Sunday, August 17, 2014





Brad Rock writes a column, Rock On, in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. The other day, it included this item: “Faced with declining revenue and high maintenance costs, some golf courses are allowing a new game called ‘footgolf.’ Participants kick a soccer ball down the fairway and into a 21-inch hole. Rock On will pass on that. He’s waiting to cash in on the swimboxing craze.” . . . Hey, Rogers Sportsnet, it’s about those digital ads that show up on the hitters’ background on your Blue Jays telecasts. How about dumping them? They really are misleading because that isn’t what the hitters are looking at. Besides, it‘s not as though there aren’t enough ads in the ballyard and on the telecasts already. . . .

If you missed it, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Matt Scott lost his cookies and then threw a touchdown pass during his club’s NFL preseason opener. Column contributor Bill Littlejohn wonders if that’s “a puke-six?” . . . “A woman found IKEA bags in a Swedish church that were filled with ancient human skulls and bones,” reports RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com. “And dozens of odd little wrenches.” . . . One more from Currie: “Knicks star Carmelo Anthony says he wants to be a facilitator. Imagine Nero saying he wanted to be a firefighter.” . . .

You know you’re having a bad season when you have a toy-truck giveaway and one of the trucks has a different team’s logo on it. That’s what happened to the New York Mets. One of the trucks that was given away actually had a Philadelphia Phillies logo on it. . . . In case you don’t think young players copy what they see on TV, consider this note from Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “I watched five minutes of the Little League baseball regionals. Every batter steps out of the box after every pitch. One kid drew in the dirt with his bat, crossed himself, twitched, dug in and gave the ump the big ‘Wait!’ hand. After every pitch, the kid stepped out and refastened his batting glove. Stop that!” . . .

Astronaut Barry Wilmore is a happy camper these days, because NASA has agreed to provide an SEC Network feed to the space station so that he can watch some college football. There may be a downside, however. As Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne News Sentinel pointed out: “I’m guessing he’ll have a pretty long wait for the cable guy if he loses his signal.” . . . A wildlife note from Vancouver comic Torben Rolfsen: “Sharks kill 10 people annually. Hippos kill 2,900. When is Hippo Week?” . . . Rolfsen, again: “Smoke signals herald a new pope; baseball owners elected Rob Manfred as MLB’s new commissioner and tobacco spit gushed out of the building.” . . .

“Forty years ago (last) weekend, Nixon resigned,” notes Janice Hough, aka The Left Coast Sports Babe. “The younger generation may find it hard to believe, but there actually was a time when we were shocked to learn that our leaders could be crooks.” . . . One more from Hough: “Tiger Woods has taken himself out of Ryder Cup consideration. Guess I should take myself out of consideration to be George Clooney's girlfriend.” . . . Hough, again: “The prosecution in Bob McDonnell’s trial has rested. They said the former Viriginia Governor and his wife took more than $165,000 in illegal gifts. And down in Louisiana they’re thinking ‘Amateurs’.” . . .

In case you missed it, Canada’s men’s soccer team is down four spots to No. 122 in FIFA’s latest rankings. Canada now is one spot ahead of Guinea-Bissau. . . . Headline at TheOnion.com: Johnny Manziel Forced To Wear Cleveland Browns Jersey In Cruel Rookie Hazing Incident. . . . You wonder how long it will take PTI’s Michael Wilbon to get over it when he realizes that Tiger Woods now is just another guy on the PGA Tour. . . .

Aunt Jemima’s great grandson is reportedly suing various product makers for $2 billion in royalties. “He claims they have been using her image and recipes without compensation since 1937,” notes Richmond blogger TC Chong. “Following this case closely are families of Sara Lee, Betty Crocker and Tony the Tiger.” . . . There are a whole lot of junior hockey teams into training camps already, and a whole lot more will join the crowd this week. It’s all about school, you know. Gotta get the players who won’t be on the roster back home in time to start school. Except in B.C., of course, where going to school is just a distant memory. . . .

Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatoon Express has a question for TV watchers: “Would anybody else like to hear that Wendy’s pretzel-bun woman and Trivago Man are shacking up in a cheap motel?” . . . Here’s Hutchinson, again: “In Ontario, the provincial curling finals will be known as the Recharge with Milk Tankard. Somewhere Paul Gowsell must be shaking his head.” . . . A head-nodder from comedy writer Alex Kaseberg: “The NFL announced it is placing tracking chips in players’ shoulder pads to measure how far and fast they run in a game. This from the league that still measures first downs with three guys, two sticks and a chain.”

(Gregg Drinnan is a former sports editor of the Regina Leader-Post and the late Kamloops Daily News. He is at gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears here on weekends, except when it doesn’t.)

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