Manager’s Special: Bring Your Own Base

Baseball fans will not soon forget the comically childish base-tossing tantrum thrown by Asheville (N.C.) Tourists Manager Joe Mikulik on June 25, and shown repeatedly on sports highlight shows.

Well, the minor league Tourists travel to Augusta, Ga., Sept. 3 for a game against the GreenJackets, and it is no coincidence that it’s being billed “Anger Management Night.”

Fans will receive squeezable stress balls and be allowed to compete in a base-throwing contest.

Writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “You’d have to be mad to pass on this one.”

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Trivia time: On this date in 1933, baseball’s first All-Star game was played at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Which team won, and what was the score?

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Anchor man: It was a long night for the Yankees on the Fourth of July, scorched by the Cleveland Indians, 19-1. How bad was pitcher Shawn Chacon?

Plenty bad, according to George King of the New York Post.

“A year ago, he was a welcomed life raft in a turbulent sea,” King wrote. “Today, Shawn Chacon is a cement shoe attached to a body that is slowly sinking into the muck of a dirty river.”

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Slippery slope: Martina Navratilova, to the Miami Herald on the poor performance of U.S. tennis players at Wimbledon and a diminished talent pool in the U.S.:

“You know, you can be a world-class snowboarder in a matter of three or four years. You cannot do that on the tennis court.”

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Shortchanged: The Yankees’ Derek Jeter was presented a check for $32,000 to help build a facility for troubled children. Adele Smithers-Fornaci, president of the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation, gave him the money along with the comment: “It’s $1,000 for every year of your life.”

Jeter joked, “I’m 42.”

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Indecent exposure: On the all-too-common practice of streaking at Wimbledon, “by twits and bimbos alike,” Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle comments:

“Event officials always seem shocked when it happens, delaying any action until the spectacle has become properly ridiculous.

“Perhaps this is more sensible than the American way -- security raging wildly to the scene and using excessive force -- but the relatively benign response seems only to encourage the purveyors of jiggling private parts.”

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Pure and simple: Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, on the difference between the world’s two largest sporting events:

“At its heart, the World Cup is about the players and the play.

“At its heart, the Olympics are about the glorification of the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee and the star of all stars -- the Zeusian organizing committee chief.”

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Trivia answer: The American League won, 4-2, on Babe Ruth’s two-run homer.

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And finally: The beauty of soccer, said Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central, is that “It’s the only sport that leaves your hands free for obscene gestures.”