Oh, the memories

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008 | 2 a.m.

PEOPLE

Elvis Presley, Jan. 14

I have a friend who insists there were at least a dozen movies made in the 1960s starring Elvis Presley as a race car driver named Rick.

But the truth is that in the 33 movies in which he swiveled his hips, Elvis never played a race car driver named Rick.

He did, however, play race car drivers named Mike, Steve and Lucky.

Elvis first climbed behind the wheel in 1964 as Lucky Jackson in “Viva Las Vegas,” the Indianapolis 500 of Elvis racing flicks filmed on location in Southern Nevada. The “plot”: Elvis arrives for the big grand prix with engine problems that are cured when he falls in love with Ann-Margret which sure beats paying the Fram oil filters guy now or later.

In 1966, Elvis was cast as the dashing Mike McCoy in “Spinout.” He stars as the reigning champion and heartthrob of the racing circuit as three women Deborah Walley, Shelley Fabares and Diane McBain compete to strip his gears. Alas, Elvis winds up setting up all three of the beauties with his buddies so he can remain single and race cars with Carl Betz. Somewhere in a garage in North Carolina, NASCAR’s Jimmy Spencer is wondering why Jeff Gordon couldn’t have been more like Elvis.

In the third “jewel” of Elvis’ auto racing triple crown, he dons the greasy coveralls as Steve Grayson in 1968’s “Speedway.” In this one, he must lap the entire field at least four or five times to win the first-place check that will keep Eddie’s Father (Bill Bixby, cast as his manager) out of the clutches of a winsome IRS agent played by Nancy Sinatra. These boots were made for passin’ on the high side.

Elvis would have been 73 last week, which means had he lived, he could still be winning races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

Bishop Gorman’s girls basketball team, Jan. 22

Sporting a tailored black leather jacket, black slacks, black heels and an absolutely chic frosted blond hairdo, Sheryl Krmpotich does not look like most high school girls basketball coaches.

In fact, when the light’s just right and she places her hands on her hips and cocks her head at just the right angle, she sort of looks like Victoria Beckham — aka Posh Spice of the Spice Girls. Which is exactly what some of the Bishop Gorman parents were calling her during Friday night’s game against Durango.

Krmpotich exudes a certain style and panache, but then so do her players. They are not only the best team in the state, they are one of the best teams in the nation. At least they were, until they started spanning the globe to find the constant variety of sport and somebody who could give them a game.

Bob Knight, Feb. 6

I like Bob Knight. In my profession, that’s like one admitting he likes soccer.

I like Bob Knight because I grew up in Indiana, although just barely. You could walk to the Chicago city limits from the house I grew up in, but I would advise against it because there always were some unsavory-looking characters hanging around the cigarette shacks and liquor stores that formed a citadel on the state line.

I didn’t graduate from Indiana but I cheered for the Hoosiers, because Northwestern was terrible, my dad cheered for Purdue and my buddies cheered for Notre Dame. I wanted to be different. I guess I could have cheered for DePaul, which would have been different, but Ray Meyer’s teams didn’t play defense like Bob Knight’s teams. I like defense — because it wins championships. Plus, a college campus should have grass on it. DePaul’s had “L” tracks.

I like Bob Knight, although I’m not a big fan of chair throwing or choke holding (except at pro wrestling matches) or questionable advice, such as “if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

But I do believe in discipline, going to class and loyalty that is unconditional. And I like Bob Knight because there is a human side to him that ESPN rarely documents, because acts involving kindness and compassion don’t generate ratings like acts involving fire and brimstone.

Lon Kruger, Feb. 12

Remember that “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer puts a severed little toe on ice in a Cracker Jack box and foils an armed robbery attempt on a city bus and then jumps behind the wheel when the driver faints and continues to make all the stops because the passengers keep ringing the bell?

“You’re Batman,” George Costanza told his eccentric pal.

That reminds me of Lon Kruger.

I have yet to see the UNLV basketball coach drive a bus to the hospital so somebody’s little toe could be reattached. But the part about making all the stops? I have seen him do that.

Coaching the Rebels is a full-time job, but if there’s a sporting event, speaking engagement, charity appearance, lodge meeting or ice cream social (as long as it’s fat-free vanilla — doctor’s orders after his heart bypass surgery) that might benefit from his appearance, he’ll find a way to get there.

