Keeping Score

From The Daily News of Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007 . . .

Knowing that you haven't yet had enough of Michael Vick . . . Here's Mike
Lupica, in the New York Daily News: "The idea that (Michael) Vick should be
awarded some kind of instant clemency because what he did isn't as bad as
what others from his sport, from all sports, have done, is dumber than Paris
and Lindsay and Britney combined." . . . John Ryan, in the San Jose Mercury
News: "Knicks guard Stephon Marbury tells the New York Post, 'I never said
dogfighting was a sport. I said, 'From what I hear, dogfighting was a
sport.' They're editing me on TV.' Which changes his initial meaning . . .
not at all, actually. But we like the crossover dribble, that should help
his game." . . . If you heard Vick's public apology the other day, you heard
him say that he has found Jesus. Steve Rosenbloom of ChicagoSports.com
received an e-mail from reader Kevin Conerton asking: "Wonder if he'll
rename his operation Good Newz Kennels?"

In an attempt to help troubled Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman rid
himself of the problem he has handling snaps, the Chicago Sun-Times went
looking for some expert help. "It's very easy to take snaps," Jimmy Smolik
told the newspaper. "Just open your hands and wait for the ball, and then
you close your hands." Jimmy, 10, is in Grade 5 and plays quarterback for
the St. Linus Hawks in Oak Lawn, Ill. . . . David Thomas of the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram describes a true Texas Rangers fan: "You heard the Rangers
scored 30 runs in a game, then asked, 'Did they win?' " . . . A
couple of questions for Hockey Canada: Is it a Super Series if only one team
is super? And how much did you pay for those hotel rooms in Moscow? . . .
Oh, and please stop mentioning this series and 1972 in the same breath.
After all, the country against which Canada played in 1972 doesn't even
exist any more.

Greg Norman, the golfer, is dating former tennis star Chris Evert, who is
the ex-wife of U.S. skier Andy Mill. "Greg Norman at one time was my best
friend, and a year and a half ago I would have taken a bullet for this guy,"
Mill told Australia's News Ltd. newspapers. "But I didn't realize he was the
one that was going to pull the trigger." . . . Hey, Andy, maybe there's a
reason the man's nickname is the Shark. . . . Twenty years ago, there were
17 players in the NFL who weighed more than 300 pounds. This year, there
were more than 500 players in NFL camps who weighed more than that. . . . It
would seem that CBS-TV analyst Phil Simms is tired of being mistaken for
Boomer Esiason. "Everybody's calling me Boomer," Simms is quoted as saying
at sportsbybrooks.com. "What is this? Do I really look big, fat and
mediocre?''

The Kamloops Blazers will experiment during their home exhibition games by
switching ends, meaning they will defend the end closest to their bench for
two periods. This is a move the WHL has wanted the team to make for a few
years now and you wonder if the league won't demand it of the franchise's
new owners. . . . Pamela Reynolds stopped by the other day and found a
suitcase belonging to the girlfriend of her husband, former Washington State
footballer Ricky Reynolds. So Mrs. Reynolds, who was estranged from her
husband and now really is a stranger to him, torched his laptop, some
pictures and the girlfriend's clothes in the driveway of the home in Lake
Jovita, Fla. As Brooks Melchior of sportsbybrooks.com noted: "Reynolds
played cornerback for the (Tampa Bay) Bucs from 1987-93, so if anyone can
handle getting burned, it's him." . . . So what was more predictable,
Michael Vick finding Jesus or the big oil companies raising the price of gas
a couple of days before summer's last long weekend? . . . "My favourite part
of the telecast," CBS's David Letterman says of the Little League World
Series, "is when they put the cameras on the players' wives."

With the U.S. college football season about to start, USA Today's Mike
Lopresti decided to see how things looked. He checked the Associated Press
wire and found that over a two-day period players from Alabama, Hawaii,
Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Notre Dame, Penn State and West Virginia all were in
the court news. "Not hard to understand why the NFL has so many problems, is
it?" Lopresti wrote. . . . After the New York Yankees and the Tigers played
a rain-delayed Friday night game in Detroit that ended Saturday at 3:30
a.m., Seattle Times reader Torben Rolfsen noted: "To give you an idea how
late it was, Pacman Jones had already called it a night." . . . St. Louis
Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols is certain to hit .300 with 30 homers
and 100 RBI again this season. That will make him the first player in major
league history to reach those numbers in each of his first seven seasons.

The Miami Herald's Greg Cote is ready to place a bet on the women's singles
in the U.S. Open: "You've heard of an over-under bet? I'll take the Ova. . .
. Maria Sharapova, Nicole Vaidisova, Nadia Petrova, Svetlana Kuznetsova or
Daniela Hantukova." . . . The Boston Red Sox outscored the Chicago White Sox
46-7 in a four-game sweep last weekend, after which the Chicago Tribune's
Rick Morrissey wrote that he had learned a lesson: "It is possible to beat a
dead horse." . . . Was it only two years ago that the White Sox were on the
verge of winning the World Series? . . . Robyn Norwood, in the Los Angeles
Times: "Since Joe Paterno became coach at Penn State in 1966, there have
been 798 coaching changes in Division I-A football programs, with multiple
changes at every school except one. His."

Hey, what's with Pierre McGuire? The TSN hockey analyst usually sounds as
though he's a 78 rpm record -- hey, kids, ask Grandma about 78s -- but in Game
1 of the Canada-Russia series, he was about a 33 1/3 (Mom or Dad should be
able to explain that one). By Game 2, he was a 45. . . . Cote, one more
time: "Latrell Sprewell's 70-foot, $1.5-million yacht was taken from him
after he failed to make payments. Not sure what the ship was named, but now
let's re-christen it Sprepossessed." . . . Last season, cornerback Asante
Samuel was paid $460,000 by the NFL's New England Patriots. Now he has a
US$7.79 million contract and will get $458,235 per week. . . . Which is how
much less than you pull in every week?