Keeping Score

From Daily News of Saturday, July 14:

Jerry Greene, in the Orlando Sentinel: “A potential NBA player seems to be
protesting the totally non-democratic drafting system that forces an athlete
to work for a specific team. And the player protesting, Yi Jianlian, is from
China. Why do we think this is OK and they don’t?” . . . Greg Cote, in the
Miami Herald: “The latest evidence that reaching major statistical
milestones in baseball does not necessarily make you a first-ballot given
for the Hall of Fame — Frank Thomas’ 500th home run and Craig Biggio’s
3,000th hit.” . . . Dan Daly, in the Washington Times: “Strange, isn’t it,
how they call Thomas ‘The Big Hurt’‚ and yet Biggio is the one who’s been
hit by 284 pitches?” . . . If you watched the Home Run Derby on Sportsnet on
Monday, you knew it was being shown on tape delay, didn’t you?
One more from Daly: “Can’t get used to the idea of a boat sponsored by
Switzerland — a landlocked country — winning back-to-back America’s Cups.
Next thing you know, teams from North Carolina and Anaheim will win
back-to-back Stanley Cups.” . . . When they held the U.S. Women’s Open golf
championship a couple of weekends ago, 26 Korean players made the cut for
the last two rounds. . . . There were 25 Americans left in the field for the
final two rounds. . . . As the Beckhams prepare to take Los Angeles, the
missus just spent US$500,000 to have a closet built in their new home. For
that price, you should be able to get a really posh closet. . . . Becks and
the Los Angeles Galaxy are to play Chelsea in L.A., on July 21. How big will
this be? Big, big, big. ESPN will cover it with 19 cameras, including
Beckham Cam and Celebrity Cam. Now that’s big!
They held the 12th annual Summer Redneck Games last weekend in Dublin, Ga.,
and Doug Wyatt of the Savannah, Ga., Morning News was pumped. “Shoot,” he
wrote, “we ain’t had so much fun since the time Earlene got likkered up and
tried to milk the cat.” . . . Just wondering, but do where to they hold the
Winter Redneck Games? . . . Evander Holyfield, 44, put a beating on Lou
Savarese, 41, in a heavyweight boxing match the other night. “Methuselah was
the referee,” noted Drew Curtis of fark.com, “Abe Vigoda the announcer, and
Bea Arthur the ring card girl.” . . . If you’re into numerology, you should
know that Clint Bowyer finished seventh in NASCAR’s Pepsi 400 on Saturday.
He drives car No. 7. The date, of course, was 07/07/07.
“It speaks to the age of 57 years, basically,” pro golfer Tom Watson said
late last week. “I’m just not very fluid. I look at a lot of swings out
here, not too many fluid swings out here. There is a little chop here and a
chop here. The bodies, they don’t react very well much anymore. The fluidity
of the past, of the youth, is pretty much gone.” . . . That was after the
second round of the U.S. Senior Open in which he shot, uhh, 66. It wasn’t
until late in the fourth round that his game fell apart. . . . Scott Ostler,
in the San Francisco Chronicle, on the start of the Tour de France: “The
defending champ isn’t riding and several superstars are absent, but it’s
still a grand international event — the Tour de Fewer. I like how the
starting field swept past the grandstands in the ‘missing men formation.’ ”
Bill Lankhof, in the Toronto Sun: “Multiple choice: If the Maple Leafs hire
John Muckler as a so-called ‘senior advisor’ does that make John Ferguson
Jr.: (a) A sitting duck; (b) A lame duck; (c) A dead duck; (d) All of the
above. Just wondering.” . . . And then there was Lankhof, eagerly awaiting
last weekend’s Champ Car race in Toronto: “The best excuse to look at ladies
in skimpy bathing suits ever invented arrives . . . with the return of Champ
Car. Some of the fastest women, aahhh, I mean cars, will be flashing
onlookers at the CNE grounds tomorrow afternoon. Remember, when the guy says
‘Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,’ he’s referring to the cars.” . . . From the
Flip Side column in the Baltimore Sun: “Sorry for the recent absence, but
Mr. Flip had to take some vacation time for a trip to France to attend the
Tony Parker-Eva Longoria wedding. It was tough getting that blender through
airport security.”
Jimmy Kimmel, co-hosting the ESPYs the other night, came up with this gem:
“There have been a lot of babies in sports this year. Tiger Woods had a baby
girl, my co-host, LeBron James, had a baby boy, and the Lakers still have
Kobe.” . . . On what was then the impending arrival of David Beckham in Los
Angeles, Kimmel, in sending a zinger at Wayne Gretzky, offered: “Maybe he
can do what you did for hockey, and in 15 years no one will be watching
soccer either.” . . . No one is smiling more these days than WHL referees.
With Kevin Constantine and Brent Sutter having left the ranks of WHL head
coaches, the job of a referee just got a whole lot quieter. No more putting
cotton batting in the ears before games.
Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed
Sidney Crosby to a five-year contract extension worth $43.5 million. Or, as
he’s now known among the NHL’s younger set, Bling Crosby.” . . . A man
beaten by Allan Iverson’s bodyguards in a nightclub has been awarded
$260,000 for pain and suffering. And jurors have yet to declare punitive
damages. As Perry wrote: “Or as they say in the NBA, he’s now in the bonus.”
. . . Someone did a survey that showed four out of 10 golfers would trade
sex for a month for the perfect swing. To which Peter Schmuck of the
Baltimore Sun responded: “Don’t get your hopes up. If that’s all it took,
I’d win the Masters every year.”

Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.