One of these nights, I’m sure I’m going to look up in the sky and see Kruger’s media guide picture silhouetted in a beam of light across the cloudy evening sky.

The Lon Signal.

How else can he get to all the places he gets to and still coach the Rebels to two dozen wins every year?

Kevin Hart, Feb. 13

Once upon a time there was this high school kid who did a number of foolish things. One of these was stripping down to his tube socks and running through the back streets of his hometown as if his hair were on fire. Another was standing up an old girlfriend two hours before the senior prom. And then there was the time he got arrested ... for loitering.

Maybe these random acts of idiocy weren’t quite as grievous as Kevin Hart, that big kid from Fernley, lying in front of the student body about receiving a full ride to play college football at California. But I sure could have used that hat he put on at the news conference when the local cops caught me and my buddies with our pants down.

Sure, Hart told a heck of a fib. Geppetto would have had to make two trips to his woodshed to carve this Pinocchio-like fairy tale. Hart had this story and he was sticking to it, because when you get knee-deep in the ... um, deception, sometimes it’s hard to come clean. Or get it off your shoes.

Just ask Roger Clemens.

Joe Louis, Feb. 19

Hard by the betting windows at the Race and Sports Book at Caesars Palace stands a statue of the great Joe Louis chiseled from Carrara marble.

It is the same stone Michelangelo used to carve his famous “Pieta.” The alabaster likeness of boxing’s Brown Bomber is one of the biggest conversation pieces on the property.

It stands 7-feet tall, about a foot and a half taller than the man himself. But then, that is as it should be — Joe Louis, larger than life.

Louis, considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, heavyweight champion of all time, is the subject of a new HBO Sports documentary titled “Joe Louis: America’s Hero. Betrayed.”

It debuts Saturday as the lead-in to the Wladimir Klitschko vs. Sultan Ibragimov fight, for which those guys owe HBO a huge favor, because it’s the only time they ever will be mentioned in the same sentence as Joe Louis.

The Rebels, March 23

Because Clark Kellogg and Jay Bilas are back in the studio making bad predictions, we’ll let somebody who knows just as much about college basketball — the late singer-songwriter Jim Croce — summarize UNLV’s second-round NCAA Tournament game against Kansas on Saturday at the Qwest Center:

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull on the mask of the ol’ Lone Ranger. And you don’t mess around with the Kansas Jayhawks.

Even if you do have a custom-made two-piece pool cue, which the Rebels don’t.

You don’t climb Everest with a swizzle stick, you don’t win the Indy 500 driving a Volkswagen, you don’t play Mozart on a kazoo, you don’t paint Whistler’s Mother with a color by numbers set.

Anyway, you get the idea. Maybe last year, when the Rebels shot, rebounded and blocked the basketball better, they could have given mighty Kansas a game at another one of its homes away from home. Not this year. It was too much to ask.

John Mastalir, April 3

John Mastalir loves the symphony and old black and white movies starring Lee Marvin as the bad guy, has been known to patronize the ballet and, on the day after this interview, drove to Death Valley because he heard the desert flowers were in bloom.

Oh yeah, and he’s been a baseball umpire for 50 years.

Baseball umpires are supposed to be gruff and tough. They should have nicknames like “Shag” or “Jocko” or “Beans.” They should chew tobacco and cuss a lot.

Mastalir will use the occasional swear word, especially if it’s about a particular local college baseball coach who traditionally gave him a hard time. But he has never had a beer. Nor a cup of coffee. He served in Vietnam, but never did drugs. He speaks softly but does not carry a big stick. He carries black licorice. Each coach gets some during the exchange of lineup cards. “It puts the situation at ease,” Mastalir says.

As for gruff and tough? Well, “tomorrow I’m driving out to Death Valley to see the flowers and see the birds.”

Thoughtful and introspective, maybe. But not gruff and tough.

Mastalir has been calling balls and strikes for half a century. Fifty years. That’s a lot of infield flies, if fair. A lot of verbal abuse.

That’s like sitting in the front row at Don Rickles for the entire two-week engagement.

Stephen Strasburg, April 21

The first thing I noticed about Stephen Strasburg was that he wasn’t wearing a hiking boot. Or playing the French horn.

After reading that Strasburg, a sophomore pitcher at San Diego State, had struck out 23 batters in a Mountain West Conference game against Utah last weekend, I figured that Sidd Finch, heretofore only a figment of George Plimpton’s imagination, had come to life and was warming up in the left-field bullpen.

