THE ELEVATOR

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.

Who's headed toward the penthouse on the local sports scene - and who's getting the shaft.

GOING UP

Jim Schlossnagle

OK, so he basically ran the "335 Club," the unofficial UNLV baseball fan club, out of town by erecting a wall down the left-field line blocking its view. But every time the former UNLV baseball coach wins a Mountain West baseball title at Texas Christian University, it serves to remind Rebels' baseball fans - all nine of 'em - what might have been had he stayed around.

Las Vegas Gladiators

Yeah, I know our football-in-a-can team didn't play last weekend. But at least it didn't lose. And the week before, when the Gladiators shocked the world by beating the Utah Whatstheirnames for their second victory of the season, I was on vacation.

Elena Gantcheva and Kristina Nedeltcheva

The UNLV women's doubles team upset the nation's third-ranked duo en route to making it to the round of 16 in the NCAA women's tennis tournament. "Elena and Kristina will go down as one of, if not the, best doubles team UNLV has had," their coach Kevin Cory said. Gantcheva and Nedeltcheva finished a 24-4 season with more aces than Johnny Chan.

GOING DOWN

Steve Yeager

The former Dodgers catcher and Las Vegas 51s hitting instructor survived a life-threatening accident this month when he crashed his car while driving home from a Class A game in San Bernardino, Calif., where he has reprised his hitting coach role. Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, who tutored under Yeager here and at Double-A Jacksonville, visited with him at Dodger Stadium last week and said his former mentor is happy to be alive - but still won't talk about posing nude for "Playgirl" during his playing days.

NFL pinheads

The Indianapolis Colts and the NFL turned down an offer from the PDM race team to adorn Jimmy Kite's Indy 500 race car with "Go Colts" decals, saying it would violate a league policy prohibiting cross-promotion between sports. "I'm extremely upset with the narrow-minded, pinheaded leadership of the Colts' team and the NFL," said Paul Diatlovich, whose race car is numbered 18, same as the Colts' Peyton Manning, who dropped the green flag Sunday. As it turned out, the Colts had nothing to worry about because Kite's car was too slow to make the field. But the NFL is still a bunch of pinheads.

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