Column: Clippers’ hopes? Ducks’ odds? He gives it a thought

Random thoughts while waiting for Steve Ballmer to answer my help desk call:

• Sometimes the Clippers are their own opponent.

• Chicago Bears versus Green Bay Packers, on the NFL schedule for Thanksgiving, is the best holiday matchup since potatoes met gravy.

• Not since Mike Trout have I enjoyed watching a young center fielder the way I do Joc Pederson.

• Congrats to Mark Ulriksen for this week’s New Yorker illustration depicting a heart-stopping Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees moment in the Bronx.

• If only more pro athletes were as good to courtside fans as the Clippers’ Jamal Crawford.

• Jeanie Buss says next year’s Lakers season will be a celebration of Kobe Bryant. Aren’t they all?

• In America, football is Snow White and all sports are the Seven Dwarfs.

• FootballBettingCenter.com gives 1-4 odds that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will get booed on draft day Thursday. Odds that either Adrian Peterson and Philip Rivers will be part of a draft-day trade? 7-2.

• Bovada gives the Ducks a 9-2 shot to win the Stanley Cup, behind the New York Rangers, 13-4, and the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1.

• Best Dodgers bling of the year: 1965 replica World Series ring, at May 16 game.

• The worst: Yoga mats, May 17.

• Yasiel Puig: Cuban Jesus or Cuban Elvis? You decide.

• How long before Havana has its own MLB team? I say seven years.

• Or just send them the Miami Marlins. They could swim there.

• The Lexus Dugout Club might be L.A.’s top spot for celebrity-watching. Sighted this week: agent Scott Boras, sportscaster Jim Gray, movie mogul Dick Cook.

• Every sports team should have a theme song.

• For the Chicago Cubs: “Love Is a Battlefield,” by Pat Benatar.

• For the Clippers: “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” by the Bee Gees.

• As in: “How can a loser ever win …”

• Hey, the Clips aren’t done yet. More poise, better spacing and they’ll power their way into the next round.

• I used to think that giant wad in Juan Uribe’s cheek was tobacco. Now I think it might be a small farm implement.

• If you’re keeping score, our mayor is 0 for 3 on sports issues: He lost the 2024 Olympics to Boston, let a couple of scrappy suburbs steal the downtown NFL stadium, and has been missing in action during this Time Warner Cable standoff.

• If you’re keeping score II: Cincinnati Reds Manager Bryan Price dropped 77 F-bombs and 11 scatological references in his tirade last week, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. And he did it in 34 seconds.

• From the Reds fan code of conduct: “Guests will enjoy the baseball experience free from foul or abusive language….”

• Ray Lewis might be unredeemable, but his efforts to help Baltimore are commendable.

• Pedro Martinez’s memoir goes easy on former Dodgers general manager Fred Claire despite the disastrous Delino DeShields trade. Why? Because Claire is a stand-up guy who owned up to it. The book, “Pedro,” debuts next week.

• With Santa Anita Park empty much of the year, it should host a major music festival. The New Orleans racetrack does.

• Speaking of the track, the horse I bet in the sixth race Friday turned out to be a big, brown Muppet.

• Still, the best antidepressant ever is a sunny day at the track or ballpark.

• After last week’s rainout, Irwindale resumes NASCAR short track racing at 7 p.m. Saturday.

• USA Today reported that Danica Patrick, 33, is losing her primary sponsor, GoDaddy.com, next season.

• Omedetou to former Dodgers president Peter O’Malley for receiving “The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays With Neck Ribbon,” the highest honor Japan confers on an individual not from the country.

• Major appliance of the week: Glen “Big Baby” Davis might be the NBA’s answer to William “The Refrigerator” Perry.

• Seriously, yoga mats? What’s next, Vegan Night?

• Hey, Clippers fans: As Will Ferrell says: “More cowbell!”

• For the first time, baseball’s All-Star balloting is being conducted exclusively online (allstargame.com). Fans can vote up to 35 times.

• In Chicago, they used to have a term for that: Election Day.

• Drew Drysdale, daughter of Don, lighted up Dodger Stadium with her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Monday’s game.

• Once again, Drysdale gets the win.

• Quote of the day: “No matter what else changes in the last 50-plus years, there was always Vin Scully. He is more Dodgers to me than the players.”

— reader Philip Henderson, Irvine

chris.erskine@latimes.com