In baseball terms, Coeur d’Alene area veterans are batting .500 this year. They whiffed when they criticized Black Rock developer Marshall Chesrown for gaining naming rights to the upcoming Fourth of July celebration by underwriting the event with a $10,000 doughnation. Chesrown, after all, helped rescue a popular summer festivity after the previous sponsor declined to pony up again. The vets, however, slugged a home run Monday when they trooped to the Kootenai County Courthouse in their scarlet-and-gold jackets to press county commissioners – again – to name the county airport after local World War II hero Pappy Boyington. County and airport oafishals have given the vets a runaround on this issue. Commissioners did it again this week. The only vet allowed to speak to the commissioners was Bob Rohrscheib, commandant of the Marine Corps League Pappy Boyington Detachment 966. Then, the vets were shown the door sans promise of further action. Boyington, a Coeur d’Alene/St. Maries native, commanded the famous Black Sheep Squadron, received a Medal of Honor, and was a prisoner of war and the subject of a TV series. Last year, some U-Washington student senators caused a ruckus by opposing a move to honor alum Boyington with a campus statue. They didn’t think a warrior was a good role model. Commissioners had better not use that excuse if they turn down the vets’ reasonable request.

It’s cryin’ time again

Your Comment Tater hears … that racy Maxim mag has named ex-Zag Adam Morrison as one of the “15 most notorious Nancies in sport” (read: wusses) for his crying jag at the end of the 2006 NCAA basketball tournament loss to UCLA. But (sniff!) I couldn’t see that for myself Wednesday (sniff!) b/c the SR online filter wouldn’t let me access Maxim (honk!). Is it that naughty of a site? … Nah, I don’t want St. Vinny’s to move its HQ for homelessness into the old federal building in downtown CdA. I prefer the usual approach to homelessness: Close your eyes tightly and pretend it doesn’t exist in The Lake City … French Fries (or, “Telltale signs of a tourist/Spokane visitor in Coeur d’Alene”): 1. Asks where Hudson hamburgers is, 2. Drives wrong way on Third or Fourth streets, 3. Hangs out with a trophy wife at the Beacon pub downtown, 4. Admires what Duane Hagadone has done for his town, and 5. Has a cigarette boat with a sound system that exceeds the noise ordinance limit.

From my cold, dead fingers

Headliner: “North Idaho clean-air study a first: Data show even minimal pollution can be harmful.” And so begins the drumbeat that will eventually lead to a chorus of clean-air right-or-wrongers calling for the end of woodstoves in the region … (With ap-hollow-gies to the Caught on the Fly column in the Sporting News) Hey, didn’t you used to be the promising Seattle Mariners? … Today’s edition of Hot Potatoes was brought to you by the No. 32. Or the number of years as of yesterday that I’ve been married to my wife, Brenda. Or happy anniversary, Sweetheart. You deserve a medal for hanging with me.