Steve Martin, the actor/comedian/banjo picker, became a first-time father in December at the age of 67. As Janice Hough, aka The Left Coast Sports Babe, notes: “There’s a certain symmetry — both father and son could end up in diapers at the same time.” . . . Richmond blogger TC Chong adds: “Martin’s baby must have been conceived after one ‘wild and crazy’ night.” . . . What a year it’s been. . . . Lance Armstrong. . . . NHL lockout. . . . Manti Te’o. . . . Deer-antler spray. . . . Oscar Pistorius. . . . Rebecca Marino cuts short her pro tennis career and cites, at least in part, cyber bullying from the anonymous world of the Internet. . . . And the year is only in its second month. . . . Before social media, where did the haters go to hate? . . .
“My wife is vegetarian,” points out RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “On Valentine’s Day, I sent her a note: ‘You’re so cuke my little peach. Peas lettuce be a pear.’ She replied, ‘Thanks shallot. But I corn not see us leafing on a writer’s celery. Sow beet it.’ ” . . . Here’s Currie, again: “Rumours out of New York say A-Rod mistakenly took killdeer spray instead of deer-antler spray. This may explain why his game always goes south in the fall.” . . . Jay Leno of NBC-TV, after Alex Rodriguez was again linked to PEDs: “Here’s how bad it is for A-Rod: He is now favoured to win this year’s Tour de France.” . . .
“Sure, it seemed like more,” writes Phil Mushnick in the New York Post, “but Nielsen reports the two weeks before this Super Bowl held 462 hours of pre-Supe TV coverage. Seriously, Nielsen kept track.” . . . Hey, Kamloops, how’s the love affair with big oil these days? . . . Any time now, injuries ravaging the NHL are going to become the focus of media attention. The season is one-third over and it’s only going to get worse. . . .
Rob Ryan was dumped by the Dallas Cowboys as their defensive co-ordinator, and quickly signed with the New Orleans Saints. As he told ESPN: “Better coaches than me have been fired. Just not many.” . . . Travis Green of the Portland Winterhawks won’t win the WHL’s coach-of-the-year award, but no one has done a better job under the circumstances. . . . Headline at TheOnion.com: Kobe Bryant holds Kobe Bryant-only meeting to discuss Lakers. . . . If TRU’s athletics department already is into cost-cutting mode, how will it ever afford to field men’s and women’s soccer teams at the CIS level? And how do you recruit 6-foot-10 athletes when they may be faced with riding a bus to Calgary and back? Obviously, there are some interesting challenges ahead for TRU athletics. . . .
According to Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News: “Justified is still the coolest show on television, but that figures since the main character — Raylan Givens — is the product of Elmore Leonard’s imagination.” . . . For what it’s worth, I’m in full agreement. . . . “You never know,” writes Lupica, “the Pope stepping down could end up helping the Catholic Church the way a coaching change does in the NBA. I mean, look how well it worked out for the Brooklyn Nets!” . . . After Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation and cited physical problems, the aforementioned Leno said: “Apparently it’s an old football injury from throwing all those Hail Marys.” . . .
Remember when Hockey Night in Canada’s Hot Stove panel was the best part of the telecast? Whatever has happened to it? . . . Sheesh, bring back Al Strachan. Please! . . . In a list of things ‘We Did Not Expect About the NHL So Far,’ Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette includes: “Underdog P.J. Stock leads perennial champ Don Cherry in Stunningly Ridiculous Things Said On Hockey Night in Canada, 213 to 167.” . . . When the Buffalo Sabres tie a can to Lindy Ruff, you have to ask yourself if any coach is safe. . . . And which GM will be the next one to panic and pull the pin on his coach in this short NHL season? . . .
That screaming you could hear on Thursday afternoon was coming from the offices of NBC-TV, which has the weekend rights to the WGC Accenture Match Play championship. You can bet the pooh-bahs there weren’t thrilled to have Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy bow out within minutes of each other. . . . “A 150-foot asteroid passed within 17,000 miles of Earth last week,” writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times. “Or to hear Bob Uecker call it, just a bit outside.”
(Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears Saturdays, except when it doesn’t.)
There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.
Posts
