With staff and space reductions, the paper will not publish handicap charts and results.

Horse racing

Because of ongoing reductions to The Times Sports staff and space for news in the Sports section, the handicap charts and results from Del Mar will not be included in the daily sports report. There will be coverage of major events during the seven-week meeting. In addition, other weekly features that have been eliminated are the Gearing Up package on motor racing, Teeing Off on golf and Corner Kicks on soccer.

Received an email today from an old friend.

The L.A. Dodger-themed photo exhibit he has curated opens July 12 at the Los Angeles Public Library (aka the Central Library). The email reads, in part:

“Play Ball! Images of Dodger
Blue, 1958-1988” opens on July 12th and runs through
November 9th in the Central Library’s first floor
galleries. (No opening reception is scheduled.)

Like the previous exhibit that I curated (“Play By
Play: A Century of L.A. Sports Photography,
1889-1989“), the Dodgers exhibit draws exclusively
from the LAPL’s historic photo collection. Most of
these photos are from the archives of the now-defunct
Los Angeles Herald Examiner newspaper (which shuttered
in 1989); many of these images haven’t been seen since
their original publication in the newspaper.

“Play Ball!” traces significant Dodgers stories,
including the team’s arrival in 1957, Wally Moon and
baseball at the L.A. Coliseum, Sandy Koufax, Don
Drysdale, Walter O’Malley and the battle over Chavez
Ravine, Roy Campanella, Vin Scully, Jaime Jarrin,
Maury Wills, James Roark’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated
photograph of Rick Monday’s rescue of the American
Flag, Tommy John surgery, Andy Messersmith and the
advent of free agency, Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey, Dusty
Baker and the first “high five,” Fernando Mania, Al
Campanis, Orel Hershiser, Kirk Gibson, and more.

If this exhibition is anything like “Play-by-Play” it should prove fascinating. The Herald’s old photographs have mostly been in storage since the paper shut down the presses, getting a chance to see them — and to see them used to articulate the history of the Dodgers, a history inexorably linked to the recent history of Los Angeles — is a rare treat.

Mike Piazza retired yesterday, ending his baseball career after 16 years and 427 home runs.

