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The Daily Digest: Wednesday, April 9, 2008 |
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April 09, 2008 |
≡ The Daily Digest ≡
 Will all the torch fuss just lead to higher Olympic ratings this August? |
= To Our Readers =
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= Tonight’s Menu =
>> Anaheim, Ca.: The 5-4 Angels have an early 12:30 start today with Dustin Moseley (0-1, 9.00 ERA) pitching against Paul Byrd (0-1, 6.23 ERA) of the 4-4 Indians. Lost in the sorrow of last night’s ninth-inning collapse against Cleveland was the end of a streak of 163 games in which the Angels had won when leading going into the ninth inning. With closer Francisco Rodriguez out, a new streak is unlikely to get very far.
>> Phoenix, Az.: The 6-2 Diamondbacks throw Micah Owings (1-0, 1.35) at the 4-4 Dodgers today and Hiroki Kuroda (1-0, 1.29) at Chase Field, also in a 12:30 start. It’s early, but the Diamondbacks lead the majors in runs with 50, home runs with 17 and total bases with 144, compared to 28 runs (25th), three homers (28th) and 90 total bases (26th) for the Dodgers, out of 30 teams.
>> On Deck: The Lakers and Clippers are back at Staples Center to play each other tomorrow night before the Purple and Gold settle the Western Conference playoff seedings with home games against New Orleans on Friday and San Antonio on Sunday and then Sacramento on Tuesday.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks finished tied for fourth in NHL in points this season with 102 and are the co-third choice to win the Cup at 7-1 along with Eastern Conference leader Montreal. Anaheim (47-27-8) is the fourth seed in the West and opens against Dallas (45-30-7) at the Honda Center on Thursday. The Quack Attack has lost six of its last nine against the Stars.
= L.A. Stories =
Sparky:
>> New York, NY: Candace Parker won a national championship last night as Tennessee defeated Stanford, 64-48 before 21,655 at the St. Petersburg Times Forum in Tampa, Florida and today became the first college player to declare early for the professional ranks and was selected no. 1 in today’s WNBA Draft by the Sparks.
The 6-4 Parker averaged 21.3 points per games this season and was the national player of the year, but won’t be alone heading for Los Angeles. The Sparks also took her teammate, 5-2 senior guard Shannon Bobbit, who scored 13 points last night for the Vols, with the first pick of the second round. No word yet on whether the Sparks will change their colors to Orange and White, however.
What’s Bruin:
>> Westwood: While reports vary as to whether star center Kevin Love will go to the NBA, or is still considering his decision, the person with the most instability is coach Ben Howland.
On one hand, everyone could return and then again, the Bruins could lose guards Darren Collison and Russell Westbrook and Love to the NBA, reserve forward Alfred Aboya to graduate school, starting forward Luc Richard Mbah A Moute – who could try the NBA or play professionally in Europe – and wing Josh Shipp, who could also try playing professionally overseas like his brother Joe.
Clearly, Collison, Love and Westbrook would be drafted if they came out. Assuming they leave, Howland would not be burdened with any expectations of winning the national championship in 2009, which would be the case if, say, Love and one of the two guards came back.
Instead, the Bruins would likely be “in the mix” near the top of the Pac-10 with a group of players that includes Mbah A Moute, Aboya, James Keefe, Nikola Dragovic and newcomer Drew Gordon in the front court, swingman Chace Stanback and guards Shipp, Michael Roll and newcomers Jrue Holiday, Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson. That’s a deep team, but not one that will be counted among the national elite from the start and Howland will get a chance to teach, teach and teach, a prospect he will enjoy from start to finish.
Also, if Collison, Westbrook and Love all leave, look for Howland to try and find another front-court player, perhaps from overseas or even from the junior-college ranks.
Then again, no one knows what the Pac-10 will look like: Will Jon Brockman come out at Washington? Chase Budinger at Arizona? James Harden at Arizona State? Ryan Anderson at Cal? O.J. Mayo and/or Taj Gibson at USC? The only sure thing is Oregon State won’t win many games.
In the earliest of pre-season predictions, SI.com's Luke Winn sees North Carolina (with Tyler Hansbrough returning), Connecticut and UCLA (with Westbrook returning) as the top teams in the nation. USC is the only other Pac-10 team on his list of the top 30 teams. Jake Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle has North Carolina first, USC ninth and UCLA 10th in the nation, on the assumption that Gibson and coach Tim Floyd will stay.
>> New York, NY: UCLA senior forward Lindsey Pluimer was rewarded for her all-conference play this season by becoming the sixth pick of the second round (20th overall) of today’s WNBA Draft, going to the Washington Mystics.
Pluimer, a 6-4 forward, averaged 15.5 points a game as a junior and 14.4 this season and is the fourth Bruin player to be drafted by the WNBA in the past three years, after Lisa Willis and Nikki Blue were picked in 2006 and Noelle Quinn was selected in 2007. With 14-18 and 16-15 records the last two seasons and talent like this, it’s no surprise that UCLA is making a change as Kathy Olivier stepped down after 15 seasons as head coach on March 11.
