They Could Have Slept on It to Get It Right

Cal Ripken Jr. played in a record 2,632 consecutive major league games, but none since 2001. Evidently, some memories are short in the media.

Monday’s edition of the New York Post ran a five-paragraph story about Ripken’s endorsing an Australian bedsheet product, misspelling his name five times, including the headline: “Cal Ripkin’s Clean Sheet.” According to the story, “The Baltimore Orioles slugger has lent his name to an Australian wool company that’s renamed its core bedding product the Cal Ripkin Underlay and Duvet.” Impressive, really. Not only was the bedsheet renamed, but so was Ripken.

Another sentence reads: “Turns out Ripkin, known as the Iron Man for playing 2,632 straight games, really values a good night’s sleep.” Turns out the Post really needs to hire better copy editors.

The article finally spelled Ripken’s name correctly in the last paragraph and in the photo caption. Ripken was a .276 hitter. The Post, going two for seven with “Ripken/Ripkin,” hit .286.

Trivia time: The Chicago Cubs have had four Cy Young Award winners. Who was the last?

Not nil-nil: Some soccer results from over the weekend: Liverpool 2, Chelsea 1.

Crystal Palace 1, Leeds 0.

Chivas 437, Rest of the World 429.

Yes, the Rest of the World defense was a bit spotty in the back, letting in 437 goals in a match played at the new Bell Gardens Sports Center -- on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

A Chivas promotion billed as “The 100-Hour Soccer Game” featured 6,000 minutes of continuous play and more than 2,000 participants to mark the 100th year of Chivas Guadalajara. A news release said the game is the longest to have been played in the U.S., as Guinness has no record of any longer match.

Rookie watch: Where would the Angels be without rookie pitchers Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders? Last place, anyone?

Even with the combined 12-0 records of Weaver (8-0) and Saunders (4-0), the Angels began Monday only four games over .500 and in second place, 4 1/2 games behind Oakland.

Rookie watch 2.0: Briefing introduces a feature that will periodically chart the progress of the player the Houston Texans drafted No. 1 overall, defensive end Mario Williams, and the player they should have picked, Reggie Bush.

Stats lines from last weekend:

Bush: six carries, 59 yards, including 44 on his second attempt.

Williams: assisted on one tackle in one quarter of play.

Texans fans: grousing louder by the minute.

Trivia answer: Greg Maddux, in 1992. The others were Rick Sutcliffe (1984), Bruce Sutter (1979) and Ferguson Jenkins (1971).

And finally: Brett Favre raised eyebrows during training camp when he proclaimed the current Green Bay Packers “the most talented team that I’ve been a part of as whole.” Then he said this after they lost their exhibition opener to San Diego, 17-3: “We’ve got a long way to go. We weren’t very good.” That’s the problem with NFL training camp. Sooner or later, they’re going to make you play a game.