed.
" 'We ain't in Sheboygan anymore,' Lee said."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

Entry 6 in our self-surving surf book search:

The book: "The Surfboard: Art, Style, Stoke"

The author: Ben Marcus, photography by Juliana Moras and Jeff Devine.

The vital info:strong> MVP Books, 256 pages, $21.99 (paperback version released in April)

The curl: The original hardback version from Voyager Press ran $35 three years ago (with a white cover), so this softbound edition (with a blue cover), which loses nothing in context or picture quality, may be more user-friendly. Starting with the koa wood of Polynesia and the redwood planks used in Hawaii through the evolution of balsa, agave, plastics, foam and fins, this is more than a visual, portable museum. You can run your fingers across the pages and almost feel the different textures used in experimental shapes and sizes.

The excerpts: Page 93: "Polyurethane foam began to bubble and pop as the ideal replacement for redwood and balsa in the period between the fall of Hitler and the rise of Gidget. With the advent of foam, suddenly all other surfboard technology was history. The modern surfboard was the product of the Petrochemical Age and the miracles of fiberglass, polyester resin and foam, all of which had their beginnings in wartime technological advances. Now, foam ruled ...

"The earliest claim to experimenting with foam surfboards was made by Dave Sweet ... (who said) he began playing with polystyrene foam in 1945 -- what was known as Styrofoam. A Los Angeles native, Sweet grew up surfing from his family's beach cottage at Topanga Canyon. As he got older, Sweet moved up to Malibu. 'Back then, if the surf was six feet, you'd get in your car and go to Malibu and there'd be maybe Buzzy, Rochlen and Timmy Lyons ... And that was it! That was crowded.'"

Page 242: "Looking out over Malibu on a good day -- and it is one of the prettiest, most beguiling waves in the wolrd when it wants to be -- you have to wonder about the native Chumash teenagers, hundreds and even thousands of years ago. What did they do when confronted by a perfect southern swell unloading from Third Point to First Point? A wave is a wave and a human is a human and a thrill is a thrill ... something in the human psyche just likes to ride waves."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

Entry 5 in our surf-book self-journey:

The book: "The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean"

The author: Susan Casey

The vital info: Doubleday, 352 pages, $27.95 (released Sept. 14).

The curl: Compelling enough for a Sports Illustrated excerpt a few months ago, Casey's wave-chasing adventure spends much of her time focused on the surf subculture that seeks out 100-foot-type waves, just for the heck of it. The laws of physics say these waves don't exist. Laird Hamilton begs to differ, so he takes her for a ride, to see things that have caused dozens of large ships to suddenly disappear over time.
She trips to Haiku, Hawaii; Papeete, Tahiti; Kahuku, Oahu; Paia, Maui; London (to visit Lloyds, the biggest insurer of global fishing fleet); Half Moon Bay, Calif.; Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska (to research the 1958 megatsunami that struck Lituya Bay, Alaska -- after a 7.9 earthquake, a reported 1,720-foot wave came); Todos Santos Island in Mexico; Southampton, England; Haiku, Maui; Anaheim (for the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards at the Grove) and Cape Town, South Africa.
It's a travelogue that turns into a real mystery thriller.

The excerpts: From page 10: "The first time I saw a truely big wave was in December, 1989. I happened to be in Hawaii and my trip coincided with the Triple Crown of Surfing on Oahu's north shore. ... I watched through binoculars as the waves began to build, ominous lumps in the ocean ... Whenver a wave broke, the beach shook with a little hum of violence. Standing on shore, I was scared. I'd witnessed avalanches, explosions, tornadoes, wildfires and monsoons, and I'd never seen anything as intimidating as those waves. ... One surf expert described this break as 'the entire Pacific Ocean rearing up to unload on your head.' ... As I watched the surfers launch themselves into the churning ocean and paddle toward the break, I worried for each of them. Their sport seemed more gladiatorial than athletic, like showing up for work each day to grapple with bull elephants."

Page 19: "What kind of person drops into Mother Nature's biggest tantrums for fun? What drives him? And since he has gone into that dark heart of the ocean and felt its beat in a way that sets him apart, what does he know about this place that the rest of us don't? I knew one thing for sure: If you followed the wave experts into the waves, you would have an interesting -- and turbulent -- time."

Page 71: "One French scientist put it to me bluntly: 'People have been studying waves for so many years, and we're still struggling to understand how they work.'"

