Perhaps Yankee Fans See It Differently

It’s unlikely that many people in Boston will be rooting for the favorite, George Steinbrenner’s Bellamy Road, in today’s Kentucky Derby.

According to USA Today, Boston sports talk-show host Eddie Andelman had this to say about Steinbrenner: “The guy has ruined sports. The average person cannot go to a sporting event because this nitwit doesn’t know what he is doing. You’re going to tell me there is sentiment for him to win? From who?”

Trivia time: J.D. Drew started out with the Dodgers this season by going 0 for 25. What Hall of Famer began his major league career by going 1 for 26?

No deadline pressure: Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun sees one reason professional wrestling should get more ink.

Schmuck recently wrote: “With newspaper deadlines getting earlier and earlier, maybe it’s time for us to embrace a sport that can send in results the day before the event.”

Truth stranger than fiction: Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when wrestling was still pretending to be real, Olympic Auditorium wrestling promoter Mike LeBell had an underling call in results after the matches. But then Los Angeles Herald Examiner sports editor Bud Furillo convinced him it would be easier to get the results in the paper if they were called in before the matches.

After that, John Beyrooty, who handled the wrestling beat, got the “results” of matches that started at 8 p.m. by 6 p.m. Beyrooty always included the line: “In other unbelievable action ...”

Oh, Canada: The Toronto Blue Jays, the lone Major League Baseball team in Canada, might have assumed that they’d pick up fans when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington.

Seems logical, and, indeed, Associated Press found Frank Riccio, an Expo season-ticket holder last season, who said he took in a couple of Blue Jay games during a recent trip. Sounds, though, as if the transition is incomplete.

“I wasn’t rooting for them at all,” he said. “I couldn’t care less whether they won or lost.”

On target: Avenger kicker Remy Hamilton has made 28 field goals in 35 attempts this season. That may not be spectacular for the NFL, but 80% in the Arena Football League is amazing. That’s because in the AFL the goal posts are only nine feet apart and the crossbar is 15 feet high. In the NFL, goal posts are 18 1/2 feet apart and the crossbar is 10 feet high.

Looking back: On this day in 1972, the Bill Sharman-coached Lakers defeated the New York Knicks, 114-100, in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to give L.A. its first NBA championship.

Trivia answer: Willie Mays, called up to the New York Giants in 1951, was 0 for 12 before, at 20 years old, he got his first major league hit, a home run off another Hall of Famer, Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves.

And finally: Jay Leno, pointing out the top finishers in the Kentucky Derby will be tested for drugs, said: “I guess officials got suspicious when they realized a lot of the horses were as big as Jose Canseco.”

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