In 1985 Plimpton crafted a famous story in Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets rookie named Sidd Finch, who wore a heavy hiking boot when he pitched and could hit 168 mph on a radar gun but was torn between playing baseball and the French horn. The story was published on April Fool’s Day and was a hoax, at least until last weekend, when “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch,” or something quite like it, came to life in a frenzy of swinging and missing like few had ever seen.

When was the last time somebody punched out 23 batters in a baseball game? The most Nolan Ryan had was 19. Roger Clemens made it to 20 twice, Kerry Wood once. Bugs Bunny once struck out the side against the Gashouse Gorillas with one pitch, pasting those pathetic palookas with his powerful, paralyzing, perfect pachydermous percussion pitch. But, as I recall, Bugs came out of the bullpen.

Even Tatum O’ Neal, in “The Bad News Bears,” needed defensive help from Timmy Lupus in right field to record the final out.

Greg Haugen, May 16

About 20 miles south of Seattle, at the confluence of the Green and White rivers in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains, sits Auburn, Wash., pop. 65,000. It’s one of those quaint emerald towns in the Pacific Northwest that, after driving through, you could see yourself living there.

Auburn is the hometown of Greg Haugen, the former world champion boxer, listed by Wikipedia as Auburn’s second-most-famous native behind Christine Gregoire, the governor of the Evergreen State. The Green River Killer, Gary Leon Ridgway, is No. 6.

Greg Haugen just might be my favorite fighter ever, not because he threw punches like old Buicks throw engine rods and had more courage than a division of Marines (his dad was one), but because one day when I was driving to work, and the morning disc jockeys on KKLZ were making fun of him for testing positive for a substance that wasn’t Gatorade, he called them on the phone and said he was coming down to the station to whip both of their rear ends.

Only he didn’t say rear ends.

Cael Sanderson, June 14

If there’s an equivalent of the cover of the Rolling Stone for athletes, it would have to be the front of a Wheaties box. I mean, how cool is that, having your picture plastered on that orange box, right under the words “The Breakfast of Champions”?

But you can’t eat the Wheaties box, only what’s inside, and after the thrill of seeing your mug on the front of the box wears off, chances are, at some point, you’re gonna want a sandwich.

At least with the Rolling Stone, you could keep getting richer, even if you couldn’t get your picture on the cover of the magazine. Or so said Dr. Hook.

It doesn’t work like that in amateur wrestling.

Cael Sanderson was the first amateur wrestler to grace the front of a Wheaties box. All it took was a 159-0 record in college and an Olympic gold medal. But you can’t eat a gold medal, either. So when Sanderson wanted a sandwich, he became the head coach at Iowa State, his alma mater.

Sun Ming Ming, July 3

One of my favorite basketball quotes is about George McGinnis, the old Indiana Pacer.

“McGinnis’ hands are so big he can palm Sunday,” somebody said.

I don’t know who said it. Maybe Al McGuire, because it just sounds like something the old Marquette coach would say.

But whoever said it has never seen Sun Ming Ming play basketball.

Sun is a walking solar eclipse. He stands 7-foot-9. That’s a lot of inches, centimeters or cun, which is how they measure people — at least most people — in China. Sun Ming Ming is 3 inches taller than countryman Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets. I didn’t think that was possible.

That is until Tuesday, when I watched Sun try out for the BJ League, which is to the Japanese Basketball League what the ABA was to the NBA. Only without the giant Afros and teams with crazy names, like The Floridians. (Although the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix are working on it.)

During the first half of the game at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy, about all Sun did was trot up and down the court. It wasn’t exactly like watching Baryshnikov pirouette. Alexander Wolff, the esteemed basketball writer who owns the Vermont Frost Heaves of the new ABA, one of several minor leagues in which the 24-year-old Sun plays, said the big guy changes direction with the suddenness of a cruise ship.

That is now my second-favorite basketball quote.

Josh Davis, July 16

According to the song, Johnny Cash had been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla and Padilla.

He’s been everywhere, man.

When it comes to seeing the world from the back of a bus, he has Josh Davis beat. But only by a little.