Page 231: "After a moment, he inhaled brisky and continued: 'I've never seen anything like it in my life. The whole reef drained! And the energy that the wave had taken to jack itself up created this trough. It was like ... the bottom of the wave was ten feet below sea level! And Laird's on the face and the reef is drained off and there's this THING behind him. And I saw it! I saw it. I saw the Big Mother.'"

Page 290, after she experienced a ride with Hamilton on his home turf --Jaws break, Pe'ahi, off the coast of Maui: "Every cell in my body vibrated. Did I want another wave? I wanted another ten, and then another ten after that. Though it would be weeks before I finally processed the feeling of riding Jaws, nothing I had ever done or seen or been through had made me feel so alive. Intellectually, I had always known that big-wave surfers were addictedt to their pursuit. Now I knew why."

Find it: At Amazon and Powells.

More:
== Susan Casey's website (linked here).

Entry No. 4 in our sandy journal of surf books released in the last few months, and why we've got them on the shelf:

The book: "Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results"

The author: Michael Scott Moore

The vital info: Rodale Books, 336 pages, $25.99 (released May 25).

The curl: Not just a surf tourist, but Moore (another graduate of Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach) is a story teller who finds so much context and contacts from just hopping around from Indonesia, Germany, Morocco, England, Cuba, Israel's Gaza Strip, Sao Tome and Japan and beyond to uncover (and cynically examine) some of the myths and unclaimed stories that have been circulating since the sport's invention.

Matt Warshaw gives it this back-of-the-cover blurb: "Warm, smart, funny and beautifully written ... (it) goes off the beaten surf-path to give us a bigger, more interesting surf world."

The excerpts: Right away, in Chapter 1, anyone who knows about South Bay surf history is hooked, and are reintroduced to local legend Mike Purpus:
Page 1: "When i was young, the George Freeth memorial in Redondo Beach, California, was a salt-bitten bust of a lifeguard who gazed with the stoicism you'd expect from an early surf hero into the deep mysteries of a concrete parking garage. His back was to the Redondo Pier. Most locals jogged or skated past the sculpture without examining the plaque, which read, disingenuously, FIRST SURFER IN THE UNITED STATES, then related the story of how Freeth was paid by the Los Angeles real estate and streetcar magnant Henry Huntington in 1907 to lure people to ride the Red LIne tram to Redondo Beach on sunny afternoons and watch the new kind of athlete trim the waves. ...How come it took until 1907 to reach America? My teenage skepticism was justified. Freeth was only the first celebrity surfer in California. The first men on record to surf North America were three Hawaiian princes who noticed that waves at the San Lorenzo River mouth in Santa Cruz were up to snuff....

"Freeth helped rescue stand-up surfing from the Christianized sickness of ninetheenth-century Hawaiian culture and brought it to Redondo Beach. Like African music that crossed in ships to America and became the blues, and then jazz, and then rock, surfing would merge with the American landscape and become something new ... I'd been vaguely aware of the sport's imperial march in the years since I took it up, when stickers for Body Glove wetsuits and Quicksilver board shorts plastered on road signs and schools desks were part of the provincial mood of Redondo, Manhattan and Hermosa Beach ... but it wasn't until I saw a Quicksilver store in Paris and watche surfers in Munich, where people surf Isar River canals, that I noticed with a measure of dread that 'surfing' is a big-business American export, up there with cowboys and Hollywood."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

More:
== A review in the Easy Reader (linked here) that starts: "Moore has written the book every writer who surfs wishes he had written, and every surfer who writes wishes he could have written."

Rich Marotta, right, speaks at the Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony for local radio personality Bill Handel in 2009.

Rich Marotta, who has gone from Bob Miller's colorman on Kings' games, Bill King's analyst on Raiders' games and Ralph Lawler's sidekick on Clippers games, will be the 26th person inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcasters' Hall of Fame at their awards luncheon on Jan. 25, it was announced today.

"Rich is perhaps best known today as boxing's pre-eminent sportscaster but in his 34 years covering Southern California sports, he is the only sportscaster to be part of the regular broadcast teams of three major league franchises," said SCSB president Miller, who teammed with Marotta from 1976-78 (as Marotta looked here).

