Morning briefing

Caught in Boston’s chowder

Los Angeles should have known this was going to be a bad year for Boston comparisons the minute the Celtics beat the Lakers in the Kevin Garnett trade derby.

It has only gotten worse.

In baseball, the Red Sox didn’t simply sweep the American League division series against the Angels. They outscored them, 19-4.

The City of Angels doesn’t need the NFL reminder either.

New England Patriots: 5-0.

L.A.: no team.

But college football produced the lowest point.

Boston has a team -- Boston College -- ranked in the top five.

L.A. doesn’t.

Shriver’s guest didn’t cook

Cal State L.A. held a fund-raiser for its athletic department Saturday night at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, and guess who came to dinner?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a surprise guest. He came with his wife, Maria Shriver, who was being honored.

“It was either take the kids to In-N-Out or come with me to Pasadena,” Shriver said.

The occasion was the 10th Billie Jean King and Friends event, which in its previous nine years had generated more than $1.4 million for student-athlete scholarships. King attended Cal State L.A. from 1961 to ’64.

Shriver received the Joe Shapiro Award, named in honor of the late prominent attorney and Cal State L.A. professor who was a driving force behind starting the fundraiser in 1998.

“There are two people I will do anything for -- my mother and Billie Jean King,” Shriver said in explaining her presence.

Trivia time

In 1964, when Cal State L.A. -- then known as L.A. State -- won a college division national championship in football, who was the Diablos’ coach and who was the star player who went on to a long career in the NFL?

Natural progression

Two others from the tennis world attending the dinner were Mary Carillo, who served as master of ceremonies, and Rosie Casals.

King said Casals, a native of the Bay Area, got her involved in helping raise money for San Jose State women’s tennis for five years before this event got started.

“I thought, ‘What the heck am I doing?’ ” King said. “I should be helping my school.”

Deserving honorees

The winners of the King and Shapiro endowed scholarships Saturday night were volleyball player Airess Padda and tennis player Krishana DeSilva.

Padda talked about her tough childhood growing up in foster homes in Stockton. DeSilva came to Cal State L.A. from England.

Padda plans to become a doctor and DeSilva is working toward a master’s degree in English literature and plans to become a teacher.

Trivia answer

Homer Beatty and defensive tackle Walter Johnson. Cal State L.A. dropped football after the 1977 season and changed its nickname for its sports teams from Diablos to Golden Eagles in 1981.

Ranking upsets

USC’s 24-23 loss to Stanford may be the biggest football upset ever in Los Angeles.

A lower-profile possibility is one that involved two L.A. City high schools in 1970.

Wilson, led by quarterback Rick Holoubek, was averaging 61 points a game, had outscored six opponents, 365-36, and was coming off an 89-22 victory over Eagle Rock. With two games remaining, Wilson needed only 32 points to set a City scoring record. The record was expected to surely fall against Wilson’s next opponent, lowly Franklin.

Final score: Franklin 9, Wilson 0.

And finally

From reader Bill Littlejohn: “I wonder what the academics there will think when they hear that Stanford has gone from the ‘Harvard of the West’ to the ‘Appalachian State of the West.’ ”

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larry.stewart@latimes.com