Piazza’s retirement seems a bit forced. That is, he wasn’t signed to play for anyone this year and I get the feeling had someone wanted him he’d still be playing. Five or so years from now, they’ll send his jersey to Cooperstown as the all-time home run king for catchers (396 of his round-trippers came in games he caught.)

~~~

I’ve never been a Dodgers fan. In fact, my wife’s love of the Blue is maybe the most contentious element in our relationship — I can’t stand sitting and watching the Dodgers every night (but we do); I’d much prefer watching the Angels or the NBA playoffs or Law and Order.

But I’m a Piazza fan.

I covered the Dodgers for one of the wire services during the 90s.

It was very much a love/hate gig.

I loved covering major league baseball, loved the press box and the access and the trappings of being a sportswriter. But the Dodgers were terrible mostly during those days (which was sort of fun for me) and going into their clubhouse night after night for quotes was a supreme drag. Tommy Lasorda, in particular, never failed to act like a total prick to me, a true asshole in the worst sense of the word (my only regret was that I never filed a word-for-word recap of one of his foul-mouthed tirades to the L.A. Weekly. My editor there thought it would be funny, but we were both afraid I’d be banned from the stadium immediately afterwards and I needed to not get fired from the wire service job. I was chickenshit and regret it.)

Anyways …

The Dodgers sucked, but Mike Piazza didn’t. He was one of the few bright spots of the era (along with Hideo Nomo’s rookie year, few no-hitters and a perfect game by Dennis Martinez), pounding home runs to right center field and showing grit and determination behind the plate, even though he wasn’t the greatest catcher around.

More than that, Piazza was a good guy, always friendly, honest and available after games. I have a memory of him coming out of the shower area in the clubhouse, a towel around his waist, ice taped to bruises all over his body (being a major league catcher is blue collar work) — probably wanting to do anything but talk about another Dodger loss — answering questions and chatting with reporters.

I had a job to do and Mike Piazza helped me a lot in those days. For both his skill on the field and his class off it, I’ll always be a fan of Mike Piazza.

from the Los Angeles Times

It’s completely out of character for this blog to post something nice, something touching.

I’ll probably get ridiculed at the next editorial staff meeting. (Note to Alex and Donna: When is the next editorial staff meeting?)

But I liked this story enough to risk their chastisement. From George Vecsey of the New York Times:

The moment of grace came after Sara Tucholsky, a diminutive senior for Western Oregon, hit what looked like a three-run homer against Central Washington. Never in her 21 years had Tucholsky propelled a ball over a fence, so she did not have her home run trot in order, gazing in awe, missing first base. When she turned back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

Pam Knox, the Western Oregon coach, made sure no teammates touched Tucholsky, which would have automatically made her unable to advance. The umpires ruled that if Tucholsky could not make it around the bases, two runs would score but she would be credited with only a single. (“She’ll kill me if I take it away from her,” Knox thought.)

Then Mallory Holtman, the powerful first baseman for Central Washington, said words that brought a chill to everybody who heard them:

“Excuse me, would it be O.K. if we carried her around and she touched each bag?”

So, as Vecsey tells it, they did.

I’ve watched like a million games over the years, coached about half of them, it seems. I’ve never seen something quite like what took place up in Washington. I’ve seen plenty of the opposite, I’ve seen 10 year olds with sharpened metal cleats spike my shortstop. I’ve seen linebackers pound my 11 year old quarterback after the play, trying to knock him out. And not a weekend goes by where I don’t see kids running up the score on my current team — which is in last place.

The question is, where did it come from, this impulsive gesture by Mallory Holtman?

“She hit it over the fence,” Holtman said Tuesday. “She deserved it. Anybody would have done it. I just beat them to it.” She said she had been taught by her coach, Gary Frederick, that “winning is not everything.”

Time magazine has appropriated the NBA’s split-screen imagery and the basketball league’s There Can Only Be One tagline.

The league has been running the ads to promote the playoffs, I’ve seen one with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal and another with Kevin Garnett and LeBron James.

On today’s Dan Patrick radio program, NBA Commissioner David Stern discussed Time’s cover. I was driving and didn’t take any notes, but I’m pretty sure that the commish mentioned that the magazine acknowledged that they were aping the NBA’s campaign on its cover.

It’s a tribute to the league’s marketing arm — the commercials are very well done.

And here are a couple I hadn’t seen yet:

Does turning down what surely was to be a large payday enhance investigative reporter’s Don Yaeger’s credibility?

Other than as a reader of Sports Illustrated, I don’t know much about Yaeger’s work. And I don’t in any way mean to imply that he lacks credibility in any way or that there was ever any question about his credibility.

But I must admit, I’ve been awaiting the release of his book about New Orleans’ Saints running back Reggie Bush — aka the Heisman Trophy winner out of USC — with a bit of skepticism.

If you haven’t followed the story, Bush (and his family) are accused of receiving payments from a sports agent while Reggie was still playing at USC. Technically, this is not illegal, but it is a violation of NCAA rules and regulations. (Not paying taxes on the money might be illegal — I’m not a lawyer and I don’t want to proclaim something true when I’m not sure.) If it were to be proven that Bush and Co. received the payments, theoretically USC could forfeit the games Bush played in, could forfeit a National Championship and Bush could be stripped of the Heisman award.

If I recall correctly, a lot of the work on this story originated on the Yahoo sports web site. (I wish I could find the old links to the stories.) Now, Yaeger is out with a book called Tarnished Heisman: Did Reggie Bush Turn His Final College Season into a Six-Figure Job?

