Made-up teams can get real coverage

An agonizing image of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady clutching his left knee repeatedly flashes on the screen.

Next to the picture, the question is posed.

“Are you protected?”

You would think Brady doesn’t have health insurance. But this isn’t about Brady. His off-season surgery went fine.

This is about you, the fantasy football player. CNBC calculated Brady’s injury last season shifted $150 million in fantasy league winnings. So Fantasy Sports Insurance Inc. is putting an end to that, offering a policy that “returns your financial investment in your fantasy league, should your key player(s) suffer a ‘season changing’ injury,” according to their website, www.fantasysportsinsurance.com “> www.fantasysportsinsurance.com .

Henry Olszewski, one of two brokers who crafted the idea, told CNBC that the brokerage has sold nearly 400 policies, underwritten by Lloyd’s of London.

“The nightmare scenario is the guy who loses his player and either starts trading away his team or sits idle,” Olszewski told CNBC. “That affects the entire league. If that guy has insurance, he’s playing with the house money and that guy has more motivation to see what he can do to be competitive.”

Trivia question

What links Sandy Koufax’s no-hitter in 1963 against the San Francisco Giants and his perfect game in 1965 against the Chicago Cubs?

No secret votes

With the American Football Coaches Assn. ruling that the post-conference championship game USA Today Coaches Poll ballots will remain private beginning in the 2010 football season, South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier told the website CBSSports.com that he suspected the secrecy would allow “a chance for some real hanky-panky.”

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples will try to prevent that from happening. He sent Freedom of Information Act requests to all 51 public school programs that vote in the weekly poll, which accounts for one-third of the Bowl Championship Series formula.

“As the consumers who make college football the multibillion-dollar business it is, you deserve to know how the sausage gets made,” Staples wrote. “And since most of the coaches in the poll work for athletic departments at schools subsidized by your tax dollars, you have a right to know how they voted.”

Trivia answer

Answer: Harvey Kuenn made the last out in each game.

(Question and answer provided by David Weiss of Woodland Hills).

And finally

From Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal on Louisville men’s basketball Coach Rick Pitino, after Pitino publicly criticized a newly released video of a police interview involving a woman he once had an affair with before she was charged with trying to extort him.

“What Pitino accomplished Wednesday was to recycle the story into another news cycle,” Bozich wrote. “He got everybody talking about something that he doesn’t want anybody talking about. Air ball. The story was subsiding nationally. Fresh Pitino sound bites gave it energy.”

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mark.medina@latimes.com

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