Marotta, who also did Clippers play-by-play and was a sportscaster at KCBS-Channel 2, writes and produces seven radio weekday sportscasts for KFI-AM (640). He most recently had a 10-plus-year run hosting a boxing weekend radio show on KLAC-AM (570), having worked as a TV analyst on Fox Sports Net's "Top Rank Live," and doing boxing shows on KCAL Channel 9 and Prime Ticket.

The Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High grad got a degree in radio and television from Cal State Northridge in 1972.

The previous 25 winners of the SCSB Hall of Fame: Tom Harmon (1992), Fred Hessler and Bob Kelley (1993), Sam Balter (1994), Bill Brundige (1995), Jerry Doggett (1996), Vin Scully and Jim Healy (1997), Dick Enberg Gil Stratton and Don Drysdale (1998), Chick Hearn (1999), Keith Jackson (2000), Stu Nahan, Bob Starr and Bill Welsh (2001), Bob Miller (2002), Mike Walden (2003), Jaime Jarrin (2004), Ross Porter and Tom Kelley (2005), Ralph Lawler (2006), Rick Monday (2008), Nick Nickson (2009) and Jim Hill (2010).

Entry 3 from our search of the perfect surf book that's come out in the last few months:

The book: "LeRoy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s, 25th Anniversary Edition"

The authors: Essay by Steve Barilotti, edited by Jim Heimann.

The vital info: Taschen Books (taschen.com), 256 pages, $19.95. (Released Oct. 1).

The curl: No matter what the language -- it's in English, Spanish and German -- this common-man reproduction of a rare collectors' book released in the 1980s to chronicle the photographic career of Hermosa Beach native Grannis is as much about a snapshot of the sport at an iconic peroid as it is about a man who captured it. Grannis was a surfer himself, part of a group of guys who started the Palos Verdes Surfing Club in the late '30s. The PV cove was, according to Barilotti, "second home to a zealous crew of dedicated surfers, mostly jobgless young men in their 20s who were waiting out the Depression in grand low-budget style." Thus, Grannis knew the soul of what he was shooting. His full page shots blow up on the pages, saturated in real color and sharp black and white.

Our favorites: From the first couple of pages, two blond surfers are on a dirt path heading to the Palos Verdes cove, shielding their eyes from the afternoon sun to see who's in the water; on page 28, the legendary Dewey Weber with a bright red board and flipped-up hair, and all the shots of the stores now long gone that once housed the surf shops of Weber and Greg Noll.

The excerpt: From page 19: "LeRoy Grannis came to surf photography in late 1959, not as a professional or an artist, but as a middle-aged family man looking for a hobby to reduce the stress of his job. Luckily, he happened to pick up his camera at a pivitol time in surfing history ..."
And page 25: "Today, as endless images from professional surf photographers flood the market, the elegant simplicity of Grannis' photos and the period he captured provide a critical window into the birth of a culture."

Find it: At Amazon and Powells.

ESPN officially announced this afternoon that Dan Shulman will be paired with former Dodgers players Orel Hershiser and Bobby Valentine as the new "Sunday Night Baseball" booth, replacing Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, who did the first 21 seasons together for the franchise.

Shulman has been on ESPN's Monday and Wednesday games, as well as post-season radio and continues to be mentioned as a prime candidate to step in for Vin Scully when he decides he no longer wants to do Dodgers games.

Hershiser joined the Miller-Morgan team last season, and Valentine has been a "Baseball Tonight" analyst.

When Miller turned down the ESPN Radio gig, it was then offered and taken by play-by-play man Jon Sciambi, who'll do the games with Chris Singleton instead of Dave Campbell.

Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president of production, said Miller will be missed, but "as properties change, the demands of consumers change and it's incumbent on oneself to innovate the product. If you do it the same way now as five or 10 years ago, you're not doing justice and offering consumers and viewers the evolution of the product."

Entry 2 in our journal of surf book reviews:

The book: "The History of Surfing"

The author: Matt Warshaw

The vital info: Chronicle Books, 495 pages, $50 (released Sept. 1):

The curl: In his 2003 book, "The Encyclopedia of Surfing," Warshaw (Manhattan Beach's Mira Costa High Class of '78) spent just 9 1/2 pages at the top writing what he called "A Brief History of Surfing." The former editor of Surfer magazine wasn't satisfied. Thankfully. Spending four years to write and research, he cranked out a 250,000-word, 245-picture production that's nearly the size and weight of a small surfboard -- with nine pages of references, plus an index.