In the NBA alone, the former Mountain West player of the year from the University of Wyoming has set screens in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Houston and Phoenix. He has blocked out in Boise, where he was the Most Valuable Player of the born-again Continental Basketball Association, after Isiah Thomas wrecked it. He has scored on putback baskets at Jesi in Italy, Leon in Spain, Moscow in Russia and Kiev in the Ukraine.

Last week, he played for Indiana in the Orlando Summer League. This week, he’s playing for Portland in the Vegas Summer League.

Have Guns — Davis’ upper body is more defined than when he played for Steve McClain — Will Travel.

Junior varsity bowlers, Sept. 25

A revision in the scoring of high school bowling matches means the third game will become more important and fewer junior varsity bowlers probably will get to roll. Though I’ve got nothing against JV bowlers, I find the fact they are in the middle of a dispute somewhat amusing.

“There are always going to be ways to get junior varsity bowlers experience,” one of the coaches said.

Getting them a prom date, however, may prove a little more difficult.

California drag racing fans, Nov. 3

People from California love drag racing. People as in men and women.

I saw a lot of women wearing halter tops that were more snug than the blower belt in John Force’s Funny Car. I didn’t check IDs, but you could tell they were from California, too. They had bushy-bushy blond hairdos, and I’ll just leave it at that.

The National Hot Rod Association held its first race on a tract of real estate adjacent to the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The Winternationals were born. When guys like John Milner and Bob Falfa weren’t tearing up the county roads on the outskirts of town in their deuce coupes and ’55 Chevies like in “American Graffiti,” they went to the Fairgrounds, where the cops didn’t mind.

Now in its fifth decade, the NHRA is the world’s largest motor sports sanctioning body. It has 80,000 members, 140 member tracks and more than 35,000 gearheads — er, licensed competitors. It has a schedule of 24 Nationals, ripping down the quarter-mile in places from Englishtown, N.J., where Bruce Springsteen’s pals raced their Chevrolets from the fire roads to the interstate; to Alligator Alley (or close enough) in Florida; to Brainerd, Minn., where, if you don’t watch out, police chief Marge Gunderson will getcha you betcha — especially if you’re driving in from Fargo.

But to me, California was, is and always will be the best place to watch cars race in a straight line, if for no other reason than halter-top season doesn’t last very long in Minnesota.

Paulo Crimber, Nov. 8

Paulo Crimber sat on a bull.

Paulo Crimber had a big spill.

Actually he had a lot of big spills — four in a nine-month period on the Built Ford Tough Professional Bull Riders circuit.

Now all the king’s horses and all the king’s men — not to mention his doctors — are having trouble putting Paulo back together again.

He’s not riding in the PBR finals, which run through Sunday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

In fact, he may never ride again.

I came across Crimber’s name while scanning the standings before the finals. His was the only one that had an asterisk beside it.

“See Agent,” it said.

Actually, it said “See Injuries,” in bright red letters.

“See Agent” is what it says on the “Arrivals” screen at the airport when a plane goes down.

Crimber only feels like he’s been in a plane crash after suffering a series of injuries that can be described only as cruel and unusual punishment, even in a sport that specializes in it.

J-Mac, Nov. 19

I’ve got a bone to pick with J-Mac. You remember him, that autistic kid who scored 20 points in four minutes after coming off the bench as a student manager in a high school basketball game in upstate New York a couple of years ago.

I TiVo’d the ESPN highlights of that incredible performance and put a “Do Not Erase” tag on it. Now, every time people come over to the house, like at Thanksgiving, my wife makes me show them J-Mac’s video — and I’m moved to tears all over again.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand on Thanksgiving, it’s yams. If there’s a second thing I can’t stand, it’s crying in front of my wife’s Crazy Uncle Sid when J-Mac starts draining 3’s from another area code.

Mike Johnson (and Levi), Dec. 13

The bond between a man and his dog is so strong that Thomas Mann, the German Nobel laureate, wrote a novella about it.

The bond between a man and his horse is even more intense, National Finals Rodeo cowboy Mike Johnson says.

Johnson, 44, has qualified for 23 consecutive NFRs in the tie-down roping event. He has never won the gold buckle. Been close a bunch of times. Never won. Doesn’t talk about it much.

Levi, 14, has qualified for nine consecutive NFRs in tie-down roping. He has never won the gold buckle, either. Talks about it even less.

Levi is Mike Johnson’s horse.

