Freeway Reference Slows Him Down

Berry Tramel of the Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City, irritated by all the timeouts in basketball, wrote: “The Oklahoma-Missouri overtime game in January had 20 timeouts. That’s not a basketball game. That’s rush-hour traffic on the San Fernando Freeway.”

If he’s going to use Los Angeles traffic as an analogy, best he learn the names of our freeways. Perhaps a better example would be the San Diego Freeway, also known as Interstate 405.

Know why it’s called the 405? Because it takes four or five hours to get anywhere.

Trivia time: UCLA lost to Brigham Young in the second round of the 1981 NCAA tournament, 78-55. Who was BYU’s leading scorer in that game?

A real gunner: Maryland fan Darren Sanders, a Baltimore police officer, was off duty when he attended the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament at Greensboro, N.C., on Friday. He was sitting two rows behind the Terrapins’ bench during their victory over Wake Forest.

According to the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, Sanders’ service revolver misfired, and he took a bullet to the buttocks.

Sanders has been charged with unlawfully bringing a pistol into an assembly where admission is charged.

Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times wonders whether his lawyers “can get the charge reduced to bad shot selection.”

Top this: Pitcher Jason Christiansen of the San Francisco Giants became a big fan of top-fuel drag racing after being invited to the races at Phoenix. Because he was a VIP, he was allowed to stand with the starter at the light tree.

“It was totally awesome,” Christiansen said, according to Associated Press. “It was heart-stopping. It was the most intense thing I’ve every done. The sound was deafening. I was wearing earplugs, but I could feel and hear everything. The sound from the cars warming up shakes you. It just stops your heart.

“It was one of the best perks I ever got as a major leaguer.”

Ouch: Steve Aschburner of the Minneapolis Star and aol.com, on Pete Rose’s induction in the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame:

“There you go, Pete, you’ve got your Hall of Fame. Be happy with this one -- the shrine built on deceit, lies and outcomes that have nothing to do with pure competition. You actually might have won a wager or two in the WWE if someone had read the script to you.”

Looking back: On this date in 1897, Bob Fitzsimmons knocked out Jim Corbett in the 14th round at Carson City, Nev., to win the world heavyweight championship. It was the first boxing match photographed by a motion picture camera.

Trivia answer: Danny Ainge, who scored 37 points.

And finally: Terrell Owens is headed for the Philadelphia Eagles rather than the Baltimore Ravens, and in one regard that’s too bad. San Francisco Chronicle reader Alex Kaseberg, quoted in Tom FitzGerald’s Open Season column, said that had Owens signed with Baltimore, he could have been labeled “a Raven lunatic.”

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