Keeping Score

With the boss refusing a request from a coalition of readers to prorogue this column until late January, here is yet another edition of the wildly popular Keeping Score. . . . There is talk in Saskatchewan of building a domed stadium in Regina, where the people obviously are tired of the mosquitoes, the cold and the wind. OK, folks, the race is on — an indoor stadium for Regina or a new arena for Moose Jaw, what comes first? . . . Mike Lupica, in the New York Post: “So why doesn’t Jeter need a Glock when he goes out to a club when the Yankee game is over? How come A-Rod doesn’t need a Glock when he’s sneaking into Madonna’s place?” . . . Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “The LPGA Tour, in a sign of bad economic times, announced it will stage three fewer tournaments next year and pay out $5 million less in prize money. In other words, the newest fashion trend in women’s golf will be smaller purses.”
Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “The World Series of Poker finally ended in Las Vegas. Based on all the sunglasses, egos and pretentiousness, shouldn’t WSOP stand for World Series of Posers?” . . . After the Arizona Cardinals wrapped up the NFC West title Sunday, their first such championship in 33 years, comedy writer Jerry Perisho noted: “Things have changed a lot since 1975. Back then, we were fighting an unpopular war, Larry King was wearing terribly ugly suspenders and the Celtics were reigning NBA champions.” . . . TNT basketball analyst Charles Barkley knows the secret to bigger pipes: “T.O. and Tiger wear small shirts to make their muscles look bigger.” . . . Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle: “I guess Plaxico Burress wasn’t wearing Under Armour.” . . . Bill Simmons of ESPN.com: “Like everyone else, I’m still disappointed that a receiver didn’t honour Plaxico Burress last weekend by catching a touchdown, then pretending to shoot himself in the leg with the football and limping around. This never would have not happened if Chad Johnson was still alive.”
Are you ready for Major League Baseball teams to start signing players? Some owners are throwing around gobs of money just in time for Christmas, and doesn’t that help your breakfast go down a bit easier? . . . Someone is going to have to draw a picture for me to understand how it is that the NFL, which brings in more revenue than any sheikdom, has to lay off 150 employees to keep its head above water. . . . Jack Todd, in the Montreal Gazette: “The NHL needs (Sean Avery) like the NFL needs Michael Vick. Players with Avery’s talent are a dime a dozen. He’s valuable only as long as he understands his role. Unfortunately, in Avery’s mind he’s a cross between Sidney Crosby and Chris Rock. Trouble is, he isn’t very good — and he’s not funny at all.” . . . The woman Avery trashed is actress Elisha Cuthbert, who once was a regular on 24. Dan Daly of the Washington Times points out that Avery “took a big chance.” As Daly added: “I mean, doesn’t he know her father is Jack Bauer?”
If you’re a U.S. college football fan, you should know that CBS’ 60 Minutes profiles USC football coach Pete Carroll on Sunday. . . . Inquiring minds want to know: Was that Trevor Linden in the Shoppers Drug Mart in Sa-Hali earlier this week? . . . Egads! Followers of the Toronto Maple Laffs will be running loose tonight, not knowing what to do with themselves. They will turn on their TV sets, discover that their beloved Buds aren’t playing tonight, the first time they haven’t skated on a Saturday night since March 16, 1996, and not know what to do with themselves. And, yikes, it will happen again Dec. 27 and Jan. 17. . . . What is the NHL coming to when Toronto isn’t in our national conscience on a Saturday night? Maybe we really do need a coalition government to make certain this doesn’t happen in seasons to follow. . . . Stephon Marbury, who is being paid US$21 million not to play for the New York Knicks, after criticism from Knicks players: “I got shot in the head by my own guys in the foxhole. And they didn’t even give me an honourable death.” To which David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote: “Shooting. Foxhole. Honourable death. Sports was so much simpler when we only threw people under a bus.”
Barry Melrose, who left ESPN to sign as head coach of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, returns to the network as its NHL analyst on Jan. 1. He lasted 16 games before being fired. Now, he says, “I look forward to analyzing people being fired rather than being the guy fired.” . . . Melrose appeared on The Fan 590, a Toronto radio station, earlier this week and among Melrose’s bon mots was this gem: “I hope Tampa Bay doesn’t win a game the rest of the year.” . . . Gotta love a man who says what thousands of fired coaches have only thought. . . . I heard another hockey play-by-play voice use the word “howitzer” this week, as in “that was a real howitzer by so-and-so.” Uhh, unless it was one of those J.C. Tremblay lobshots from centre ice, it wasn’t a howitzer.
The field is set for the World Baseball Challenge that runs July 16-26 in Prince George. Featured are national teams from the Bahamas, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Germany and the U.S., along with the Reno, Nev., Astros and the Prince George Panago Axemen. Cuba was to have sent a team but the clamps are on there after a couple of players defected during a world junior event in Edmonton in August. The home-run derby goes July 16, with the 31-game competition opening the next day. The schedule is at www.worldbaseball.ca. . . . It has been 20 years since Jerry Sloan took over as the head coach of the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Since then, there have been 223 coaching changes in the NBA. . . . Whoops! There goes Randy Wittman, so make it 224.
ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel notes that Britney and Spears “were the most-searched words of the year on Yahoo!, followed by ‘World Wrestling Federation’ and . . . ‘Barack Obama.’ I think the lesson here is that Americans are not responsible enough to be using computers.” . . . If you’re an NBA fan, you’ll be watching the Spurs and Suns on Christmas Day. “It‚s always a holiday treat to see Shaq’s belly shake like a bowl full of jelly,” writes Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express-News. . . . Drew Curtis, at Fark.com, on the Wildcat formation: “The ‘new’ formation that’s all the rage in the NFL was actually invented 102 years ago by Pop Warner. That’s right, Kurt Warner’s dad.”
Steve Simmons, in the Toronto Sun: “After the most talked-about, most promoted, most hyped football game played in Toronto, all there was left at the end was a sense of ambivalence. Who won besides the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills’ bank account? Maybe Bill Parcells. He was smart enough to stay home.” . . . Someone asked Herm Edwards, the head coach of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, who are 2-11, if he was a candidate for the vacant head-coaching position at San Diego State. His response: “I’ve got a college team right now.”
Gregg Drinnan is sports editor
of The Daily News. He is at
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.