Keeping Score

From The Daily News of Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007 . . .

Jerry Greene, in the Orlando Sentinel: “How many jobs will Pacman Jones have? Wrestler and now hip-hop performer? Has he been sleeping at a Holiday Inn Express? How about TV weatherman? ‘Looks like rain.’ ” . . . One more from Greene: “Check out tigerwoods.com to read his reasons for skipping The Barclays, the first of the pathetic PGA Tour FedExCup playoffs. Here’s the best line: ‘But the truth is, I’m just not ready.’ Right, Tiger. Anyone who watched you win the PGA Championship could tell you were barely strong enough to hold John Daly’s next beer.” . . . Frank Fitzpatrick, in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “How about that Eagles performance (Aug. 13) in Baltimore? I know it was just the preseason opener, but their loss to the Ravens was the most thoroughly uninspiring performance I’ve witnessed since Toby Keith’s last television special: God Bless All the Xenophobic Yahoos From Texas!”
David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel somehow managed to get an exclusive interview with Elvis Presley last week. When asked by Whitley, “What’s on your mind?” Elvis replied: “Michael Vick should’ve listened to me. Don’t be cruel. Now he ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. Jailhouse rock, baby.” . . . Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News: “ Michael Vick doesn’t just need better friends, he needs the kind Barry Bonds has. Bonds’ guys go to prison, Vick’s guys try to send him there.” . . . Alter High in Ohio has a 315-pound offensive lineman who can bench press 260 pounds and squat 525. Holley Mangold is a 17-year-old senior and her — yes, her — brother Nick is on the New York Jets’ offensive line.
A fan calling himself BleedGreen, at tsn.ca after the Saskatchewan Roughriders bounced the visiting Edmonton Eskimos a week ago: “WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE! I was 12 the last time I could say that, and I honestly believed it would always be that way.” . . . BleedGreen is 108 years of age. . . . Only a game involving the Roughriders wouldn’t be shown to its conclusion by CBC-TV, which is what happened to that game with the Eskimos after it was delayed by a good, old Prairie downpour in Regina. When the game resumed, after a 59-minute delay, the Roughriders came from behind and won the game. CBC, of course, chose not to return to the game, giving viewers Nick Nolte in The Good Thief, instead. The least the CBC could have done was play Semi-Tough. . . . Obviously there are those at the Corpse who need to be schooled about NBC-TV and Heidi. . . . Or, as Peter Yoon put it in the Los Angeles Times: “The NFL had Heidi and now the Canadian Football League has . . . Nick Nolte.”
Just when you think you’ve seen everything, you sit down in a restaurant and notice that the people across the way are listening to their cell phone through the speaker. So you get to listen to the family’s recent history. Talk about a sign of the apocalypse. . . . How many times have you seen a marriage proposal on the big screen at a sporting event and wondered if the woman ever says: “Not a chance.” The Houston Chronicle reports that’s what happened Monday at an Astros game. According to the newspaper, the guy got down on a knee and came up with a ring. For that, he got a bag of popcorn dumped on his head as she got up and left. . . . Offered Astros manager Phil Garner, after what was a 7-0 loss: “We couldn’t even get a proposal right down here tonight.” . . . The PGA’s John Daly had a chat with BBC Sport and part of it had to do with working out. “I tried,” Daly said, “but every time I worked out I threw up, and I thought to myself that you can get drunk and throw up, so it’s just not for me. I’d rather smoke, drink Diet Cokes and eat.”
Prior to Thursday night’s Blazers meeting, one observer suggested: “Radio NL should carry the meeting live with a one-hour pregame show and two-hour post-game!” . . . Dept. of Oops: The statement was made here a week ago that Sunderland is 275 miles south of London. As hundreds of readers — OK, one of you — pointed out, if that were the case, Sunderland would be “somewhere in the vicinity of Paris.” Actually, Sunderland is 240 miles northeast of London, or so it says somewhere on the Internet. . . . Country crooner Kenny Chesney is good friends with New Orleans head coach Sean Payton, which is why he was at a Saints’ practice the other day. Near the end, the team was told if Chesney could catch a punt, it would get a day off. He did and they did. Offered Saints running back Reggie Bush: “I love country music.”
Former major league manager Dusty Baker is working the Little League World Series for ESPN. Baker, in fact, played Little League baseball in Riverside, Calif., and is enshrined in the Little League’s Museum Hall of Fame. His father, Johnnie B. Baker Sr., was his Little League manager. As Dusty — he is Johnnie B. Jr. — told the Los Angeles Times: “He cut me from the team three times. All three times were for bad attitude — tossing my hat to the ground, kicking a foul ball and quitting after my best friend hit me with a pitch, on purpose. Those were great lessons, though.” . . . The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that former NBAer Latrell Sprewell has had his boat — actually, it’s a 70-foot yacht — repossessed. It seems that Sprewell, who turned down a US$21-million contract a while back, couldn’t afford the monthly payments of $10,322.
It was in the early 1950s when Yogi Berra, then the New York Yankees catcher, heard that teammate Joe DiMaggio was to marry Marilyn Monroe. “I don’t know if it’s good for baseball,” Yogi said, “but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto.” . . . Just in time for Christmas comes word that Panasonic has a 103-inch plasma TV on the market. It’ll cost someone about US$70,000 to get it under your tree. . . . According to the U.S. government, it is owed about $500,000 in back taxes and interest by Darryl Strawberry. As Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times wrote: “Defence lawyers, undaunted, are vowing Strawberry appeals forever.’’
PGA veteran Jeff Maggert, talking with the Greensboro, N.C., News Record about the FedEx Cup: “Probably half the players out here couldn’t care less about it. The other half are indifferent.” . . . Gotta think Federal Express isn’t real happy with the publicity the event has garnered since Tiger bailed on the first of our Cup tournaments. Bet you wish you never had to work more than two or three weeks in a row, too. . . . Bud Geracie, in the San Jose Mercury News: “Maybe Atlanta embraces the new home run record after all. That looked like a Bonds statue in left field during the Braves-Giants game.” . . . One more from Geracie, otherwise known as this Bud’s for you: “Once he signed the incorrect scorecard, Sergio Garcia was stuck, because those little golf-course pencils have no erasers.”

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