New team tries scare tactics

Just in time for Halloween, the new Casper (Wyo.) Ghosts on Wednesday unveiled their new cap and uniforms, including a “glow-in-the-dark mystical ghost-like logo with baseball stitches and western style ‘Casper Ghosts’ lettering.”

The Colorado Rockies’ Rookie League affiliate will have redesigned home uniforms with sleeveless tops showcasing the “Ghosts” lettering across the chest. The black home cap features the club’s ghost-like baseball with a “secret” glow-in-the-dark G.

All jerseys and pants will have “rust orange and black trim.”

Yep, sounds scary all right.

--

Trivia time

Who is the lowest-drafted MVP in NBA history?

--

Romeo-mo

Tony Romo may have been trying to score even while his team was enjoying an open date in the NFL.

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback was seen with Britney Spears at a Hollywood nightclub last weekend and, naturally, it made tabloid headlines.

“Brit’s New Baller Beau: Romo Romeo?” pondered Eonline.com, which reported, “Hunky sports hero Tony knows a thing or three about picking up blitzes, but he seemed caught off-guard by Britney’s southern charms.”

--

The denial

Romo, who has been linked with starlets before -- most notably country singer Carrie Underwood -- maintained he was merely making small talk with the pop diva.

“I wasn’t partying with her, that’s for sure,” he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “She’s a nice girl though.”

And so remains open the door to romance.

--

Red, white and very blue

Vice President Dick Cheney went hunting Monday and, fortunately, did not plug another human. But he did emerge once again looking like a clueless sportsman.

Turns out the upstate New York hunting club he was invited to was flying a Confederate flag, and some say this flies in the face of democracy.

“It’s appalling for the VP to be at a private club displaying the flag of lynching, hate and murder,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told the New York Daily News. “He ought to apologize to the American people.”

--

Another denial

The vice president apparently did not notice the flag, which is not surprising. It was Cheney, after all, who accidentally shot a friend last year while aiming for quail.

--

Say it ain’t so!

As Boston fans relish their team’s World Series triumph, Red Sox President Larry Lucchino is quick to dismiss claims that his team, with a newfound swagger, resembles the team it has long despised.

“We are not the new Yankees, the old Yankees, any kind of Yankees,” Lucchino told the Baltimore Sun. “We’re the Boston Red Sox. We’re not your father’s Red Sox, but we ain’t ever going to be no Yankees.”

--

Football futility

So Los Angeles does not have an NFL team. In a sense, neither does San Francisco or Oakland.

Over the last 76 weeks, the San Francisco Chronicle notes, the teams are a combined 39-103 and have been outscored by 1,033 points.

What’s more, the 49ers and Raiders have won on the same day only twice, and have lost on the same day 30 times.

Who wants to risk landing a club like those?

--

Who’s he?

The Rams announced that Richie Incognito could be sidelined for the rest of the season because of a kneecap injury.

Responds columnist Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times: “Could there possibly be a more obscure NFL player than an offensive lineman on a winless team named Incognito?

--

Wanted: star power

Prospects, faint as they are, of having Kobe Bryant join the Bulls and Alex Rodriguez become a Cubs or White Sox player are appealing to Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune.

“In one fell swoop, the Second City would have a new No. 1 and No. 1A sports star,” the columnist wrote.

“Our major action figures for the moment continue to be football’s Brian Urlacher and soccer’s Cuauhtemoc Blanco, neither of whom we can currently get 10 words out of in English.”

--

Trivia answer

Steve Nash, who in 1996 was chosen 15th by the Phoenix Suns.

Nash was traded by the Suns to the Dallas Mavericks two years later, then returned to Phoenix as a free agent in 2004.

--

And finally

Comedian Argus Hamilton on China’s attempt to lessen Beijing’s air pollution before the 2008 Olympics: “Nothing is more embarrassing for the host country than when a javelin gets stuck in the smog.”

--

pete.thomas@latimes.com