Into the (long) weekend: Banner night

Wednesday night's pregame ceremony raising banners for Salming, Kelly and the late Hap Day provoked this from one e-mailer:

FRANK LENNON/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Baun: Deserving of a banner?

The fact they chose #21 in honor of Salming and overlooked Bobby Baun, who also wore the number and played on (four) Stanley Cup winners and scored one of the most famous Stanley Cup goals ever. Baun was there, invited I believe by the Leafs, but why not twin the honor with Salming like they did with Kelly and Hap Day?

Baun was one of 11 Leafs to play on their four Stanley Cup winners of the 1960s. He played with Toronto from 1956 to '67, went away in the expansion draft (to the California Seals) and came back for a last hurrah from 1970 to '73. That's a lot of meritorious service, and that goal in the 1964 Cup finals will always be recalled by fans of a certain vintage. On the other hand, it's not like Baun was anything other than an rugged, stay at home defender. That goal was his combination Henderson/Willis Reed Moment - Baun never made an all-star team. Does he belong up there with Bower, Mahovlich et al? Sounds like a (long) weekend assignment (for anyone over 40, that is).

One last read. Dave Feschuk's column on the NBA's shorter training-camp practice regimen got this rejoinder from Mark Cuban: I wish I was allowed to write this.

One last letter to Gary Bettman. Aaron Reynolds, part of the JABS Baseball Roundtable, sounds off in Batter's Box on the advertising links on the NHL's redesigned website, including scam survey offers and pirated streaming TV:

Gary, someone who works for you is approving this junk and allowing it to be put on the NHL's website. It's a serious disservice to your fans, and a major embarassment for the NHL -- this is the league's flagship site, supposedly the number one place to go on the internet to read about hockey. Why are your people tarnishing the reputation of the NHL for a relatively miniscule amount of money?

One last story. In the current (October issue) When Saturday Comes, a look into the uncertainty surrounding the age of Newcastle's recent signing Oba Martins, reported to be six years older than what was listed on the website of his former club, Inter Milan. Apparently the discrepancy was not a result of a doctored birth certificate, but had its roots in the Nigerian Football Association's website, where the webmaster was in a dispute over being paid and hadn't bothered to update erroneous information:

Suddenly the webmaster was public enemy number one in Nigeria. The culprit was traced and theatrically arrested, with police staging a dawn raid at his house. He was put in jail until he'd agree to cooperate by revealing the password needed to change the site.

One last appeal. ArmchairGM, a wiki-type blog, is looking for contributors, especially on the CFL. Any blog with a posting on Irish Road Bowling is pretty fine in my books.

Sports around town. Up at York, it's the final women's hockey tuneup before another season starts next week - U of T meets York. And oh, but we have to mention it - the 0-5 U of T football Blues, minus their suspended coach, meet Western at Birchmount Stadium.

Watching. Yankees at Tigers, Friday, 8 p.m., Sportsnet. You mean the playoffs are on? And the Tigers are in them?

Punters' corner. I'm giving Jinks the long weekend off from the arduous task of handicapping. Happy Thanksgiving.

Into the Weekend, and looking ahead

Time to wrap it up here, and a little programming note: Starting Monday and running through Wednesday's season opener, stop by the NHL Bloggers Roundtable, where James Mirtle, Chris McMurtry, Lyle Richardson and Tom Luongo (we've got the Northeast Division covered, anyway) will join me in a look at the season ahead. Have a good weekend all, but not before:

One last read. Pete Rose has been named No. 1 Hometown Hero in a poll of Cincinnati Reds fans, and here's Paul Daugherty in the Cincinnati Enquirer (Catch via Sportspages):

Maybe it's nothing but a bunch of Pete fanatics, wearing out their cells' redial. Maybe Pete fans took home stacks of ballots and lined them up on the drill press in the basement shop. Maybe my definition of a hero is a little different than those who punched up the Hit King. The three criteria from DHL were: 1) on-field performance; 2) leadership quality and; 3) character value.
Rose beat Bench. Maybe on the ballots at Great American Small Park, No. 3 was omitted accidentally.

One last vote. Still on ballots, Gameops.com Editor's blog is looking for nominations for Vendor of the Year, among other categories.

One last burp. Ingredients: 25 kilos of ground beef, two heads lettuce, 15 tomatoes, four onions, 35 cheese slices, 1 1/2 cups of mustard, one cup ketchup, four pickles, four jalapenoes on a custom-made bun. Yes, it's the World's Biggest Cheese Burger.

