It’s Easier to Avoid Blaming Beckham

The news that David Beckham was sold by Manchester United to Real Madrid hit much of the sporting world like a tsunami, even if it merely caused a ripple in this country.

In England, there’s rampant outrage, with Beckham’s wife, Victoria -- or Posh Spice, if you prefer -- taking a good share of the blame in some quarters.

“Much as it pains a feminist such as myself to say so,” wrote Julie Burchill in the Guardian of London, “Beckham has been grotesquely, massively, [henpecked] by his talentless, ambition-hound of a wife ... It is hard not to think of Samson and Delilah, of splendid beast and piddling parasite.”

Can he dunk? Burchill was especially peeved by Victoria’s observation that if Beckham were to come to the United States, he’d have to learn to bounce the ball rather than kick it.

“I am no great lover of [soccer], but even I can see that to suggest there is little difference between it and the souped-up girly netball (‘basketball’) which is a major sport in the U.S. is both insane and insulting.”

She must have watched that bloody Spurs-Nets Finals the NBA put on.

Trivia time: David Beckham made his English national team debut against what side?

Sign here: Drivers in the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series were asked: “What’s the strangest thing you’ve been asked to autograph?”

“The weirdest or most fun?” driver Andy Lally wanted to know.

Body parts -- we’re not talking pieces of race cars here -- were the overwhelming No. 1 response with breasts topping the list.

At the other end of the spectrum?

“A girl in Japan just lifted up her miniskirt and bent over,” Justin Bell said, “so I signed her bottom.”

On the show courts: Venus Williams may not have been able to beat her sister Serena on the tennis court in a while, but she’s hoping to show her up during this year’s fortnight at Wimbledon. Venus will wear a racy white corset dress with open lacing down the spine that she helped design for Reebok with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.

“The two sisters wear my clothes, they share my clothes and they fight over my clothes,” Von Furstenberg told the International Herald Tribune.

Venus said she had a lot of input in the design, because, “Things just have to be perfect. If I’m not happy, I’ll scream.”

Struck out: Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts ended his career with 286 victories, but he didn’t fall shy of the 300 mark without exhausting every possibility.

“I wanted 300 badly,” he told the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call, “so much so I even went back to the minors. I had a 2.15 ERA that year [at Reading] and if I’d been 22, they’d have called me up right away. Since I was 40, no one had a job.

“I didn’t retire from baseball, they told me not to come back. I honestly think I could have pitched until I was 45 and won 350 games.”

Trivia answer: Moldova.

And finally: Bret Lewis of KFWB (980) thinks he may have discovered what’s wrong with the Angels this season: “Rally Monkey Pox.”