He’s Good at Being Really Bad in Baseball
Comedian David Spade, one of the stars of the upcoming film “The Benchwarmers,” which tells the tale of three adults who form a baseball team in order to challenge the kind of schoolyard bullies who used to torment them, said he was more into skateboarding while growing up in Arizona.
“They asked us to go to baseball camp for a week,” Spade told Newsday of preparing for his latest role. “But I said, ‘To be, what, worse?’ I can teach myself to be bad.... I just batted lefty instead of right. That makes you look really dumb.
“Then I kind of took this Craig Counsell stance from the Diamondbacks. He keeps the bat up really high then he chops down on it. I saw him in a game once and it made me laugh.”
Trivia time: Who is the first athlete born and raised outside North America to win a most valuable player award in either Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL or NBA?
Pioneering move: Candace Parker, a 6-foot-4 redshirt freshman at Tennessee, became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament basketball game. In fact, she had two dunks on March 19 during a 102-54 victory over Army in Norfolk, Va., becoming only the fourth woman to dunk in a college game.
However, some were not overly impressed. “Judging from the overreaction ... women’s basketball must be desperate for respect,” wrote Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. “Hysterical ESPN analysts and others proclaimed the plays to be life-altering moments for the sport, and Parker the transcendent player of her generation.
“All this over a couple of dainty dunks? I can sew a button on a shirt. That doesn’t make me Betsy Ross.”
The cookie crumbles: Gearing up for baseball’s opening day, the Cooperstown Cookie Company’s lineup of shortbread snacks includes Boys of Summer lemon, Mudville Mudballs chocolate chip, All-Star almond and bite-sized Bunts.
If other companies decide to join in, try to avoid BALCO’s “The Cream”-filled cookie.
Mean girls: Michelle Wie, 16, is seeking her first professional victory this weekend at the Kraft Nabisco Championship in Rancho Mirage. Responding to a Time magazine question about dealing with the trash talking from fellow LPGA players, Wie said, “I’m used to people judging me without even knowing me. I’m in high school.”
Get your kicks: The NFL draft, which moved from New York’s Madison Square Garden to the Javits Convention Center last year, is moving again. The April 29-30 draft will be held at Radio City Music Hall, home of the high-kicking Rockettes.
That should make Baltimore Raven fans feel right at home, according to the Baltimore Sun’s “The Flip Side,” which noted: “After all, watching that offense, fans got pretty accustomed to 1-2-3 kick.”
Trivia answer: Sergei Fedorov of Russia won the NHL’s Hart Trophy for the 1993-94 season, and Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria won the NBA’s MVP award the same season.
And finally: Sportscurmudgeon.com points out some troubling news from the recent NCAA Rifle Championships: “Army finished third.”