They’re like Roy Rogers and Trigger, the Lone Ranger and Silver, Wilbur Post and Mister Ed. They’re virtually inseparable, except when traveling on the circuit. Then Levi’s in the back of the trailer and Mike’s up front, behind the wheel.

In Texas, you dance with the one that brung ya,’ especially during football season.

In Oklahoma, you ride him.

That’s just the way it is between a man and his horse.

PLACES

Green Valley High Theatre, Jan. 11

So I’m sitting in the back of the Green Valley High theater listening to some guy from Ohio describe random drug testing of high school athletes molecule by molecule when a giant 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew pops up on the PowerPoint presentation screen. And the guy from Ohio says with a face straighter than a county road in West Texas that student-athletes should not try to substitute Mountain Dew for their urine specimen because if they do, they will get popped faster than a balloon in a thumbtack factory.

Quick, somebody call Roger Clemens before it’s too late.

Section 229, Thomas & Mack Center, Jan. 17

The game was still scoreless when somebody who might have been BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari launched what might have been a 25-foot jump shot. Because from a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, or however far it is from Section 229, Row H, at the Thomas & Mack Center to the court below, a college basketball game looks a lot like the approach to Kansas City International Airport.

Somewhere down there you know there is life, but all you can see is a grid pattern and the occasional silo.

The new Rancho High baseball field, Jan. 24

P-I-I-I-N-G!

For my money, the sound of horsehide meeting composite aluminum will never equal the sound of horsehide meeting northern white ash. But you could tell by the way it resonated from foul pole to foul pole before settling in that place near the top of your spine that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up that Mike Villa, as those old baseball announcers were fond of saying, got all of this one.

The ball rose on a majestic arc and eventually landed beyond the right-field fence on 21st Street, where it caromed around the fourplexes that serve as the batter’s eye at Rancho High’s new baseball field.

No can o’ corn, this. It was a leadoff home run.

What a way to start a ballgame!

After Villa had touched ’em all, somebody from ranchoalumni.org began handing out green buttons with a white ram’s head in the middle. As souvenirs of the inaugural alumni baseball game celebrating Rancho’s proud baseball tradition go, a commemorative button was better than a sore arm or a pulled hamstring.

But it was nowhere near as cool as the baseball somebody was going to find some 400 feet from home plate when he came home from work Monday night.

Thomas & Mack press room, March 13

Moments after his team upset Wyoming during brunch on Wednesday — the game started at the absolutely weird hour of 11 a.m. — Tim Miles, the preppy-looking coach of the Colorado State men’s basketball team, was asked to make an introductory remark at the postgame news conference.

“Now I know how McGovern felt when he lost 35 straight states before winning Minnesota,” Miles said after the Rams snapped a 17-game losing streak with a 68-63 victory over archrival Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference play-in game at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Miles, who had been grinning from ear to ear, briefly frowned when the stoic media did not chuckle at his best attempt to produce a sound bite.

I think he actually was referring to Walter Mondale, who carried Minnesota and the District of Columbia and that was about it against Ronald Reagan in 1984, and not George McGovern, who was boat-raced almost as badly by Richard Nixon in 1968, winning just Massachusetts and D.C. Maybe that’s why the media didn’t get it.

Or it could have been because the audio feed in the interview room sounded like the drive-up window at Carl’s Jr.

But, most likely, it was because it was a little past 1 and the press was hungry, because they weren’t serving free lunch.

Omaha, March 24

Greetings from Omaha. When I arrived last night, Omaha was closed. You cannot get anything to eat or drink in Omaha at 1:50 a.m. The bars close at 1 a.m. So do the 7-Elevens. (I will never make fun of Boulder City again.) The only thing you get at 1:50 a.m. in Omaha is a cab from the airport.

But don’t forget the ear muffs.

Hold on. Father Flanagan just walked by chomping on a steak sandwich and I gotta ask him where he got it.

Sunset Station Race and Sports Book, May 5

It was about 2 o’clock when I walked into Sunset Station Saturday for the Kentucky Derby. The race and sports book already was starting to buzz.

It might have been because “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” were less than an hour away. Or it might have been because Dee Dee, the mint julep girl, already had refilled her ginormous tank five times.

In the front of the sports book, horse racing fans were lined up four and five deep to place their bets. In the back of the book, horse racing fans were lined up four and five deep to help Dee Dee empty her tank.

