Fast Break
Baseball
CdA grad Brown on Olympic team
Third baseman Matt Brown, a 2001 graduate of Coeur d’Alene High School, was on the roster of the U.S. Olympic team when it was announced Wednesday.
San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg, whose 23-strikeout performance on April 11 brought him national attention, was the lone college player picked.
The U.S. team features 14 Triple-A players, seven Double-A players and one Class A. One player remains to be chosen.
Brown plays for the Salt Lake City Bees, the Los Angeles Angels’ Triple-A club. He has had short stints with the major league club this year and last with 18 at-bats.
He leads the Bees with a .326 average and 20 home runs in 344 at-bats.
Hockey
NHL rivals set Wrigley date
Frosty baseball games have long been a fixture at Wrigley Field, where a stiff wind off Lake Michigan can chill fans, players and managers alike.
Now the famous stadium is going on ice for one day.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks will take hockey back outdoors when they meet New Year’s Day in the home park of the Chicago Cubs.
College athletics
Former Eastern figures die
Three former Eastern Washington University athletic figures died within a five-day span in early July, the school announced.
Former football player and coach Cecil “Cece” West, 92, died on July 7 in East Wenatchee. West, born in Mansfield, Wash., was an all-conference guard from 1936-39. He later helped coach several sports at EWU from 1949-52. He retired as superintendent of the Chelan (Wash.) School District.
Robert “Bob” Anderson, 79, died July 5 in Des Moines, Wash. Anderson, a native of Missoula, was EWU’s athletic director from 1970-75 and coached tennis and assisted in football. He was a professor in the school’s department of health and physical education for 30 years.
Dale Stradling, 78, died on July 3. Stradling, a Yakima native, played basketball from 1949-52, and was team captain and MVP during 1951-52. He taught 33 years at EWU as a geography professor.