Sports around town. It's York hosting Toronto in the annual football mismatch Red & Blue Bowl up on the edge of Steeles, Saturday afternoon. And in the OHL, Brampton is home to Barrie tonight, and St. Mike's hosts Sudbury on Sunday afternoon.

Watching. Blue Jays at Yankees, Sunday, 1 p.m., Sportsnet. Two questions come to mind: Can the Jays finish in second place? Can this be called an improvement?

Punter's corner. Last chance for guest handicapper Jinks, who went an uninspiring one win, two losses and a couple of pushes last week with his recreational-purposes only choices of kibble vs. cookie. But everyone, and especially a dog, deserves a second chance:

Minnesota (+1) over BUFFALO. Obviously not impressed after eating the Bills biscuit last time.

Cleveland (-3) over OAKLAND. Just like a dawg, this one.

CINCINNATI (-6) over New England. One that we can both agree on.

CHICAGO (-3) over Seattle. Simply inhaled the kibble here. Not sure, but I think that's a best bet.

Green Bay (+11) over PHILADELPHIA. This is the weekly I'd-never-pick-this-one pick.

Into the weekend: Materazzi is back

Recovering from the birthday hooley at JABS Mansion, I'm afraid the blog has been a bit spotty the last couple days (picking cheesies out of the carpet and scraping Orange Crush off the walls is a little time consuming).
So we're going straight into the weekend here, after watching all of about 30 seconds of this morning's Ryder Cup coverage on TSN -- "The Ryder Cup is underway!" said the excited announcer. Tiger put his tee shot into the water. Colin Montgomerie strode up next, looking more and more like good old Keith Appleyard, the crowd went nuts ...

BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS

The glamour, the excitement, the shoes: It's the Ryder Cup.

And off that bit of excitement, that's enough golf, thank you. On to some links and the usual other stuff before the fumigators arrive:

One last look. Marco Materazzi, and his suddenly bulletproof, buttproof chest, has a new shoe commercial out in Italy.

One last read. The Guardian's Richard Williams has seen the Zidane movie that JABS has been all over, and likes it just as much. It opens in the UK next week:

Any conventional film about Zidane would include the astonishing 20-yard volley that won Real the European Cup final on its return to Hampden in 2003, plus the two he scored with his head in the 1998 World Cup final. It would examine, through the use of super-slo-mo, the technical tricks that were particular to him, such as the roulette, in which he deceived a defender by turning his body through 360 degrees, dragging the ball forward with the sole of his boot while in mid-pirouette, facing the way he had come. It would analyse the gift of balance that enabled this heavy-set man to move with such lightness and grace. It would investigate his childhood among north African immigrants in a poor quarter of Marseille; it would catalogue the transfers that took him from Cannes to Bordeaux as a teenager, then to Juventus of Turin and finally to Madrid.
This new film does none of these things.

That's undoubtedly why the guy in the Zidane shirt was among the few walkouts during last Friday's screening at the Varsity (oh, and one more link regarding a release of the film here in NA from one of the co-directors: "This film could certainly play on pay-per-view TV. But we're hoping for theatrical." Let's hope.)

One more film note. Katie Holmes to play Posh in a new Becks biopic? (Thanks to The Offside.)

Weekend assignment. Another tough question tackling the prickliest issues of the day, but that's what we do. Picking up where J.E. Skeets at The Basketball Jones left off, is Pryzbilla the highest Scrabble-scoring name in pro sports today?
UPDATE: Eagle-eyed reader John Richardson sends in this handy dandy score generator and an early entry that rolls into the lead: Wozniewski.

Sports around town. The OHL season is back on, and Brampton and St. Mike's play their home openers tonight. And on Sunday morning all over the place, it's the Scotiaback Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Watching. Toronto at Calgary, Saturday, 7 p.m., CBC. Forget Ricky Williams. I wanna see Pinball in Coppley and Malcolm in Canali (good catch, Boatmen Blog).

Punters' corner. Ready or not, here's your recreational-purposes-only picks. After a second straight 2-3 week, it's time for a shakeup. I've brought in my dawg Jinks to make the choices, either kibble (visitors) or cookies (home):

BUFFALO (-5 1/2) over Jets. The dawg is nuts.
Cincinnati (+1 1/2) over PITTSBURGH. The dawg is hungry!
Jacksonville (+7) over INDY. The dawg is calming down, a little.
Chicago (-3) over MINNESOTA. Jinks barked on this one. Best bet, that.
N.Y. Giants (+3 1/2) over SEATTLE. This is pushing it. I'd never make this pick. Two in a row on the road? Plaxico would have something to say about that.