This is from the Amazon listing:

Don Yaeger, a former Sports Illustrated investigative reporter who documented the Duke University lacrosse case in the shattering New York Times bestseller It’s Not About the Truth, reveals the heated controversy behind Bush’s high-flying rise before turning pro for the New Orleans Saints, going back to his first taste of fame, when Bush landed in the pages of Sports Illustrated and all eyes were watching to see what was next for the USC sophomore. What few eyes saw, however, were the ties between Bush and two San Diego men, cofounders of a fledgling sports agency, who claim to have paid Bush and his family in cash and gifts to ensure his endorsement — benefits including a vintage car, lavish trips, and an upscale home where Bush’s family lived rent-free. Don Yaeger exposes the NCAA-prohibited activity in which Bush allegedly engaged, and also shows how USC and its coaching staff appeared to have turned a blind eye to the increasingly luxurious lifestyle of their star athlete and his family.

With the explosive information revealed in Tarnished Heisman, Bush stands to be ruled ineligible — a decision that could cost his alma mater the 2004 national championship title, force the forfeit of every game Bush played in after losing his eligibility, and potentially strip Reggie Bush of the shining prize of his college career: the Heisman Trophy.

photo from the Amazon web page

Until now, I’ve remained skeptical of the story. The feeling had nothing to do with Yaeger or the reporters for Yahoo. And it’s not that I don’t believe that any given star college football player would receive improper benefits. Part of me would be more surprised to hear that they didn’t. And the issue of whether or not these players are unfairly exploited by the school’s and the NCAA and that this exploitation leads to the accepting of these benefits is a valid discussion for another time and place. But I am very surprised that someone as prominent as Bush could get caught and that there might actually be real penalties for him and his school and it’s there that my skepticism lay.

Things like this just don’t happen to players like Bush and to NCAA football flag bearers like USC.

But Yaeger made news recently for another story and oddly enough, it impacted my feeling on the impending Bush book.

From the New York Daily News, via ESPN.com:

Former Sports Illustrated associate editor Don Yaeger, who had initially planned on collaborating on Jose Canseco’s next book, has decided against working with the former slugger, according to a published report.

“I’m passing,” Yaeger told the New York Daily News. “I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco [material] that he provided me. I don’t think there’s a book there. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod. There’s no meat on the bones.”

The fact that Yaeger would turn down the opportunity to work on the Canseco book — sure to get a lot of attention and I presume a nice fee for whoever decided to ghostwrite for Jose — suggests to me that he felt there was “meat on the bones” in the Bush story.

I haven’t read the Bush book yet. I’m a bit confused about the release date, actually, since it’s supposed to be coming out next week while Amazon says it’s already available. One way or the other, I’ll get to it soon enough.

And the author’s most recent decision makes me more ready to believe what he has to say about Bush.

QUICK UPDATE: There is a discussion of the book and some of the issues surrounding it at Adam Rose’s USC blog with the Los Angeles Times.

Just wanted to take a moment to note that former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Brendan Donnelly (most recently a member of the Boston Red Sox) is named both in the Mitchell Report and on the list of those who crossed the picket line in the 1994 major league baseball strike.

Oh the joys of ebay.

Keeping with recent times and recent controversies, societal reflective artist KELLY WAN has decided to “honor” Mr Vick with painting this special portrait. You may be asking yourself why is this portrait so unique? WAN has painted this portrait of Vick using acrylic paint based with DOG FECES. That’s right…. DOG FECES. The painting is 16in x 20in and is ready to be framed. A portion of the winning bid will rightfully be donated to PETA, the organization that works hard to make sure animals are treated humanely.

PS. Thanks, Neal. I … think.

Think soccer moms are bad? They got nothin’ on New Hampshire Little League moms:

CONCORD, N.H. — It started with angry fans disputing umpires’ calls at a heated Little League game. It ended with alleged threats and taunts and, police say, an assault, when someone threw pizza at an ump.

League volunteer Sherri Ferns, 35, of Concord has been charged with two counts of simple assault for allegedly throwing pizza, hitting an ump and a fan. Police say Ferns was working in a concession stand at the game between the Concord National Little League All-Stars and a team from Salem.

Police also confirmed that some parents were drinking alcohol* at the game, but no one was charged.

“This is a serious matter,” said acting Police Chief Robert Barry. “A Little League game escalated to the point where there was violence.”

*I’m guessing gallo screw-top. It’d go good w/that pizza.

Y’know, my hometown used to be a pretty dangerous place. While I’ve never been a sentimental, longing-for-the-good-old-bad-days person, I cringe to see what it has now become:

The Lowell Spinners took baseball promotions to a whole new level Tuesday night.

The Spinners and the Brooklyn Cyclones played what may be the first ever politically correct baseball game.

That meant renaming some positions - the first, second and third basemen became “base persons,” the batboy was the “bat person” for the night and the shortstop turned into the “vertically challenged stop.”

“It was pretty awkward at first, I asked my buddy next to me, I was like what did he just say?” said Spinners catcher Brett Lewis.

Errors were not announced to the crowd - so they didn’t offend the players who committed them.

The changes didn’t help the Spinners though. Brooklyn won, 9-5.

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