“How many can we have?” said a matronly woman who talked like a Georgia football fan. Like most Georgia football fans, she wanted to make sure she received her limit.

Usually, the ingredients of a mint julep are sugar, water, mint, crushed ice and Kentucky bourbon. The ones Dee Dee was pouring also included a dash of Cointreau, a brand of triple sec liqueur. At least that’s what she said. And what the heck was she doing with that can of Sierra Mist?

“Oooh, that’s strong,” said the matronly woman, recoiling after taking a swig of what was in Dee Dee’s tank.

That Sierra Mist has a way of creepin’ up on ya’.

Cincinnati, May 29

C’mon, Las Vegas. We’re not going to let Jerry Springer and Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods beat us, are we?

Jerry Springer used to be the mayor of Cincinnati; Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods one of its major music acts (but not as major as the Isley Brothers or Bootsy Collins of Funkadelic fame).

Today’s catchphrase: Billy don’t be a hero. But can we sell you a couple of playoff tickets in the mezzanine?

The Cyclones (that would be the Queen City’s ECHL hockey team) hosted the Wranglers (that would be ours) in the first two games of the Kelly Cup finals on Saturday and Sunday night.

The turnout was impressive. And it wasn’t even Joe Morgan bobblehead night.

Cincinnati is sort of a major league city, at least if you count the Reds as major league, which might explain why the minor league Cyclones were one of the least-watched teams in the ECHL this season despite their fabulous 55-12-5 record.

A roller derby track in northwest Las Vegas, June 16

It was about 4 p.m. on that windy Wednesday when the pilot of Southwest Airlines flight 2001 originating in San Diego landed the Boeing 737 in which I was riding in the manner of a bank shot in billiards. The wind was so bad he had to use three cushions on the runway to bring the big bird to a grinding halt. But he managed, and the opinion of all on board was that it was a heck of a job, even if the landing gear now resembled a Slinky.

“I’m glad I’m not playing golf,” I thought after my carry-on bag tumbled from the overhead compartment, crushing the makeshift rosary of peanut beads I had been nervously working as Otto Pilot did his stuff.

“Or roller derby.”

Actually, I didn’t think that, but it was true.

At roughly — and that’s putting it mildly — the same time our plane was bouncing across the runway two weeks ago, Lali Outhoummountry, the captain of the modern-day San Francisco Bay Bombers, heard her 6-year-old daughter scream.

Lanoe Outhoummountry had been playing in the back yard, near the high-banked roller derby track, one of the few that still exist.

“I ran to the back door when I heard her scream,” Lali Outhoummountry said. “And out of the corner of my eye I saw something coming, this dark wind with rubbish, that was spinning, like a tornado.”

The giant dust devil went right for the roller derby track. Outhoummountry said the boards started to writhe as the metal framework holding them together began to yield. The way she described it, it must have looked like that famous film clip of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge literally twisting in the wind.

One, twice, three times, she said of the track lifting and bending.

Then it just flipped over with a sickening splintering sound and died.

Then, and only then, did Mother Nature put her hands on her hips and call off the jam.

Koval Lane, June 19

If there’s a new Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Las Vegas’ Koval Lane may be it.

Rapper Tupac Shakur was gunned down at Koval and Flamingo Road after a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand; Brewer suffered a similar fate, stemming from an altercation at the Ice nightclub at Koval and Harmon. All that’s left of Ice now is the old facade and a sign hanging from it that says the piece of real estate on which it sits is being reserved for a future hotel-casino.

Continue across Flamingo and you’ll soon reach a T in the road where Koval intersects Winnick Avenue. That’s where they found Walker early Monday morning, looking like he had run one too many crossing patterns. He was beaten unconscious, the victim of an apparent robbery.

I went down there Wednesday morning to check out the crime scene, or at least the place where they found Walker after he had been filmed spraying Champagne on Las Vegas nightclub patrons. It didn’t exactly look like Dealey Plaza. Yes, there was a tour bus, but nobody was snapping pictures. Either the bus driver had made a wrong turn or had just left Imperial Palace through the back door.

That wouldn’t be the first time that happened.

Centennial Hills YMCA, July 1

On a hot Wednesday night, if you keep going on U.S. 95 north and make a left just before the Darkness on the Edge of Town (thanks, Boss) — and don’t zig where you should have zagged on the Frontage Road out there — you may discover the Centennial Hills YMCA. Then, if you make a hard left at the front desk and proceed down the brightly colored hall, to the Last Gymnasium on the Right, you also may discover the place where Hoop Dreams refuse to die.

