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Oden’s got a camera, no action

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Times Staff Writer

OK, now it’s all right to mention Greg Oden and Sam Bowie in the same sentence.

Since action shots of Oden are going to be in short supply with the No. 1 NBA pick likely to be sidelined for the entire season after knee surgery, we recommend some of the video posted on his blog at www.yardbarker.com.

It takes a little time around Oden to figure out the guy has a droll but deadly sense of humor. He filmed his buddies bringing him a cache of cold medicine before the draft. He filmed himself looking into the camera sniffling the morning of the draft. He filmed the view of taxis on the street from his hotel room windows. He filmed himself the next morning at 5 a.m.

Later this summer, he filmed the “crib” where he was staying -- his mother’s small apartment, newly overstuffed with Nike gear that made his old room look like “a pigsty,” he said, displaying his size 19 shoes.

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Oden filmed the contents of his refrigerator, including a half-eaten watermelon. The 7-footer also used one angle most of us don’t normally see, the view looking down onto the top of the refrigerator, where he kept “my favorite cereal, Cookie Crisp.”

In what might prove to be a meaningful moment, he gave a tour, dead-panning, “This is the couch.”

Whether that was the same couch he was getting up from when he felt a sharp pain in his knee isn’t clear, but that too probably will be examined.

Reported ESPN’s Ric Bucher: “Goes to show that if you don’t have ergonomically correct couches and you’re that big, you run a risk.”

But take heart, Portland fans: Now that this has happened, the Trail Blazers might have a chance to get the No. 1 pick two years in a row -- though with a star-crossed draft history like Portland’s, that might not be good.

Another canine crisis

Let’s face it: The NFL has a dog problem.

A woman and her toddler son were treated for bites on their legs and buttocks Thursday after being bitten by a Rottweiler at the home of Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Deltha O’Neal, police said.

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Look at it this way: It’s better than being bitten by a Bengal.

Trivia time

What team’s uniform did Babe Ruth wear as first base coach for one season in 1938?

You’re hired

The Kings have named Heidi Androl from the recent NBC television show “The Apprentice L.A.” as the team’s special events host.

Among other duties, she will serve as the primary on-air personality for LAKings.com.

Said Luc Robitaille, Kings president of business operations: “Donald Trump’s loss is the Kings’ gain.”

Trivia answer

The Dodgers’.

Ruth, wearing a “B” cap and a jersey with the iconic Dodgers script, is pictured in the book, “Through a Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers Photographs of Barney Stein.”

Other highlights: Photos of a boyish but ever-dapper Vin Scully, an image of a dejected Ralph Branca sprawled face down on the clubhouse steps after giving up the home run to Bobby Thomson that clinched the 1951 National League pennant, and pictures of Ebbets Field -- from the famed marble rotunda to the ballpark’s demolition after the Dodgers moved west.

And finally

The text of the book -- co-authored by Dennis D’Agostino, the husband of Times columnist Helene Elliott, with Bonnie Crosby, the daughter of the photographer -- features interviews with key figures from Dodgers history.

Branca reflects on the day in 1960 when the demolition of Ebbets Field began: “I remember it was a cold day, and they had the big crane and the big ball. We all gathered there and the ball came crushing down on the roof of the visiting dugout. To me, it was like a knife stuck in my heart to see that happen.”

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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