“Tiger Woods says he isn’t sure if he will be able to play at Augusta,” notes Janice Hough (aka The Left Coast Sports Babe). “And if you thought that little boy at the Kansas-Stanford game was crying, wait until you see the Masters’ TV sponsors.” . . . Hough, again: “Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has installed beer taps in the governor’s mansion. And visitors from out of state are thinking ‘beer schmeer, what about brownies?’ ” . . . With Fleetwood Mac preparing for its first tour in 16 years, Hough writes: “Start building that shelter in the backyard. Last year, Stevie Nicks said there was ‘more chance of an asteroid hitting the earth’ than of Christine McVie rejoining Fleetwood Mac.” . . .
Here’s Bob Molinaro of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot, after the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers opened the MLB season in Sydney, Australia, last weekend: “The first time a big-league baseball team appeared Down Under was in 1888 when the touring White Sox played on the same cricket grounds used by the Dodgers and D-backs. Apparently, the American game never took off there.” . . . The MLB season hits high gear this weekend and, really, there’s nothing better than that first week of play. . . . The New York Yankees will have slimmed-down-southpaw CC Sabathia on the mound for the sixth straight Opening Day. The last Yankees pitcher to start six straight Opening Days? No, it wasn’t Ron Guidry. It was Lefty Gomez (1932-37). . . .
Here’s Jack Todd in the Montreal Gazette, writing about the Big Owe: “To pour another $300 million into putting a new roof on the place would require a whole truckload of stupid on the part of our politicians — so we can’t rule it out. But the only approach that makes sense is to take it apart, sell it off one piece at a time to defray the costs, and replace it with urban green space or some plan that does not involve another billion in taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, if you really have to spend $300 million, spend it to help build the real baseball stadium that should have been put up 20 years ago.” . . .
“The NFL is suing rapper M.I.A. for $16.6 million for her on-camera middle-finger salute during the halftime show of Super XLVI,” writes Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post. “Strangely, the league isn’t suing the Denver Broncos, who were M.I.A. during Super Bowl XLVIII.” . . . “Russia has been kicked out of the G8,” notes Richmond, B.C., blogger TC Chong. “I had no idea it was involved in Gatorade formulations.” . . .
“My wife asked my thoughts on New Brunswick skip Jimmy Gratton choosing Kate Upton for his Dream Team,” offers RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “I said, ‘Let he without a sinful thought throw the first stone.’ " . . . One more from Currie: “Twitter was down for roughly 45 minutes on March 11. So for a while millions of people with no life had no one to share it with.” . . . “According to the Daily Record UK,” Currie reports, “38 celebrities recently were wedded in secret. I'll go out on a limb and say none of them are Kardashians.” . . .
“The Raiders must be flattered,” writes Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle. “Richie Incognito says he’d love to play for them because he knows the coaches and because ‘the Raiders have that aura.’ Talk about desperate sucking up. The Raiders are a lacklustre football organization with an interesting past and questionable future. Aura? Ghostbusters couldn’t locate the Raiders’ aura.” . . . The Chicago White Sox will offer a three-pound dessert at games this season. Included in the package are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream -- four scoops of each, don’t you know -- with caramel and strawberry sauces and chocolate syrup. It’s all topped, naturally, with whipped cream and cherries. Column contributor Bill Littlejohn says: “The American Heart Association calls it Sundae Bloody Sundae.” . . . Brett Enright, a restaurateur in Florida, claims to have set a world record by building a 125-pound hot dog. Littlejohn says it may not be a record. As he points out: “Many are disputing that claim, saying that with his recent weight gain, Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers weighs 245 pounds." . . .
“Sad to report that Roberto Luongo, the only NHL player worth following on Twitter, has decided to scale back on his social media activities,” notes Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun. “All I can say is @strombone1 please come home soon.” . . . Yes, Twitter is a drearier place since @strombone1 quieted down. . . . One more from Simmons: “David Braley must be a dreamer. He has the Argos and the B.C. Lions up for sale, if anybody’s asking. The Argos price: $20 million. The Lions price: $60 million. At those prices, Braley will be owning two teams for a while.” . . . Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatoon Express has heard from friends in Toronto who “tell me many of the lawn chairs set up at Yonge and Bloor for the Stanley Cup parade now are sitting empty.” . . .
You may have noticed this week that the Detroit Tigers signed third baseman Miguel Cabrera to baseball’s latest unbelievable contract. Someone did the match and discovered that Cabrera will earn US$49,423 for each of his at-bats over the next 10 years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 the median annual income of a Michigan household was $49,445. . . . A tweet from Mark Whicker of the Orange County Register, as Stanford’s men’s basketball team was losing to Dayton on Thursday: “Tiger Woods was here, apparently. Stanford won't be playing on the weekend. He can relate to that.”
(Gregg Drinnan is a former sports editor of the Regina Leader-Post and the late Kamloops Daily News. He is at gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears here on weekends, except when it doesn’t.)
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