This is where the little-known Las Vegas Stars of the equally little-known International Basketball League hoop it up from time to time.

This time, they are hooping it up against the Elgin Watches — er, Racers — from the Chicago suburbs.

Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” is playing during the game. The players, taking their cue from the music, I guess, are running up and down the court at Craig Breedlove speed. The basketball? It’s flying around like the monochrome blip in “Pong.”

Sometimes it goes in the hoop; a lot of times it doesn’t. The game continues at a whirlwind pace until the referee blows his whistle.

“Black ball,” he cries.

The game grinds to a halt. Players hesitate, not knowing what to do.

Both teams are wearing all-black uniforms.

NBA Summer League, July 14

A funny thing happened on the way to the mini-Forum — er, Cox Pavilion — Saturday afternoon.

A scalper approached and wanted to know if I had “any extras.”

Then a second one did the same thing.

And then a third.

“Hey Badge Man,” said the grinning fellow, who was sporting an unruly Afro and plaid shorts and sort of reminded me of former Golden State Warriors coach Al Attles. “Got any you don’t need?”

No. And I told him I didn’t have anything to do with the Kennedy Assassination; didn’t know Woody Harrelson’s old man; that, in fact, I was two time zones away from the grassy knoll and 6 years old when it happened. I told this proponent of the free enterprise system they gave me the badge when I started working for the newspaper.

“How much you want for it?” he said before we exchanged a laugh and a fist bump.

Scalpers at the NBA Summer League? Call the Warren Commission. This demands an investigation.

My living room sofa, July 17

So I’m sitting on the couch, in the 11th, 12th or 13th inning of the All-Star Game. I can’t be sure which inning it is because, like Tim McCarver in the booth, I’m nodding off. My wife, who has been pacing for 45 minutes — or roughly one extra inning — because she wants to watch some reality show where a woman tumbles over Niagara Falls with an arrow stuck in her back and lives to tell about it, strolls into the room to hear Joe Buck trying to explain what Ryan Ludwick of Las Vegas, UNLV and the St. Louis Cardinals is doing in the All-Star Game.

But Buck, like all the fans who went home early, really doesn’t seem into it, either, because he’s not exactly telling the story in chronological order, or at least is getting his modifiers out of whack. So when my wife walks in, all she hears is Joe Buck saying that Ludwick called his pregnant wife, Joanie, and says, “We did it!”

“I guess that was sort of obvious,” my wife says.

This is what I will remember most about the final All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. That Ryan Ludwick, a kid — make that a 30-year-old man — from Las Vegas made the All-Star Game, and Joe Buck, the son of a Hall of Fame broadcaster and one of the best in the business himself, couldn’t explain that development any better than the rest of us.

Bonanza High, July 29

It’s 8:15 a.m. and the Nike-sponsored Main Event is just starting to wipe the sleep from its eyes at the Bonanza High School gym, whose primary feature is faux wood paneling reminiscent of a hunting lodge. It’s just the type of place a couple of guys from Montana could relate to.

But Steve Silsby, the head coach at the University of Great Falls who slept at the Four Queens instead of on assistant Ron Riley’s couch — Great Falls is small, but not that small — thought the game started at 9 instead of 8. So they miss the team from San Diego finishing overtime with only four players, because two of its six have fouled out.

Now the Las Vegas Toritos and one of those teams from Indianapolis are running up and down the floor in a blur as a bunch of Big Ten assistant coaches and one from Central Michigan make notations on their roster sheets. And that guy wearing glass slippers with a swoosh on the side — isn’t that Jim Larranaga of George Mason?

If the Big Ten schools are looking at a kid, Silsby and Riley usually look elsewhere, because kids being recruited by Big Ten schools wouldn’t know Great Falls from Niagara Falls. So they head to the auxiliary gym at Bonanza, which smells like varnish and is about as well-ventilated as a construction worker’s boot.

San Bernardino, Calif., Aug. 14

If you get off the 215 freeway and head west on Highland Avenue in San Bernardino, Calif., you will eventually pass a classic carwash with giant pastel stanchions that twirl around in the wind. It looks just like the Car Wash they used in the 1976 movie, although, sad to say, George Carlin no longer is looking for the “tall black blonde” who skipped out on her taxi fare.

