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The Daily Digest for Tuesday, April 3, 2007 |
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April 03, 2007 |
≡ Heading for Home ≡
 Papadakis: knows his favorites |
L.A. Stories:
>> Laker Lines: Mychal Thompson, an underrated and effective center for the Lakers from 1987-1991 after being the first overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft (for Portland) and now the Lakers’ radio analyst, was asked on the “Loose Cannons” show on KLAC AM 570 if he ever gives advice to the current Lakers and said “Most of the Lakers look at me like [I’m] a blank wall.” He noted that the only time he gets a response from many of the current players is if he asks them what’s on television that night! The exception is Kobe Bryant, who, according to Thompson, “soaks up everything like a sponge” when Thompson talks about playing with the Showtime-era Lakers or against Bill Walton and others. Although the Lakers are in no position to draft him, Thompson felt that adding Ohio State freshman center (and likely NBA draftee) Greg Oden to the team for next season would get the Lakers to 55-60 wins, “easy.”
>> Talk of Troy: One of the endearing qualities of Foxsports Net commentator and former USC running back Petros Papadakis is his candor. Sometimes. During the crossover from the “Loose Cannons” show to the “Petros & Money Show” on KLAC around 4 p.m. today, Papadakis launched into a monologue about Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, characterized as less than his favorite Trojans: “Leinart's life doesn't have a great foundation. He wants to be seen, he wants to be out there. That's my problem with Leinart. I'm here to tell you that these are not good guys.” Co-host Matt “Money” Smith cautioned Papadakis to be more careful with his words, so Papadakis said “Let me re-state that. They are not like their images.” Papadakis went on to say that Reggie Bush wouldn't sign an autograph for fellow ex-Trojan John Jackson's son, and that “Barry Sanders is 400 times the back that Reggie Bush will ever be,” and continued, “Matt Cassel could've been plugged in for Matt Leinart with the same results” and suggested that Cassel may be a better NFL quarterback than Leinart if he gets the chance. Papadakis finished by saying that “Reggie Bush dictated to USC coaches that he wanted to be featured as an I-back and not be lined up in the slot" during his Heisman Trophy-winning junior season. Ooooweee!
American potpourri:
>> Baseball panorama: The Red Sox nation is really losing it now. Brigham’s Ice Cream – sold at Fenway Park and popular throughout New England – will be renaming its signature “Curse Reversed!” ice cream from suggestions received from fans by April 9, but had to refute a rumor that it was going to call the flavor “Dice-Kream” in honor of Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka. The new name of the flavor will be announced on April 10, but one clue to the new name might be one of the prizes to be given to the person submitting the winning entry: A Matsuzaka jersey! . . . In another example of how far the news media in general, and the written press in specific, has fallen in importance in sports is the movement of the press box at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field from behind home plate on the second level to down the first-base line on the fourth level. The Chicago Tribune reported that the space previously used by the press was turned into the Jim Beam Club and will gross $5 million or more in revenue this season. Fred Mitchell of the Tribune quoted White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf as smiling before he answered if there would be more changes: “Put a building across the street and move the press over there with large-screen televisions.” Interestingly, the St. Louis Cardinals were also ready to put the press box in new Busch Stadium (which opened last season) down the right-field line instead of behind home plate, but Major League Baseball mandated that it had to be behind home plate.
>> Press panorama: By the way, you may have missed the news that ESPN.com was knocked from its perch as the nation’s top Internet sports site. The Nielsen Net Ratings for February reported that Foxsports.com zoomed to the top spot with 15.2 million unique visitors for the month, compared to 13.2 million for ESPN.com. That was an increase of just 13,000 visitors for Foxsports.com, but ESPN.com was down by 3,000,000! One of the factors that helped Foxsports.com was its status by its tie-in as the sports content provider for the expanding MSN.com portal.
