In brief: Obama picks Lakers in six

NBA: OK, Mr. President, let’s see how you do picking the pro game. Barack Obama thinks the Los Angeles Lakers are going to win the NBA crown.

The president was on his way to the Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn Tuesday when a reporter shouted a question. The topic: Who is going to win the NBA championship, the Lakers or the Orlando Magic?

“Lakers in six, I think,” Obama said with a smile.

In sports terms, that means the Lakers will win the best-of-7 series in six games. The series begins Thursday.

So far so good this year for Obama. A huge basketball fan, he correctly predicted that that the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team would win the NCAA championship.

Obama was leaving on a trip to the Middle East.

Associated Press

Cougars’ Enquist gets scholarship

Basketball: Washington State men’s coach Ken Bone announced that Charlie Enquist has been awarded a scholarship for the 2009-10 season.

Enquist, a redshirt sophomore from Edmonds, Wash., was a walk-on for the Cougars last season after being on scholarship as a true freshman in 2007-08. He appeared in 11 games in 2008-09, averaging 1.0 points per game in 4.8 minutes of action an outing.

Enquist redshirted during the 2007-08 season.

Bone also announced that Fabian Boeke will end his playing career because of his continued back problems and will become a medical noncounter for WSU, while freshman Nick Witherill has been released from his scholarship.

Boeke, a native of Hamburg, Germany, appeared in three games for the Cougars last season as a sophomore after missing the 2007-08 season because of NCAA eligibility issues.

Witherill, a native of Phoenix, appeared in six games for the Cougars as a freshman in 2008-09, averaging 3.3 minutes an outing.

Baseball fans’ heads in toilet

Baseball: The New York Yankees are selling pieces of their old stadium and are planning to hold an auction in late July where such items as the dugout phone, the clubhouse carpet and the foul poles will be up for bidding. But some pieces are not for sale, despite requests from fans – the restroom urinals.

“People always ask for the bathroom stuff, like the urinals,” Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports, the exclusive distributor of old Yankee Stadium memorabilia, told the New York Daily News. “There were some strange requests.”

Los Angeles Times