 

Into the weekend: Catching up on Clinton

Time to wrap it up here and head to the movies. Let's head straight into the usual roundup.

One last read. The current issue of the New Yorker includes The Wanderer, a lengthy profile of Bill Clinton that's a fantastic must-read (but not available online). It opens with Clinton in Berlin for the World Cup final, and the former president's initial reaction to the confusion surrounding Zidane's head butt deserves a footnote:

Clinton was instantly forgiving of Zidane and wondered what would become of him. He recalled Gao Hong, the goalie for the Chinese women's team, who, in the 1999 World Cup final, gave up the decisive penalty kick to Brandi Chastain, of the American team. Gao had played brilliantly until that point but, like Zidane, she had to return home and endure the consequences of her defeat.
"I identify with people who get beat up," Clinton said. "I remember that game like it was yesterday."

The footnote? Gao got up quite well. She left China a couple years later, coming to the U.S. to play in the women's pro league, then moving on to Canada. She currently works here in Toronto, at Ontario Place.

One last look. Arsenal and Manchester United get round 1 of their renewal on Sunday morning. In anticipation, let's go back to 2004, an infamous year in the rivalry, and this Happy Birthday Wayne Rooney! bilingual commentary.

Sports around town. Neate Sager advises this may well be the weekend U of T ends its 35-game winless streak in pigskin -- that's almost 2,000 days worth. The Blues host the Waterloo Warriors Saturday at 2 p.m. at Birchmount Stadium, although just the thought of the Blues playing home games at Birchmount puts me off. Up at Woodbine, it's the Woodbine Mile, Sunday afternoon in beautiful downtown Rexdale.

Watching. Of course it's Arsenal-Manchester United, Sunday at 11 a.m. on Fox Sportsworld. For a little background on this particular bun throw (really, it is), go here.

Punters' corner. Recreational purposes only, of course, after a 2-3 opening week:

RAVENS (-12) over Oakland. In week 1, Art Shell took out his QB for safety's sake, not a very good sign.

Browns (+10) over BENGALS. Wave 'em high.

DOLPHINS (-6 1/2) over Bills. I don't get it -- since when is a pulled hammy a season-ending injury? Oh, now I get it.

JETS (+6) over Patriots. Pennington's got his marbles.

JAGUARS (+1 1/2) over Steelers. Monday nighter. Keep choppin' wood, Jags.

Into the weekend: Boneyard buddies

Doing these updates from the Canadian Open, there's precious little time for blogging, but this certainly is worth a look: Boca Juniors plan a cemetery for their diehard fans:

REUTERS

Wanna be buried next to him?

Home of football greats such as Diego Maradona, Boca had already started making available coffins bearing the team's blue and yellow colours.
Now fans can buy one of 3,000 Boca plots set aside in the Iraola cemetery, some 37 miles (60 km) from the capital.

Great idea. Next up, we can plan exclusive boneyards for people who talk on cellphones all game long, Raiders fans, adult autograph seekers, Pierre McGuire, Platinum-seat holders who spend the first 10 minutes of each period nibbling on shrimp, Raiders fans, anyone who laughed during Men With Brooms ... Hey, there's a weekend assignment. What other fan groups deserve to rot alongside each other? Go to it, kids.

One last e-mail. Much rantage off this week's NFL in Toronto post, but here's Paul Smith of Delta, B.C., seriously:

I'm a longtime football fan, as are my three sons. We enjoy and support CFL, NFL and NCAA, and in the past few years have seen games in Toronto (CFL), Denver (NFL), Seattle (NFL), South Bend (NCAA) and Seattle (NCAA).
I have respect for both Ted Rogers and Larry Tanenbaum as business owners away from sports, but neither has a shiny track record with their sports ownership.
I give Rogers credit for beefing up the Jays payroll, and we as a family try to get to Toronto each summer for 4-5 Jays games, but in my humble opinion, they have fallen short with their supposed marketing clout, in putting 'bums in seats'. Hey the GTA is over 5 million, why are they not averaging 35-40,000 with a pretty interesting team?
Tanenbaum doesn't have to market the Leafs because there are so many fools out there to keep buying tickets to fill the joint - just like here in Vancouver. The Raptors need selling, but have shown that when they win, they can sell out.
In my humble opinion, the NFL has its sights first of all on Los Angeles, which like New York, could eventually support two teams. San Antonio is a large area which could support the NFL, and there are possibly another 3-4 fairly large U.S. cities that would want a franchise when the NFL expands. Keeping the NFL 'American' further sweetens the TV/licencing deals (if they can get any sweeter) for American networks, which are the ones paying extremely high prices for broadcast rights.
I'd love to see the NFL in Toronto, but not at the expense of the CFL. The present hype with MLSE/Rogers is just that...also, what about the say $500-600 million just for a stadium, let along franchise fee and ancillary costs. Someone would be required to write a billion dollar cheque I would think.

One last read. This one is making the rounds: Stephon Marbury Loves Pot Snacks, a bit from his shoe-tour rider (more like a J.R. Rider, in a BYOW kind of way), courtesy of YAYSports!:

In terms of Stephon's food request for the trip, there were no Funyuns available (none until Friday, probably). The following items have arrived and are in the warehouse in Recruitment's section (ask Regina of the whereabouts if I'm not around):
4 - regular sized bags of Cooler Ranch Doritos
4 - regular sized bags of Nacho Cheesier Doritos
4 - regular sized bags of Spicier Nacho Doritos
9 - regular sized bags of Mesquite BBQ Kettle Cooked Lays
12 - packages of Pepperidge Farm Choco Chip Cookies (Sausolito or Tahoe Chunky)
72 - bottles of 24oz Poland Springs Water (six packages of 12 in each package)
3 (or 4..) - large 1-lb bags of Skittles
4 - large bags of individually wrapped Twizzlers (each bag has a bunch of snack-sized individually wrapped Twizzlers)

Brilliant. Shame about the Funyuns, though.

Sports around town. The Argos host Hamilton Saturday afternoon (3 p.m.), while the Lynx finish their season out Sunday at Centennial Stadium (6 p.m.).

Watching. Vegetating in my usual state on Sunday (Ticket) afternoon, but apart from that, nothing really thrills. Perhaps an early lookin on Liverpool-Everton early Saturday morning (7:30 a.m., Sportsnet), but man, it's September! Stay outdoors while you can.

Punters' corner. Ditching Pro-Line for this year after the robbers tightened the screws a little more on their point spread stickup game. Here's five plays, and kids, please don't try these at home:

PACKERS (+ 3 1/2) over Bears. Chicago hires Michael Jackson to co-ordinate their Neverland-in-the-end-zone offence.

LIONS (+6) over Seahawks. Detroit assistant Cullen promises to wear clothes. Okay, he said he'd wear a thong. Maybe. Sure hope so.

PANTHERS (-5) over Falcons. Carolina just hasn't been the same since the steroids ran out. But it's a new drug day.

Ravens (+3) over Bucs. Godspeed, Steve McNair. Don't forget your flak jacket.

GIANTS (+3 1/2) over Colts. Did you know? AFC runner-ups are 0-19 ATS in first games back against NFC opposition, on Sunday nights, in New Jersey, when two brothers are matched against each other.

Fall is in the air

It's the Friday roundup, if anyone's still around, and I'll make it brief because although I do love the smell of ouzo in the morning, it is a little fatiguing.
After Wednesday's post, the estimable James Mirtle -- estimable being one of those words, like eschew, propitious and mendacious, you often see in the prints but never hear come out of anyone's mouth -- asks a pretty good question:

What I can't understand is why junior hockey has withered so much ... I obviously wasn't here for it to happen, but I'll never forget the shock of coming from Kamloops - where there's a new, 6,000-seat rink filled every night - to going to my first St. Mike's games in that cramped, crappy rink.  I thought I'd shown up in the wrong place. It was unbelievable.

Sounds like a (long) weekend assignment. Who killed junior hockey in Toronto, anyway?

One last read. Twice in one day I'm linking to the Basketball Jones. But I did so like Skeets' interview with J.R. Smith, who has been traded twice this summer but is being admirably upbeat in spite of it (full marks for the Andy Moog namedrop, too):

Skeets: So how does it feel to get traded twice in the same summer?
Smith: To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t feel any different for it to be done twice. I mean I’m still only going to one new place, right? If it happened during the season though … well, that’d be a different story.

FOX

Frankie got game.