International cavalcade:
>> Boxing Panorama: A convicted drug dealer named Samson Sor Siriporn won the WBC Women’s Light Flyweight title in a match held in the Klong Prem Prison in Bangkok, Thailand!
Siriporn has been in jail for seven years, but with her victory, she is working toward an early release from her ten-year sentence. “We will start the process for her parole immediately,” said Thai Corrections Department chief Natti Jitsawang after the fight. “I think it’s very likely she will be released as a result of this victory, maybe in a couple of months. . . . She is a changed woman, and now she has the chance to be free and fight around the world.”
The match took place in a makeshift ring and Siriporn won a unanimous victory on points on all three cards against Japan’s Ayaka Miyano in blistering heat according to a Reuters report. Security was heavy with dozens of guards on duty and Siriporn’s sparring partners (also prisoners) were allowed to watch the match live while prisoner-transvestites in high heels and tight outfits were used to show the placards with the number of the upcoming round inside the ring!
≡ Quarter Pole ≡
 Harbaugh: no bows allowed |
Tonight’s Menu:
>> The 39-34 Lakers host 36-36 Denver tonight at Staples Center with both teams needing wins and both moving sideways. The Nuggets are 1-3 in their last four and the Lakers are 1-2 in their last three with Denver in seventh place in the Western Conference, 2 1/2 games behind the Lakers and a half-game ahead of the Clippers. Forward Edward Najera is questionable for Denver and the Lakers are favored by three with an over-under of 217, so the sharpies have penciled in Lakers 110, Nuggets 107. Well it’s possible, but I doubt it!
>> On the ice, the 26-39-8 Kings are on the road at 47-24-3 Vancouver with Los Angeles on a four-game losing streak while the Canucks are 6-2 in their last eight. It’s no surprise, then, that Vancouver is a heavy favorite on the money line: you have to put up $330 (!) on the home team to win $100, but just $105 on the Kings could win you the same amount.
>> The Dodgers continue their series in Milwaukee tonight with Randy Wolf on the hill against Chris Capuano of the Brewers. The Dodgers are even money – put up $100 to try and win $100 – but the Brewers are favored; you have to risk $130 to try and win $100.
>> At Angel Stadium, Kelvim Escobar will pitch for Los Angeles against Vicente Padilla of Texas and so the Halos are heavily favored: it takes $150 to try to win $100 on the home team, but the Rangers are even money.
>> College hoop-a-holics get their last gasp tonight in the NCAA Women’s Championship Game in Cleveland with Tennessee a five-point favorite over Rutgers. The over-under is 113, so Pat Summitt is supposed to be singing “Rocky Top” one more time after a 59-54 victory.
L.A. Stories:
>> What’s Bruin: Now that the 2006-07 college basketball season is over, Luke Winn of SI.com is out with his top ten for 2007-08! He sees North Carolina at no. 1, assuming Brandan Wright goes to the NBA but not Tyler Hansbrough, with UCLA at no. 2, even with Arron Afflalo leaving early:
“Junior point guard Darren Collison, who was snubbed for All-America honors in ‘07, will emerge from Afflalo’s shadow to become a household name. With five-star freshman power forward Kevin Love – an old-school post player who’s been college-ready since 16 – adding an offensive dimension inside, a third straight Final Four and coach Ben Howland’s first national title are well within reach.”
The rest of the top ten includes Kansas (without Brandon Rush), Memphis and Ohio State (without Greg Oden) in the top five, then Louisville, Washington State (“Tony Bennett-ball was no one-hit wonder.”), USC, Tennessee and Indiana. That makes the Pac-10 easily the top conference in college basketball next season.
>> Talk of Troy: New Stanford football coach Jim Harbaugh isn’t backing down from his comment about USC coach Pete Carroll leaving for the NFL after the coming football season.
In a story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Michelle Smith reported that:
“Harbaugh already has shown himself unafraid to make bold statements and now is standing his ground in a dust-up with the Pac-10's most prominent head coach, Pete Carroll.
