He Won’t Race Off to Celebrate Holiday

Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart will be at Irwindale Speedway tonight, for the Lucas Oil Turkey Night race, but most NASCAR drivers are taking the holiday off.

Elliott Sadler will be in the woods.

“When I’m not driving a race car, my favorite thing to do is to deer hunt,” Sadler said. “I will spend almost every day from November to January hunting. I don’t even come out of the woods for Thanksgiving.”

Sadler said he’d probably eat dinner with his family when he was finished hunting. Hope they like venison.

Lions Day: One person who doesn’t have today off is CBS commentator Phil Simms, who along with Greg Gumbel will be announcing this morning’s game between the New England Patriots and Detroit Lions at Detroit.

Simms isn’t complaining.

“It’s always fun working the Thanksgiving Day games,” he said. “It’s such a family tradition. Everywhere we go in Detroit, we hear people talking about it.

“Our sideline guy, Armen Keteyian, grew up in the Detroit area and it’s great to hear him tell stories about going to the games with his father, family and friends. Even for an outsider like myself, you feel it when you’re there.”

Trivia time: What was significant about the USC-UCLA game played at the Coliseum in 1938?

Hits and misses: Atlanta Falcon cornerback Ray Buchanan, a guest on Fox Sports Net’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” had this to say about the fines being levied against NFL players for hard hits:

“I am tired of all these fines that they are putting on brothers. Pretty soon offensive players will be wearing pumps, skirts and lipstick.”

Well-fed: Buchanan on Falcon owner Arthur Blank: “One thing he did on Friday was feed the boys lobster and steak, and he was the guy serving us. What owner have you heard of do something like that? Now we are going to continue to win for this man because if we continue having lobster on Fridays, everyone will go out there and bust their butt.”

The truth, period: Tom Arnold, interviewed by Newsweek, was asked how Fox Sports Net came up with the name “Best Damn Sports Show Period.”

“They had this whole list of titles and decided to go with the worst one possible.”

Bright side: Asked if it bothered him that he’d always been known as Roseanne’s former husband, Arnold said, “Yeah, but it’s sure better than being known as her current husband.”

Trivia answer: It was the last time USC played on Thanksgiving Day. The Trojans won, 42-7.

And finally: Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe makes this point about Shaquille O’Neal, whom he calls “the greatest force in the known basketball world:”

“I’m sure Shaq is thinking that he is quite good enough as he is, so what benefit would he gain by taking the time and putting in the effort to be the very best he could be?

“Would it be naive to suggest Shaq should have sufficient pride to find out what would happen if he truly gave it his all for an entire season?

“Start with this: Do you know how many rebounding titles Shaq has won during his first 10 years in the league? NONE! That is shameful.”

-- Larry Stewart