Keeping Score

Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington has been named the NFL’s comeback player of the year following the 2006 and 2008 seasons. As David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote: “Pennington said he looks forward to stinking next season so he can go for No. 3 in 2010.” . . . So you watched a lot of the World Junior Championship and now you’re seeing that Diet Pepsi Max commercial in your sleep. And that voice that keeps yelling at you? That’s Pierre (Old Yeller) McGuire. . . . If you remember watching the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the mid-1970s, you must have had flashbacks to the
days of Mack Herron when you saw San Diego Chargers running back Darren Sproles running all over the Indianapolis Colts a week ago. . . . By the way, the Chargers are 12-1 in December and January games played under head coach Norv Turner.
Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times points out that “the Chargers have never won at Pittsburgh in 13 regular-season games, but they're 2-0 in the Steel City in the playoffs.” . . . One more from Crowe: “Spotted at a recent Lakers game at Staples Center: a fan wearing a Wilt Chamberlain No. 20,000 T-shirt.” . . . The highlight of this season’s U.S. college bowl games was Fox-TV bringing back the retired Pat Summerall to call the play of the Cotton Bowl between Ole Miss and Texas Tech. . . . Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle explains why IOC boss Jacques Rogge is one of the sports knuckleheads of 2008: “Now there’s a no-nonsense sports leader. At the Olympics in Beijing, hammer throwers and weight lifters were doping, horses were doping and underage Chinese gymnasts were winning gold medals, so Rogge sprung into action: He chastised Usain Bolt for being a hot dog.”
If everything went well, Lynn Tucker will have made her boxing debut last
night in the Rough N’ Rowdy Brawl in Charleston, W.Va. Lynn is a 30-year-old mother of seven. As she told the Charleston Daily Mail: “I’ve always wanted to do this, but I’ve been pregnant my entire adult life. I got married when I was 18, and I’ve been pregnant ever since. The factory’s closed.” . . . The Golden Baseball League is preparing to release its 2009 schedule and, no, Kamloops isn’t on it. But the GBL has expanded by two teams — it’s into Victoria, where Regina Pats owner Russ Parker owns the Seals, and Tijuana, Mexico. As well, the Tucson Toros are replacing the Reno Silver Sox. By going into Tijuana, the GBL is the first of baseball’s minor leagues to have franchises in three countries. The Calgary Vipers and Edmonton Cracker-Cats are the other Canadian franchises.
In 1998, quarterbacks Kurt Warner and Jake Delhomme were teammates with NFL Europe’s Amsterdam Admirals. Tonight, Warner leads his Arizona Cardinals into Charlotte, N.C., to play Delhomme’s Carolina Panthers in an NFL playoff game. . . . The way Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post has it figured, the Broncos need to go after Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth in the offseason. “Show Albert Haynesworth the money,” Kiszla writes. “Denver goes off to work with the least intimidating front seven since Snow White's dwarfs.”
“It is an exciting time,” Texas head coach Mack Brown told the Dallas
Morning News, in reference to the U.S. college football bowl season. “I see 7-5 teams throwing Gatorade on their coach. At Texas if we were 7-5 they would be throwing something on me, but it wouldn’t be Gatorade, I will tell you that.” . . . Steve Rosenbloom, at chicagotribune.com, after the Cubbies signed outfielder Milton Bradley: “Fun for the sports media, misery for Cubs fans. That’s Milton Bradley — the nutbag in a nutshell. In the last five seasons, Bradley has gone at it with a general manager, manager, teammate, announcer and fan. So, he has gone crazy for the cycle. The Cubs haven’t formally announced the signing of the switch-hitting right fielder because the guy has to pass a physical. Obviously the Cubs don’t seem to care if he passes the mental.”
According to some doctors in England, the noise made by titanium golf clubs impacting with golf balls could be hazardous to your health. The Daily Mail reports that the noise is such that golfers flailing away with such weapons are being advised by some in the medical community to wear earplugs. However, as pro golfer Andrew Coltart noted: “If you are wearing earplugs you might not hear shouts of ‘fore,’‚ be hit by a ball on the head and get brain damage.” . . . Yes, we’re well into January but this column hasn’t been here for the last few weeks and something happened in December that just can’t be allowed to pass without comment. CBC-TV carried National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation — which is to Christmas movies what Slap Shot is to sports movies — on Dec. 21. Unfortunately, the Corpse chose to mutilate it almost beyond recognition in the editing room. So if there is a Christmas Grinch Award, it goes to whomever was responsible. Bah, humbug. . . . Comedian Argus Hamilton: “When the Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at President Bush, Terrell Owens complained that he was wide open on both plays.” . . . If you were a rasslin’ fan back in the days of Nick Bockwinkel and Chief Wahoo McDaniel, you will remember ‘Mean Gene’ Okerlund, who did the announcing. Well, he’s living in Florida these days. As he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “It was 88 degrees here today. I spent
40 years in Minnesota — 38 of them staring out the window.”

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