Bloomberg Yanks Out His Roots in a Hurry

It appears New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has learned something about diplomacy. Asked whether he preferred the Yankees or the Mets when he was campaigning two years ago, he bobbled his answer, saying, “I grew up in Boston.”

The New York Times reported that when he mispronounced Joe Torre’s name earlier this year, the New York tabloids blamed the “Boston-bred” mayor’s accent, noting that he “grew up a Red Sox fan.”

Wednesday, the Times quoted Bloomberg as saying, “I’m rooting for the Yankees, make no mistake about that. This team is going to go all the way.”

Trivia time: Who kicked the winning field goal for USC with 14 seconds left in the Trojans’ 23-20 victory over Stanford at the Coliseum in 1953?

Curses: “Boo! Haunted Red Sox Brace for Yanks and Curse of Bambino,” said the headline on the cover of a 20-page section in the New York Post on Wednesday.

Headlines in the regular sports section of the Post read: “Ruth, Ruth, Ruth for the Home Team” and “Chapter and Curse: Sox Confident They Can Write a Happy Ending.”

On the cover of the New York Daily News was a “Star Wars” cartoon with Darth Vader wearing a Yankee necklace. The accompanying headline read: “Cursed Red Sox Take Aim at Evil Empire.”

It’s all enough to make one curse.

Meanwhile, to its credit, the New York Times had no headlines that contained the word “curse.”

He’s up for it: From David Letterman: “Everybody is crazy about the Yankees and Red Sox. As a matter of fact, earlier today, Ted Williams had himself defrosted so he could watch.”

A real scarcity: Reader Michael Nowatnick, commenting about how few Florida Marlin fans there are, said he was at Pacific Bell Park a week ago Wednesday to watch the Giants and Marlins play.

“I saw one, yes one, person wearing a Marlin cap,” Nowatnick said in an e-mail. “In contrast, I saw no less than 50 Red Sox fans at the game even though their team wasn’t scheduled to play until later that night on the other side of the bay.”

Hold on: Cub fans may be getting a little carried away. An e-mail to the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Rosenbloom said, “Mark Prior is just 22, Carlos Zambrano is just 22 and Kerry Woods is just 26. If they pitch together until Prior reaches 40 years of age, we’re talking an 18-peat, my friend!”

Trivia answer: Sam Tsagaslakis. Note: On the 50th anniversary of his game-winning kick, Tsagaslakis will flip the coin at Saturday night’s Stanford-USC game.

And finally: Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com, on the possibility of the Chicago Bears, with 13 retired jerseys, someday running out of available uniform numbers: “Fortunately, in order to keep the situation from getting worse, the Bears have adopted a strict team policy of not developing any more great players.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.