Keeping Score

From The Daily News of Saturday, Oct, 20, 2007. . . .

Steve Simmons, in the Toronto Sun: “Turned on a Florida Panthers home game the other night and based on the size of the crowd, I may have been the only one watching.” . . . One more from Simmons: “The grandfather, Harry Caray, was a broadcasting legend. The son, Skip Caray, is a strong baseball broadcaster. The grandson, Chip Caray, is a relative.” . . . If you watched any of the NLCS, you are wondering if Caray ever shuts up. . . . A baseball fan’s worst nightmare would be Caray, who is with TBS, and Fox-TV’s Tim McCarver ending up on the same telecast crew. . . . Don’t be surprised if the 2008 Telus Skins Game is played at Predator Ridge Golf Resort near Vernon in June. The 2000 event, which featured Fred Couples, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Mike Weir, was a tremendous success.
From now through May, the fishing and bird-hunting seasons overlap in parts of Texas. Meaning, as Ron Henry Strait of the San Antonio Express-News, put it: “Cast-and-blast season is here.” . . . The Baltimore Orioles fired their pitching coach, Rockin’ Leo Mazzone, the other day. Here’s Jeff Schultz, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “So what happened to all of those misguided Braves’ fans who believed Leo Mazzone was some guru? He went to Baltimore, which had no pitching, and he got fired after two years, because it still had no pitching. The Orioles’ ERA this year: 5.16, which ranked 29th out of 30 clubs. In 2006, it was 5.35, also 29th out of 30. Now you know why nobody on the Braves, from general manager down to spike-cleaner, wept when he left.”
You have no heart if you aren’t pulling for the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series, if just for the sake of Amanda Coolbaugh and her sons, Joseph, 5, and Jacob, 3. Their husband and father, ex-major leaguer Mike, was a first base coach with the Tulsa Drillers who was killed by a line drive July 22. Despite his having been in their organization for only three weeks, the Rockies players have voted his family — Amanda, 32, also is pregnant — a full share of playoff money. . . . A full winner’s share last season was worth $362,173.04. . . . So you’re wondering if NFL cheerleaders really can figure in the outcome of a game? TSN analyst Jesse Palmer, a New York Giants quarterback in 2005, remembers struggling to get his teammates to focus while in the huddle during a game in Dallas. “They were all staring right at the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders who were performing in the end zone,” Palmer recalls. “The classic line came from our tight end, Visanthe Shiancoe, who interrupted me in the middle of a play call and said, ‘Jesse you really need to turn around and see this.’ ”
Rich Cimini, in the New York Daily News, after quarterback Vinny Testaverde got off his couch and led the Carolina Panthers over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday: “Vinny Testaverde is so old that his Heisman Trophy is an antique. He’s so old that the commissioner who called his name on draft day was Pete Rozelle. Vinny was around when Pac Man was a popular video game, not an NFL miscreant. In his day, the world was more concerned with KGB than HGH.” . . . Ironically, Testaverde had agreed to terms with the Cardinals, before changing his mind because Phoenix was too far from his East Coast home. After calling the Cardinals to say no, he got a call from the Panthers and the rest, as they say, is history.
No one is having a longer season than the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Here’s NBC’s Jay Leno: “The body of former Notre Dame legend George Gipp, who died in the 1920s, was exhumed. To give you an idea of how bad Notre Dame is this year, he’s playing Saturday.” . . . Someone from the Indianapolis Star saw this sign at the Notre Dame-Purdue football game: Rudy could start this year. . . . John and Barbara Fox recently pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $200,000 from the Southampton, Pa., Soccer Association. But that doesn’t appear to have ended the story. As Laurie Mason of the Bucks County Courier Times wrote: “Prosecutors say they owe $237,424. The Foxes say the correct amount is $220,392.” . . . You may have known that Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears is known as “Anytime.” That’s a salute to Deion (Prime Time) Sanders, a friend and mentor to Hester. . . . Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times points out that Hester “has scored 11 touchdowns in 25 NFL games . . . and only one has come on a play covering fewer than 73 yards. The average length of his scoring plays: 85.6 yards.”
Cam Hutchinson, in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix: “Days after admitting she used steroids, Marion Jones returned the five medals she won at the 2000 Olympic Games. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds said he would return his balls if he can find them.” . . . The San Francisco Chronicle’s Scott Ostler, on Jones’ running style: “Some likened her to a gazelle, but I’ll always picture her as a cheetah.” . . . Did you catch Jimmy Kimmel’s act on Monday Night Football? Gotta think his chances of getting invited back are right up there with those of Joe Theismann . . . But all Kimmel did was tell the truth. . . . You realize that if a sitcom had ratings as poor as the NLCS games — they were the four lowest-rated championship series games in history — it would be cancelled.
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 17 children, which is why they were thrilled to purchase a bus that used to belong to the Port Huron Flags minor pro hockey team. “There’s not too many of those buses with 15 beds in it,” Fred Minnie, who owned a piece of the Flags, told the Port Huron, Mich., Times Herald. “(Jim Bob) couldn’t get here fast enough.” As Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post noted: “The bus will allow the Duggars to finally practise berth control.” . . . Former Madison Square Garden employee Anucha Browne Saunders was awarded $11 million in a sexual harassment suit against Isiah Thomas, the New York Knicks’ head coach. Seth Myers, co-anchor of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, noted: “Browne Saunders would have gotten more from the Knicks, but she’s not a washed-up shooting guard with bad knees.”

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