Skeets: Tell me a different story, J.R..
Smith: Excuse me?

Skeets: Please tell me a story. A tale, a fable…
Smith: About?

Skeets: Anything. Go nuts.
Smith: Um…

Skeets: Let your imagination soar, young child…
Smith: OK, um … um … I guess once upon a time–

Skeets: Hold on. You guess?
Smith: Um, yeah…

Skeets: If you’re going to tell a story, tell it like you mean it!
Smith: Sorry.

Skeets: No wonder you got traded for air. You’ve got no gusto man.
Smith: Hey, Howard Eisley is solid baller.

Skeets: Yeah, so is Frankie Muniz. Come on man…

One last heads-up. The Flagrancy is counting down the 50 Most Dubious Moments in Raptors History. In other words, the shortlist.

Sports around town. The York Yeomen (Lions; thanks, Andrew! and you're right, it is kinda dull) open the CIS football season Monday at home against McMaster (2 p.m. up on the windswept edge of the world), so once again it's okay to start painting your face red and white and yelling "Tentanda Via" around town. Really, it is. Go to it, kids (Thanks to regular John Richardson for the link. Go Axemen!).

Watching. There's Cat Power on Monday night at Lee's. Okay, as far as TV, a look-in on Sunday's world hoops final (6:30 a.m., Raptors TV) and the latest chapter of the Damon Allen Show (Monday, 6 p.m., CBC) is pretty much the only thing on the PVR as I'm resting up for youknowwho.

Punters corner. We're a week away from the first full Sunday of youknowwhat, so like I said, it's rest time. Save your loonies. Have a fine weekend. See you the first day of fall.

 

Leafs largesse

Now that the Leafs have signed up their top two defencemen who led them all the way to ninth place in the conference this season for the bargain basement price of $10 million a year, there's only one thing to say: Bring on the weekend!

Is Bryan McCabe worth it? Are any of these pro athletes 'worth it'? That's not a debate. It's a dunking tank.

Anyway, I'm tired and crabby. After all that dunking, let's put away these wet things lying around the desktop and go home and get into a dry martini.

One last read. As anyone who grew up collecting cards, stickers, or Beehive Corn Syrup photos and tokens knows, it can get kind of difficult to get 'em all. Now consumers in England are up in arms about World Cup stickers:

With 17 football stars from each of the 32 teams to find, plus a team photograph, a badge and pictures of the stadiums, it could cost more than £100 to complete one album.
Collectors all over the world are logging on to website forums trying to find someone with whom to swap surplus stickers. Some are complaining that they have a huge surplus of some players while others are as rare as an England penalty shoot-out win. One calls them “a damn rip-off”.

£100? Isn't that, after conversion, about the price of an upper-deck ticket to a Leafs game? Before the McCabe deal, that is?

Breaking news. 'Encouraging news' on Wayne Rooney's foot has the Fiver singing in the pew:

And did that broken bone in ancient time
Run upon Carrington's training ground green?
And was the holy lamb of God
Kicking footballs with both feet seen?
(etc.)

Sports around town. Did we mention the World Cup is a week away? Let's play two with the Lynx: the Lady Lynx facing Vermont at 4 p.m. Sunday at Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke, followed by the Lynx men against Virginia Beach at 6 p.m.

Watching. England vs Jamaica, 10 a.m. Saturday, Sportsnet. I'm beginning to think England are going to win this World Cup, but I'm sure Sven Goran Eriksson will do something here to dissuade me from actually investing in that proposition.

Not watching. L.A. at New York WNBA, 4 p.m. Sunday, ABC. If those Americans don't watch the Stanley Cup playoffs, then we don't have to watch the WNBA. Um, come to think of it, they don't watch the WNBA either. 

Romario, Bargnani and Art

Time to pack it up around here, following an eventful week. And this just in from Centennial Stadium, where the Lynx are playing a morning match: Romario has scored. I'm guessing if it wasn't a toe poke, it was a penalty. Bully for him. Now on to some real scoring.

One last read. This was a big week in Raptorland. Here's Dave Feschuk's fine read on how he figures all this Bargnani talk is just a smokescreen -- well, 'tis the season. What stopped me here -- what was a really big stop sign, actually -- was this bit:

Colangelo tried awfully hard to make it known that the Raptors like him more than anybody else on the shortlist. The GM mentioned that Sam Mitchell, the Raptors coach, and Wayne Embry, a senior executive, were jetting to see Bargnani play on the Continent this week. He mentioned that Larry Tanenbaum, the club chairman, had taken in one of Bargnani's games at Colangelo's urging. And he mentioned — surely only in passing — that the man with whom he is in talks to hire as an assistant, Maurizio Gherardini, is the top executive with the club, Benetton Treviso, that owns Bargnani's contract.

I guess if you own the team, even just a portion of it, you can do what you want. But isn't this where Colangelo is supposed to be left alone to do the job? Any owner scouting makes me shudder. An MLSE owner scouting is even worse.

One last look. Matthew McGough on the art of sport:

The art critic Dave Hickey builds his essay ''The Heresy of Zone Defense" (published in his 1997 collection ''Air Guitar") around another such moment of transcendent athletic beauty: Julius Erving driving baseline in the 1980 NBA Finals, veering though the air around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, under the backboard, and then, somehow, reaching back under the glass for a reverse layup. After the game, Magic Johnson joked that the Lakers weren't sure at the time whether to inbound the ball or ask Erving to do it again.
''Everyone who cares about basketball knows this play," Hickey writes, and it's true: Even for sports fans like myself who were merely toddlers in 1980, the words ''Dr. J" and ''reverse layup" are sufficient to summon the precise mental image.
Hickey attributes the universal joy inspired by Erving's play to the fact that it ''was at once new and fair": within the rules of the game invented in 1891 by James Naismith, and yet impossible for Naismith (or anyone else, for that matter) to have anticipated until Dr. J actually pulled it off. The relationship between fair play and aesthetic appreciation may also explain why replays of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's record-setting 1998 home run chase felt breathtaking just a few years ago but now seem to have lost their capacity to inspire strong feelings.

Breaking news. No results in yet, but the Australian finals of the World Air Guitar Championships are today. Okay, some real news: Michael Ballack, following on this morning's WM Post, will miss Germany's friendly against Luxembourg due to a sore ankle.

Sports around town. The baseball Maple Leafs are off to a 4-1 start and host Stratford in an Intercounty League game, Sunday at 2 p.m. at Christie Pits.

Watching. The Memorial Cup final, Sunday, 4 p.m. A national championship on the line, Patrick Roy's Quebec Remparts against the winner of tonight's Moncton-Vancouver semifinal. I'm hoping it's Moncton for the home ice crowd, and the simmering back and forth between Roy and Ted Nolan.

Not watching. The Sopranos, off for a week before next Sunday's season finale (and judging from last week, all-out war is about to break loose).

From Braves to Clippers

As we head into a lonnngggggg weekend, a jump forward -- all the way to Monday, and the first Game 7 in LA Clippers history.

Braves vs. Knicks, 1974, Maple Leaf Gardens.

It's the franchise's first Game 7 in 31 years -- since it was in Buffalo, playing as the Braves and making the drive up on the QEW for 15 regular season games over the course of two mid-1970s seasons.

A little trip down memory lane, if you will, back to the days of bell bottoms and platform shoes (including a pair of silver and black ones about three feet tall in the window of Master John's on Yonge St. that my barely-teenaged buddies and I would stand in front of, staring and dreaming) ... to the Braves and the Knicks, playing at the Gardens. Randy Smith against Walt Frazier. Ernie D and the Pearl. Buffalo Bob McAdoo. Bob Weiss. Jack Ramsay in a polyester leisure suit.

The ticket pictured, taken from an old scrapbook of mine, was to a 119-97 Buffalo win over the reigning champion Knicks in February, 1974 (I had to look it up to get the score). The Star's report the next day, while the city mourned the death of Tim Horton in a car accident on the QEW going back to Buffalo a couple of days before, included a sidebar of some note:

Harold Ballard, president of Maple Leaf Gardens, says he has the inside track to a National Basketball Association franchise in Toronto for the 1976 season.
Yesterday, he met for several hours with Ned Irish, president of New York Knicks, and a member of the NBA expansion committee.
(snip)
"I'm sure we can increase the attendance for NBA games next year with greater promotion."

I don't remember much of this game, except that Frazier was a must-see, my favourite player of the era and the co-author of a book that solidified his position as the coolest athlete of the era. But it was the Braves who were, for a brief time, our team. They were a fun team, too, McAdoo one of the purest scorers I've ever seen and Smith lightning-quick, maybe the league's finest player you've never heard of, as David Neiman noted this week in the Washington Post:

Smith, a quiet 57-year-old, has faded into virtual anonymity. The front desk operator at the Mohegan Sun Casino, where Smith now works as the director of player development, was unaware he had been in the NBA.
"There's a Randy Smith here," said a woman who identified herself as Lenore. "I don't know if he was a professional basketball player or not."

Toronto's always had a basketball hardcore, and a generation-plus ago this was how you got your fix -- long droughts punctuated by the odd exhibition game, or the Braves' brief encampments, television, and intermittent pronouncements like the one by Ballard that got your hopes up, but proved to be false alarms. Toronto waited 22 more years for the Raptors. I was too young to drive down to Detroit or the Aud in Buffalo - that came later, and by then the Braves were gone to San Diego, and from there finally to L.A. Smith was there every step, though you'd never know it now:

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Buffalo Bob goes baseline.

Smith has not been contacted by Los Angeles one time in the more than two decades since he set so many team records. He made efforts to get in touch with the organization, even speaking with owner Donald Sterling at a past all-star game. Nothing came of it.
A Clippers spokesman declined when asked to comment about whether the team had made any effort to connect with past players.
"I've even tried going back, because they were my team," Smith said. "I would talk to a few people in management there, but to no avail. So I just stopped."

One more link to the past is completed on Monday. For Braves fans with long memories, you'd think the Clippers would be the team to cheer for. But for Toronto's small crowd of Braves fans, that's Steve Nash out there for Phoenix. It's a tough call, but I'll stick with the original hunch: Suns in 7.

Programming note. If you're wondering about when that game will be played Monday, pay attention to tonight's results: If Dallas and San Antonio goes to a Game 7, it'll be shown Monday night at 8, and the Suns-Clippers broadcast would start at 10:30 (groan!). But if the Mavericks sans Jason Terry win tonight, that series is over and the Suns-Clippers would go at 9 p.m. Monday.

Watching. Detroit at Cleveland (7 p.m., TSN), San Antonio at Dallas (9:30 p.m., the Score). Tonight's doubleheader should be gripping, and leaves open the possibility of as many as THREE Game 7's on tap this weekend as the NBA's best playoff season in years rolls on.

Not watching. Watford at Leeds, Sunday, 10 a.m. I'd love to watch this, the promotion final with the winner going up to the riches of the Premier League and the loser sinking back to the despair of fizzy pop. But it's only available on pay-per-view. Shame.

Vee Have Vays of Making you Smile

Lots have happened this week: a new soccer team, a new Leafs coach, Rawk the Puck!

All good things must end, though, so it's the Friday roundup, folding in today's Weldpokal post because it's been so crazy busy.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Heidi Klum: Obeying orders.

One Two last read(s). Couple of things, actually. First, Cathal Kelly in the Star columnizes on Germany's smile offensive, in what was going to be that Weldpokal post:

Germans have come under intense pressure from their government to improve their people skills in advance of the tournament. On the G-rated front, bus drivers have received instructional CDs aimed at teaching them basic English. This may not be necessary since Der Spiegel recently reassured visitors that all Germans speak a little English, even if they claim not to. The article ran under the headline, "Those lying Germans."

And although it's almost a week old, it's hard not to resist Slate magazine's Sam Anderson writing "On the Pleasure of Hating Kobe Bryant":

For all his miraculous skills, Kobe is painfully bad at mythmaking. Since he's a Jordan-like talent, Kobe clearly thinks that he's entitled to the Jordan mythology, but he doesn't have any of Jordan's charisma or imagination. As melodramatic and managed as Jordan's career was, there was some authentic core—it was original and seemed to mean something. Kobe exists entirely within quotation marks.

Breaking news. Justin Gatlin sets a 100-metre world record, and some goof is suing the LA Angels because he didn't get a tote bag at a Mother's Day giveaway last year.

Sports around town. Race of the week goes out in the suburbs. It's the Mississauga Marathon and Half Marathon on Sunday morning. The 10K, which I can vouch for as a fine race, goes Saturday night.

Miguel Angel Jimenez. JABS' official golfer is in the thick of it at the British Masters.

Watching. Sabres at Senators, Saturday, 7 p.m., CBC. If only for a few minutes, I'd like to see a split screen with this game on one side, and the Sabres-Stars final of a few years back on the other. It'd be like putting a DVD up against an 8-track.

Not watching. The FA Cup. I know it doesn't mean as much as it used to, but - the least they could've done was put it on cable.