The Perfect Trade: a Pitcher for Beer

The Fullerton Flyers, an independent minor league baseball team that begins play next month, recently traded for a pitcher from a team in Schaumburg, Ill., whose season is already underway.

The Flyers acquired the pitcher by sending the Schaumburg team, also known as the Flyers, 60 cases of Budweiser. That’s because the pitcher is Nigel Thatch, who is 0-3 in seven starts but is also the actor who played cocky athlete Leon in Budweiser commercials.

“This trade was a bargain for us,” Fullerton General Manager Ed Hart said. “We were prepared to throw in a Clydesdale.”

Rich Ehrenrich, owner of the Schaumburg team, told the Chicago Tribune, “Nigel really gave us a unique presence in the sports marketplace. In the true spirit of ‘Leon Time,’ we’ll have a cold one courtesy of Fullerton and thank Nigel for his time here.”

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Trivia time: When was “My Old Kentucky Home” first played as part of Derby day at Churchill Downs?

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Fly by night: Producer Sam Flood, in charge of NBC’s Kentucky Derby coverage, was scheduled to catch a 7:40 p.m. flight out of Louisville after Saturday’s race, switch planes in Dallas and land at LAX at 11 p.m.

He’ll be in Anaheim today producing NBC’s coverage of Game 2 of the NHL playoff series between the Colorado Avalanche and the Mighty Ducks at the Arrowhead Pond.

One sport involves animals running around a track outside, the other involves humans skating around on ice indoors.

But Flood said, “There are similarities. There is controlled chaos in both sports. At the Derby, there’s a wild stampede down the front stretch as the horses jockey for position with not much real estate to work with. In hockey, it’s sort of like that when the puck goes into the corner -- there’s a wild stampede with not much real estate to work with.”

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A “Prime Time” mistake: Deion Sanders, who recently became a part-owner of the Arena Football League’s Austin Wranglers, was quoted in Morning Briefing saying, “I have the ability as an owner to go to the sideline and really do something -- break up a pass, return a punt, return a kickoff.”

As reader Gil Saidy of Encinitas said, there is no punting in arena football.

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He doesn’t take the bait: New York Met pitcher Pedro Martinez, asked by the Newark Star-Ledger what kind of woman marries an umpire, said: “I don’t know. I’ve never been a woman.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1972, the Lakers won their first championship since moving to Los Angeles with a 114-100 victory over the New York Knicks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The Laker team that season, which featured Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Gail Goodrich, won a record 33 games in a row during the regular season.

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Trivia answer: The year is believed to be 1921.

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And finally: ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, on the glut of big-name pitchers on the disabled list: “There are three leagues now -- the AL, the NL and the DL.”

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