A Long Fall From Grace

KHQ heard from local NFL fans when it cut away from that Raiders-Chiefs overtime game a few weeks back. In contrast to that case, in which KHQ was obligated to switch to a Seahawks game, was the gaffe made on Sunday by NBC’s affiliate in Los Angeles.

The station broke away from the Dolphins-Bengals game just as a Miami defender and a Cincinnati receiver leaped for a pass. With the Bengals trailing 26-23, viewers were left to wonder whether Miami had intercepted the pass or if Cincinnati had stayed alive.

It seems the absence of an NFL team caused the confusion, prompting some to believe L.A. had become - gasp! - a secondary market to San Diego. That’s why L.A. fans were stuck with the San Diego-Pittsburgh pregame show while Miami and Cincy battled to the wire. “It was a mistake,” said Greg Aiello, director of communications for the NFL. “L.A. is not a secondary market for San Diego.”

Make that the Grand Slam Dunk breakfast

At Lenny’s. Er, Denny’s. A.C. Green won’t be eating his mom’s cooking every time he returns home to Portland anymore. The Phoenix Suns star is majority owner of a corporation that acquired the rights to own and operate 12 Denny’s restaurants in the Portland area.

Green’s proposed acquisition drew negative pub when Denny’s workers said they had been told they would no longer have health insurance under the new ownership, but Green called that a misunderstanding. He said the 600 workers would continue to have their existing insurance until a new carrier is chosen.

“I’ll have to have home cooking at mom’s, then dessert at Denny’s one time, then eat dinner at Denny’s and have desert at mom’s the next,” Green said. “Mom is completely understanding.”

At least until A.C. tries to jack with her health insurance.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor

One tin soldier has ridden in to save the Nebraska football players from themselves and from the citizenry of Lincoln, and it’s … Billy Jack?

Yup. Tom Laughlin, who starred in the hilariously awful series of movies, spoke to Huskers players this week about controlling anger, aggression and violence.

Laughlin, who claims expertise in psychology and has supposedly written books (keeping him too busy, thankfully, to make movies), came to Nebraska at his own expense after several violent incidents involving players. He said he talked with players about the need to understand the root causes of their anger.

Fortunately, the Huskers are probably too young for the root cause of their anger to be exposure to inane peace-through-violence movie messages from the ‘70s.

Redefining the cost-of-living raise

The next time you ask your boss for a boost in salary, consider this: A soccer player in Honduras said his team’s owners threatened to kill him for just that.

Juan Fernando Palacios, goalkeeper on a first-division team owned by the Honduran army, said he began receiving threats after he had asked the team to double his monthly salary of $250.

Now, if he’d asked for his own parking space, that would have only meant a couple of broken legs.

The last word …

“Nobody told me nothing. I know there were signs up, but I didn’t see them.”

- Ruben Sierra, on failing to show up for the Yankees team picture

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo