Morning briefing

Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra set the standard for managerial malapropisms. But many managers have their moments, among them the Chicago Cubs’ Lou Piniella.

With the playoffs underway, here’s a “Lou lexicon,” courtesy of the Chicago Tribune -- to help decipher the occasionally tongue-tangled manager’s quotes.

What Piniella said, followed by what he meant, as compiled by the Tribune’s Paul Sullivan:

Piniella can foul up like the legends

Ivory; Ivy, as in that stuff on the wall at Wrigley Field.

Michigan Mile; Magnificent Mile.

Karmac the Magician; Carnac the Magnificent.

Assimilated game; Simulated game.

Stevie Eyre; Scott Eyre.

Scott Ire; Scott Eyre.

Stevie Ire; Scott Eyre.

Vim and vinegar; Vim and vigor.

“Go, Cubs, Win”; “Go, Cubs, Go.”

Also from the Tribune, this gem of a Piniella-ism:

“You show me a guy that’s a good loser . . . if you have too many good losers, you’re going to lose.”

Trivia time

Piniella has won three World Series rings, two as a player and one as a manager.

Name the teams and years.

Patriot games

When two-time Super Bowl most valuable player Tom Brady is on a plane on his way to a game, everyone wants him to like the movie.

That’s why somebody pulled a quick switcheroo on the New England Patriots’ private jet to Cincinnati the other day, after Bridget Moynahan’s name appeared in the opening credits for the planned in-flight movie, “The Recruit,” the Boston Globe reported.

Moynahan gave birth to Brady’s baby in August after the couple split in 2006 and Brady began dating model Gisele Bundchen.

Double-check

Kelly Pavlik became the new middleweight world champion Saturday after knocking out Jermain Taylor in Atlantic City, N.J., earning slightly more than $1 million.

Sunday morning, Pavlik and his father and co-manager, Mike Pavlik Sr., checked out of Bally’s hotel and headed for the Philadelphia airport.

Halfway there, the elder Pavlik realized he had left two checks totaling more than $750,000 leaning against the hotel room coffee pot, Yahoo! Sports reported.

“My heart stopped and I just knew I had made a big mistake,” Mike Pavlik said.

A representative of the fighter was able to reach promoter Bob Arum by cellphone on a private jet, and Arum agreed to stop the two checks and reissue new ones -- one for Pavlik’s net earnings of $666,750 and the other for $105,000, his father’s share for his work as co-manager.

They weren’t the first checks Arum has reissued.

“Julio Cesar Chavez used to go out and party after fights and I can remember a lot of times he’d call me and tell me he couldn’t find his check,” Arum told Yahoo. “But at least Kelly got the money he deserved.”

Trivia answer

Piniella won as a player with the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978, and as manager of the Cincinnati Reds in 1990.

And finally

In “Wait ‘Til Next Year: The Saga of the Chicago Cubs,” a 2006 HBO Sports production on the long-suffering team and its fans, Chicago native Bryant Gumbel talked about how crushed he was by the dominance of New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver over the Cubs in 1969.

“Years later, I was doing baseball’s ‘Game of the Week’ and Tom Seaver joined our crew,” said Gumbel, a former NBC announcer. “I couldn’t stand him. I really couldn’t. Finally, he asked me, ‘Did I ever do something to you?’ And I was kind of like, ‘You wouldn’t get it.’ ”

robyn.norwood@latimes.com