Thinking Blue:
>> New York, NY: Former Crenshaw High and Dodgers star Darryl Strawberry – who also had lots of problems off the field with drugs – is now a member of the SNY broadcast team for pre- and post-game shows of New York Mets games. Strawberry was an All-Star for the Mets and a member of the 1986 World Series championship club and is the fourth member of that team that’s part of the Mets telecasts with former catcher Gary Carter, first baseman Keith Hernandez and pitcher Ron Darling.
= Panorama =
The National Pastime:
>> New York, N.Y.: Is it the teams, or is it the New York Post?
With the Knicks’ season and the soap opera surrounding coach Isiah Thomas, new club president Donnie Walsh and owner James Dolan heading for smaller type, the Mets’ home opening-loss to Philadelphia yesterday generated this headline:
“IT COULDN’T START MUCH WORSE THAN THIS”
Reporter Joel Sherman wrote that “The regrouped Mets made just as bad an initial impression at the last-ever Shea opener. The largest first-game crowd in the closing stadium’s history booed Scott Schoeneweis and Aaron Heilman and ultimately the whole team more lustily than they booed Jimmy Rollins. So the Shea crowd wound up hating the home team more than the Mets’ No. 1 nemesis.
“The 5-2 Philadelphia triumph underscored a checklist of Mets problems that were plainly visible to those in attendance . . .”
Sherman closed with “the aura at Shea, even with a sparkling new field blossoming beyond the outfield wall, is horrible already with 80 games still left.”
College Hoopla:
>> Pac-10 Parade: The coaching carousel is hitting the Pac-10 hard. Stanford’s Trent Johnson is reported to be in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to be introduced as the new coach at LSU; that’s good news for Trojan fans, since Tim Floyd is from New Orleans and was rumored to be a candidate. Meanwhile, Washington State’s 38-year-old wunderkind, Tony Bennett, said he will stay in Pullman and is asking WSU athletic director Jim Sterk for better salaries for his assistant coaches, facility improvements and the use of charter flights for the team so they can leave from the Pullman airport rather than going to Spokane (75 miles away) or Lewiston, Idaho (30 miles away).
Motormania:
>> London, England: A judge refused to order an injunction to stop the News of the World from running a 90-second clip on its Web site which shows Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley “consorting with prostitutes.” According to the Associated Press, Judge David Eady said that although the video was “intrusive and demeaning,” it had already been circulated to widely that an injunction “would merely be a futile gesture.” In the 1-2 days it was on the newspaper’s site, it was viewed 1.4 million times.
Mosley has sued the News of the World for “beach of privacy” and the case will be heard later this year. In the meantime, his tenure as FIA chief would be decided in a secret-ballot vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly to be held on June 3.
According to the AP, “Mosley admits visiting the prostitutes, but denies there were Nazi overtones to the encounter. The allegations are particularly sensitive because Mosley is the son of the late Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain’s fascist movement before World War II and a friend of Adolf Hitler.”
Rings & Things:
>> San Francisco, Ca.: The Chinese organizers of the Olympic Torch Run no doubt chose San Francisco as the sole North American stop because of the large Chinese population there. That’s starting to pay off.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported this morning that pro-Chinese demonstrators were filling McCovey Cove, where the torch run will start, and Justin Herman Plaza, where it will end. A picture making the rounds on the Internet shows a sign saying “Tibet is better than it used to be.”
Moreover, according to the Chronicle.
Around 9 a.m., Jeremy Darrah, 26, walked into Justin Herman Plaza and began asking Chinese supporters if they knew about Beijing’s backing for the Sudanese government in its war in Darfur.
Darrah was immediately surrounded by about 30 people who told him to go home.
The torch run itself is scheduled to start at 1 p.m., but there is wide speculation that the route may be changed without notice.
>> Beijing, China: Reports of disruptions to the torch run have been watered down in China according to a dispatch from Kathleen E. McLaughlin of the Chronicle Foreign Service. filing from Beijing.
Internet posts critical of the Chinese handling of the Tibet situation have been quickly deleted and “The English-language China Daily newspaper described London’s upheaval in the streets as ‘disruptions by a few Tibetan separatists and their supporters.’ In the first reports from Paris by the state-run Xinhua news agency, the journalist cited ‘technical difficulties’ as the reason the torch was extinguished and carried on a bus rather than by someone on foot.” That’s not exactly what happened.
>> Beijing, China: While the torch run gets all the publicity, the Chinese organizers have other things to worry about. In London, the Daily Telegraph noted a story in the China Quality Daily about officials worried that meats offered to athletes in the Olympic Village in Beijing may have residual chemicals in them that were contained in animal feed that could cause a positive doping test. The U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision to offer its own food service in Beijing – and its dieticians have already been on the lookout for the sort of problem mentioned above – is looking better and better.
>> Sochi, Russia: In a story that on any other day would draw howls of protest, the German sports newsletter Sport Intern mentioned casually that “it was confirmed more or less officially that Sochi had splashed out around 100 million dollars for the successful bid to host the 2014 Winter Games,” and to look for Doha, Qatar, fresh off a successful Asian Games in 2007, to do the same in its efforts – considered a longshot – to land the 2016 Olympic Games.
~ Rich Perelman
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