Warshaw says his goal, aside from tracing the sport's roots to the Inca fishermen in Peru more than 3,000 years ago, was also to demythologize some of what's out there. From Polynesia, Hawaii to Malibu and beyond, from Captain Cook to Duke Kahanamoku to George Freeth (and not to overlook the contributions of locals such as Dale Velzy, Dewey Weber, Greg Noll and Bob and Bill Meistrell of Dive 'N' Surf) Warshaw follows surfing's high and low tides -- and, most enlightening, coming to some conclusions along the way about what it all means.

The excerpt: From pages 11-13: "The mechanics of surfboard design, and all the attendant hydrodynamics, still bore me just as much as the forces behind the board changes -- the rivalries, the spark of an idea, trial and error, dumb luck -- still fascinate me ... What really attracts me ... is tracing and understanding the jagged fault line between surf culture and culture at large ... (It's) Hollywood, politics, music, fashion and the great digital vastness ... it's a sport (as well) as art, religion, philosophy, metaphysics ... meditation ... modern dance. ... A mortal imitation of Jesus' walk on water."
And on pages 476-477: "There's the perpetual urge to recontextualize the sport -- to see waves in clouds, shrubbery, even the curled edge of a potato chip ... Surfers invariably do whatever it takes to bring the sport ever more front and center in their lives. you see God in the hollow of a breaking wave. Surf lust, surf passion, surf fever ... it never changes. ... For a few seconds at a time, we get to ride that current. Surf history is so many banners and streamers waiving from that single, incredible fact."

Find it: At Amazon and Powells, plus the publisher's website.

More:
== A review in the Nov. 17 Easy Reader (linked here)
== A Scripps News service Q-and-A with Warshaw (linked here)
== Nat Young's History of Surfing book from the 1980s, updated in the 1990s (linked here and linked here)

It only took a few months for summer to finally arrive in Southern California.

Seriously. Dude. Check it out.

In synch with the start of The Jay at Mavericks Big Wave Invitational as the watch begins today and goes through Feb. 28 (story linked here), we've put ourself on a 24-hour notice to catch up with the wave of surfing books that have been cresting on our desk over the last six months.

These are more than just suitable as flotation devices. They've captured some essence of the sport, lifestyle and soul of what it's about.

For starters:

The book: "Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave"

The author: Peter Heller

The vital info: Free Press, 336 pages, $15 (released in paperback in July).

The curl: The 45-year-old, Denver-based Heller, an adventure writer whose stuff has been in Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure and Outside decides to take his own hell ride along the California coast down into Mexico with his girlfriend Kim and a VW bus called "The Beast" after his best friend has a mid-life crisis and his wife decides surfing may be the best way to cure it. In the process, Heller is hooked, after examining what he (and we) think we know about surfing, how it really exists, and then, what it really means.
And as for the term "kook," what it really means is a beginning surfer, one who doesn't know anything about territorial rights, how to avoid putting yourself between the board and the shore, and why taking lessons is essential.
Before digging into this, a good primer might be Steve Kotler's 2006 "West of Jesus," Jaimal Yogis' 2009 "Saltwater Buddah" and Norman Ollestad's 2009 New York Times bestseller "Crazy for the Storm."

The excerpts: From page 21: "Surfing is one of the only pursuits on earth that can drub you into numb exhaustion and blunt trauma time and again and give you nothing in return; nothing but sand in your crotch, salt-stung eyes, banged temple, chipped tooth, screaming back and sunburned ears -- gives you all of this and not a single stand-up ride. Time and again. Day after day. Gives you nothing back but tumbles, wipeouts, thumpings, scares. And you return. You are glad to do it. In fact, you can think of nothing you'd rather do."
And on page 71: "I was beginning to understand that what I loved most about learning to surf was the sheer beauty of the wild ocean -- turn from the shore, and it was wild -- wild, capricious, untamed. It might be dying by degrees, but the pelicans still plunged, the sardines still skipped the surface in panic, the wind still blew the spume off the breaking waves. It thundered and heaved and shuddered. The immense geologic force of the sea was undiminished. Every morning that I waded into the heavy whitewash and jumped onto the board and paddled out into the waves, I felt honored and humbled to take my place among the fishes and the birds."

Find it: On Amazon and Powells.

== More:
== A Washington Post review (linked here)
== Peter Heller's website (linked here)