Cheap Seats
Now, for today’s calendar couple
Always looking for a Red Sox connection, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe notes that Monica Lewinsky and Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra both were born on July 23, 1973.
Both were born in California - Lewinsky in San Francisco, Garciaparra in Whittier.
Playing the name game
The Tennessee Oilers have applied for trademarks for seven new nicknames: Pioneers, Tradition, Fury, Wolves, Vipers, Commandos and Presidents.
The name would be preceded by Tennessee in all cases.
Additionally, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Commercial Appeal of Memphis that the league has applied for an unspecified number of other nicknames for the Oilers.
Team owner Bud Adams said earlier this year he planned to change the name in December because Oilers was used in Houston and does not reflect the team’s new home in Nashville. He has appointed a 13-member committee to make recommendations to him.
The team is holding a contest in which fans have been invited to guess what name he will pick. The winner gets a trip for two to the Super Bowl in Miami next January.
Has anyone suggested the Tennessee Travelers?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
The Brazilian trainer of a Saudi soccer team was fired a few days ago for allegedly trying to bribe a referee.
Published reports said the trainer, Zanata, first accused the official of accepting a bribe from the other team before allegedly taking money out of his pocket and offering his own bribe.
Telling it like it is
Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News writes that PBS commentator and ex-National Football League defensive end Tim Green’s novel, “The Red Zone,” is the “worst book I’ve ever read.
“It is crude, it is ugly, it is a poorly constructed blob of garbage. It takes a real event, the drowning death of former Los Angeles Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom, and turns it into a ridiculous, fictionalized mishmash of murder and intrigue, with a cast of caricatures that are clumsily drawn.”
And Tim probably thinks Stan can’t tackle.
Along the road to ruin
Jay Leno: “The Senate passed a bill to honor Mark McGwire by renaming a section of Interstate 70 in Missouri after him. This is not the first time they’ve done this. We named a street here in L.A. after the Dodgers - Skid Row.”
Arnie, the sweep
From the SportsLetter of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dirty little secret is curling, and we don’t mean the exercise you do with dumbbells.”
David Webster reveals the ugly truth in his 1979 book “Barbells and Beefcake.” Arnold, he writes, “first showed promise as an ice curler, his father, a police inspector, being the European curling champion.”
The last word …
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to be able to play golf year-round.”
- Florida Panthers center Rob Niedermayer, upset by trade rumors