Keeping Score

From The Daily News of Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007 . . .

Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: "The long-suspected truth finally came out after years of lying by (Marion) Jones. Suspicions were renewed after she recently led the Giants with 43 home runs." . . . One more from Cote: "It is expected Jones will be stripped of her medals in the cheating scandal. Cannot confirm speculation that Bill Belichick doesn’t understand the big fuss." . . . Cote, again: "By the way, we have figured out what (Michael) Vick's favorite play in football is. No contest. Gotta be the pooch kick." . . . And there was this from Amy Poehler, a co-anchor on NBC’s Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment: “Three-time Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones admitted that she used steroids before the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. So
let me see: That makes everyone. Everyone has used steroids.”

Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “From Marion Jones and (Barry) Bonds, a lesson for you kids out there: If you’re eating Flax-o-Flakes or Choc-o-Flax every morning and you suddenly notice that you’re setting sprint records, winning Olympic gold medals and hitting monstrous home runs, have mom get a lab analysis of that cereal.” . . . One more from Ostler:
“Milwaukee Bucks rookie Yi Jianlian issues a no-comment when asked about his age. His age! Guess there’s no point in asking him his opinion of China’s ruthless suppression of free speech and political dissent.” . . . Just wondering, but do you think Mayor Terry Lake is a Bucks’ fan? . . . Was there anything funnier than all the Canucks fans jumping ship after Vancouver’s 8-2 loss to the visiting Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night? Geez, the Dan Russell open mouth show should have had counselors on hand to deal with some of the angry people.

Kevin Love, a freshman on UCLA’s basketball team, is a nephew of Mike Love of the Beach Boys. Kevin says his favourite Beach Boys songs are Good Vibrations and California Girls. To which Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times notes: “If he is as good as everybody says, the 6-foot-10 centre from Lake Oswego, Ore., probably will generate plenty of the former and attract
his share of the latter this season.” . . . Hey, Gary Bettman, it’s about those jerseys. They’ve gotta go. Every single one of them looks like it shrunk when Mom did the laundry. Give them to the Bulgarian national weightlifting team. . . . Rick Reilly, over at SI.com, writes about the
waiting list for Green Bay Packers’ season tickets: “The line moves slower than the one at the Kabul DMV. For instance, if you put your name on the waiting list today, you would be number 74,659. An average of 70 people give up their tickets every year, which means you’ll have your tickets by the 3074 season. Luckily you’ll still catch Brett Favre’s last year.”

After Stanford upset USC a week ago, about 2,000 fans showed up to greet the Cardinals when the buses arrived back at Maples Pavilion. While they waited, the fans lit a large bonfire which resulted in the Palo Alto, Calif., Fire Department arriving to make sure the fire burned itself out. When fire fighters tried to identify who had started the fire, the students began singing the chorus from Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. . . . No one is loving the battle between Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe any more than Mike Milbury, the former embattled GM of the New York Islanders who now is working for TSN. "I am absolutely two thumbs up on this one, and I don't
care if Dustin Penner ever scores another goal," Milbury said. "I just love it that Brian Burke is apoplectic out there in Anaheim and has a Kevin Lowe voodoo doll in his office and a lifetime supply of pins. This is war and it will not go away."

Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “The Cleveland Indians, in an unprecedented clubhouse vote, will announce . . . they have voted full playoff shares to 29 players, six clubhouse attendants and 37,193 insects.” . . . O.J. Simpson was ordered by a judge to turn over his Rolex watch to the Goldman family, after which the New York Daily News reported that it was a $125 knockoff. To which Perry noted: "In a stunning show of good faith, however, Simpson vehemently vowed to spend the rest of his life searching for the real Rolex." . . . In complaining to The Associated Press that he is tired of being misconstrued by the media, New York Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas said: "You can say what you didn't say because if you say what you
didn't say, then y'all print what is said." To which Drew Curtis of Fark.com added: “You can say that again."

T.J. Simers, in the Los Angeles Times, after what was a lost Saturday on that city's college football scene: "USC and UCLA have been eliminated before the Angels, so the Los Angeles Kings may now be our most dependable outfit. This might have been the worst day in Southern California football history, Notre Dame and UCLA fans together in the same stadium celebrating a Trojans loss and then an hour later the Bruins doing something no other team in the nation could do -- make a winner out of the Irish." . . . If you missed it, Stanford, a 41-point underdog, beat USC, 24-23, and Notre Dame, which came in 0-5, whipped UCLA, 20-6. . . . Don’t Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne owe it to their Anaheim teammates to make a decision and make it right now?

Just wondering, but how did we get from Where's Betty? to Everyone Loves Betty so quickly? . . . CBS-TV’s David Letterman: "It's not all bad news for the Mets. After they rolled over and played dead, Leona Helmsley left them $12 million." . . . Gotta love that NFL schedule. The New York Jets and New York Giants played on Sunday and now won't meet again until 2011. Meanwhile,
the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills were featured in the Monday night game but aren't scheduled to play each other again until 2015.

You might say there is a bit of pressure on Carey Price, the pride of Anahim Lake and Williams Lake, who made his debut in goal for Montreal as the Canadians beat the host Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 on Wednesday. After that game, here’s how Jack Todd started his column in the Montreal Gazette: “The torch has been passed. Ken Dryden. Patrick Roy. Carey Price.” And here is how Todd finished it: “It looked like everyone who raves about this young man is right. Think Dryden, think Roy, think the long line of great Canadiens goalies reaching back through Jacques Plante and Bill Durnan all the way to Georges Vézina. Like we said up top: the torch has been passed.”

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