Keeping Score

After seeing an ad for MLB.tv and MILB.tv that promises “more than 4,000 total games live or on-demand online,” The Sports Curmudgeon did the math. “Even if the games averaged 2.5 hours,” he writes, “4,000 games would take 10,000 hours. In a year, there are 8,760 hours. If you did not sleep a wink for an entire year, you would still have 1,240 hours of games to watch before the next season started.” . . . Of course, the last time the Red Sox and Yankees, for example, played a game in 2.5 hours, Babe Ruth was still active. . . . Our own Jenny John is in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame for her contributions to field hockey. She also should be in life’s hall of fame because we all should be lucky enough to have a friend like her. . . .
You have to wonder what Don Cherry thinks whenever the Boston Bruins meet up with the Montreal Canadiens on the Stanley Cup trail. Like, does he really enjoy hearing about that penalty for having too many men on the ice? . . . Neat story out of Quebec this week where Boston Pizza has rebranded all of its outlets as Montreal Pizza, just for as long as the Habs’ playoff run, you understand. . . . Cam Hutchinson in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix: “I contemplated going to Regina to watch a couple of draws at the world curling championship. Then it hit me. I’m too young to be in the stands.” . . . After hearing that Florida lawmakers are thinking about allowing NASCAR fans to have their urns placed at Daytona International Speedway, Hutchinson wrote: “Seems fair. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the Brickyard, so why can’t Daytona be the Graveyard?” . . .
Phil Mushnick, in the New York Post: “The unsurprising twist about the weekend’s Masters coverage on CBS is that Saturday’s was no different from Sunday’s. When Tiger Woods was behind by five, Saturday, or tied at the top, Sunday, it was still mostly all Woods, mostly all the time. What TV now does best is beat things to death. Doesn’t matter who or what it is — Charlie Sheen or Charles Barkley — TV is going to squeeze it dry.” . . . ProFootballTalk.com had a question-and-answer session with former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon, who went to school at BYU. Asked about the school’s honour code, he replied: “You had to find girls who kept their mouths shut.” . . . As for his favourite memory? “Leaving.”
Headline at SportsPickle.com: Charl now the 15,423rd most popular name for boys. . . . Here’s one from Len Berman, over at thatssports.com: “A memo has gone out to all the surgeons in British Columbia. No more hockey talk in the operating room. They don’t want the patients to be upset. Yeah, I’m guessing they could certainly misinterpret a comment about ‘being on ice’.” . . . The Kamloops Blazers won the WHL’s draft lottery and are picking fourth. The New Jersey Devils won the NHL’s draft lottery and they, too, are picking fourth. . . . So explain again exactly how it is that the Blazers and Devils actually “won” those lotterys. . . .
Brian Cheng, the head coach of the U of Victoria Vikes women’s basketball team for the last 10 years and an assistant for five years before that, has resigned, effective immediately. The Vikes were one of the top teams in the country at the start of the 2010-11 season, until they were levelled by injuries. . . . In the summer of 2002, Cheng appeared ticketed for Kamloops as head coach of the UCC Sun Demons women’s team. A hiring committee actually announced that Cheng had the job, but the deal quickly fell apart. . . . The B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League, which is home to the TRU WolfPack, just got a bit tougher. That’s because the SFU squad has got a commitment from Tony Oak, a forward who put up 58 points and 846 penalty minutes in 201 games over four seasons with the SJHL’s Battlefords North Stars. . . . A whiz at school, Oak is rather aptly named because he’s going into SFU’s Environmental Sciences program. . . .
Someone tweeted early this week that they saw this sign in a bar window: “Free beer and wings during Leafs playoff games.” . . . If you are planning a baseball junket to Seattle this season, I get the feeling good seats might still be available. There were only 13,056 fans at Safeco Field on Monday night for the Mariners’ stunning 8-7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, and that was the lowest crowd ever to watch a game in that venue. The previous low was 14,543 from an April 19 visit by the Baltimore Orioles. . . . But then, on Wednesday afternoon, only 12,407 showed up. . . . If you didn’t hear, LeBron James’ mother was arrested in Miami the other day for allegedly assaulting a hotel valet. Here’s Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: “The Decision: Does LeMom take her talents to MMA or WWE?” . . .
Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback, is to be married on July 23. “The bachelor party,” notes Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald, “is scheduled to run from May 8 to July 19.” . . . After word got out that Karina Smirnoff, the fiancee of Detroit Tigers pitcher Brad Penny, had posed for Playboy, Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press wrote: “Put me in, Hef, I’m ready to pose today. Look at me, I can be centerfold.”


Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. Email him at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, follow him at twitter.com/gdrinnan, or visit his blog at gdrinnan.blogspot.com. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.