“Harbaugh was quoted last week on CBS Sportsline.com saying he had heard that Carroll would be coaching the Trojans for one more season. Harbaugh, who said he heard of Carroll’s impending departure ‘secondhand’ from a member of the USC staff, confirmed he had been quoted correctly to the Los Angeles Times a day later.
“Carroll was clearly unhappy with Harbaugh’s comments.
“‘If he’s going to make statements like that, he ought to get his information right,’ Carroll told the newspaper. ‘And if he has any questions about he should call me.’
“Harbaugh said Monday that he was only relating something he had heard.”
“‘I definitely said that,’ Harbaugh said. But we bow to no man. We bow to no program here at Stanford University.’
“Harbaugh said he hasn’t talked to Carroll.
“‘I don’t have any questions about his future.’”
If case you’re wondering, Harbaugh said he’s installing a pro-style offense with senior T.C. Ostrander at quarterback and will use a 3-4 defense instead of the 4-3 employed last season when the Cardinal finished 1-11. Oh, yes, USC plays Stanford at the Memorial Coliseum on October 6. Call right now for reservations!
≡ Morning Post ≡
 China's Bird's Nest Stadium |
What’s Bruin:
>> Florida’s second straight national basketball championship runs the Gators’ streak of post-season wins to 18, including 12 in the NCAA Tournament. That’s tremendously impressive, so what does that say for UCLA’s streak of 38 NCAA Tournament wins in a row or John Wooden’s run of 18 straight wins in the Final Four (!) in 1964-65-67-68-69-70-71-72-73? Incomparable would be a good word.
Football Frenzy:
>> Showing once again the hold that football has on Italy, the Fiat SpA motor company is preparing to sign an enormous sponsorship that includes placement rights for its logo on the jerseys of the famed, Turin-based Juventus football club.
Despite relegation to Serie B after the match-fixing scandal that surfaced last year, Juventus has retained its popularity and Fiat will pay 33 million Euro (about $44.1 million U.S.) for a three-year deal. For the 2007-08 season, Fiat will promote its New Holland tractor brand on Juventus shirts.
>> In another sign of the times, the Milan Channel – which is devoted to the AC Milan football club in Italian and English – will launch a football-branded channel on YouTube, the first such channel in Italian on the service. One of the interesting aspects of the projected service is for fans to be able to submit their own video responses to the club’s programming!
While marketing smarties are questioning whether Google can ever make money off of its $1.65 billion YouTube purchase, the extension of Milan Channel programming onto YouTube makes perfect sense as a way to further generate visibility for the club’s sponsors . . . on home field signboards, on the club’s jerseys and by mentions at the start and end of its video clips.
Rings & Things:
>> The astonishing performance of the United States aquatics team at the just-concluded World Aquatics Championships in Melbourne, Australia has to give pundits pause before conceding – as some have – the top spot on the medal table to China at next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
The American team, competing in a fairly hostile environment – Australians see their team as the no. 1 challenger to the U.S. in the pool – and at the wrong time of the year, collected a stunning total of 40 medals during the meet, including 21 gold, 14 silver and five bronze. That’s 20.5% of all the medals that were available!
Combined with the U.S. track & field team, which figures to win 20-25 medals on its own, just two sports could yield more than 60 medals in 2008! The U.S. figures to field medal-winning entries in gymnastics, rowing, wrestling and other sports, so the Chinese will have to an impressive effort to finish with more than 100 medals because it appears the U.S. will certainly get there.
>> Although the Chinese organizers of the 2008 Games have been rightly commended for their efforts in Games preparations, the architectural centerpiece – the “Bird’s Nest” stadium – will not be finished as hoped for by the end of this year, but more likely by March 2008.
The Beijing organizers reported that some 400,000 applications to volunteer for the Games have been received from within China and 270,000 from the Beijing area. About 70,000 volunteer staff are needed for the Olympic Games and 30,000 for the Paralympic Games.
~ Rich Perelman
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