A couple of blocks beyond the carwash, on the left, is Mountain View Cemetery.

Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osbourne’s guitar player, is buried there.

So is Swede Savage, the race car driver.

I wasn’t much of a Randy Rhoads fan, although I kinda dig those riffs he played on “Crazy Train.”

Swede Savage, on the other hand, was one of my heroes. Come to think of it, he was probably the last one.

SWEDE SAVAGE, it says on the simple granite marker. The United States Auto Club logo is etched in stone under his name, with No. 42, his car number during most of his career.

I took off my cap, which seemed like the thing to do, and although I’m not exactly what you’d call a religious person, I said a little prayer, because that also seemed like the thing to do.

And when we drove back by the carwash, I couldn’t decide whether the reason I don’t have heroes anymore is because I got old or because sometimes it hurts.

High-school football sidelines, Sept. 10

There’s an old African proverb that states, “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”

If that’s the case, Sir Francis Drake and Popeye must have played high school football.

While the Clark kids were suffering a devastating defeat, across town LaQuan Phillips, a Green Valley High linebacker, was suffering a devastating injury. He left the field on a gurney, paralyzed from the neck down. On Sunday, he had surgery to remove the pressure on his spinal cord. It went well. On Monday, Phillips could move his fingers, move his toes.

Phillips was injured in the second quarter. At halftime Matt Gerber, the Green Valley coach, didn’t know what to tell his players. As a coach, he could tell them how to stop Centennial’s running game, or make an adjustment to pick up a blitz. But this was something different.

So he just told his players the truth — that LaQuan was injured and it appeared serious. Kids are funny that way. They can deal with the truth more easily than with somebody protecting them from it.

Sometimes, in football as in life, it’s not just about winning or losing.

Sometimes, it’s about becoming a better sailor.

Clint Malarchuk’s back porch, Oct. 11

Former Las Vegas Thunder goalie and fan favorite Clint Malarchuk accidentally shot himself in the chin Tuesday with a .22-caliber rifle at his home in Fish Springs in Douglas County.

Clint had been out back shooting rabbits when the gun went off and a bullet struck him instead of the varmints. When deputies arrived, Malarchuk was sitting on a bench, bleeding profusely from his chin and mouth — which, if you know Clint, is pretty normal.

He apparently was belligerent with paramedics, refusing treatment — which also is pretty normal for the former rodeo cowboy from Alberta, whose throat was once slashed open by a skate blade when minding the net for the Buffalo Sabres.

Denver, Oct. 27

The reason the Mountain West basketball tournaments returned to Las Vegas two years ago is because they tried playing them on a neutral court in Denver for the three years before.

In terms of an experiment, it was like putting a fly in one booth and Jeff Goldblum in the other, and throwing a gigantic lever.

Check that — there wasn’t enough electricity in the building for the switch in locales to mutate into anything, except an unmitigated disaster.

It was a Mile High air ball.

The Pepsi Center barely burped when the Mountain West came to town. The crowds left in the same taxi. When you could find one, that is. Were it not for Randy Holtz, a sports writer for the Rocky Mountain News, I wouldn’t even be here to recall what a disaster it was.

After the late session, the taxis stopped running. So did the media shuttles. The only things that were running were the noses of the collective Las Vegas sports media. Holtz packed some of us in his car. The others he just strapped to the luggage rack, because they were frozen solid. It was like Mr. Freeze had turned his ray gun on press row.

The poor San Diego guys never had a chance.

Home, Nov. 21

Glen Gondrezick wanted to show me what was in the box in the other living room chair. It was a hand-stitched quilt with sports symbols and religious verses. It had arrived in the intensive care unit at UCLA about the same time he did for a heart transplant.

It was from Corky and Bobbie Poole. Corky had been a student manager for UNLV’s first basketball team, in 1958. Fourteen years ago, according to the note that came with the quilt, he received a liver transplant, his second gift of life.

In a way, Gondo might have hoped his heart donor had been a poet laureate. At least that way maybe he could come up with the proper words to thank all of those who have been there for him throughout his ordeal, which actually began nine years ago, when he was diagnosed with heart disease. It was almost as if all of those prayers and well wishes and checks with signatures on them and $20 bills that people have sent to chip away at his mountain of medical bills were tucked inside with the batting.

“I’m thinking about having it framed,” Gondo said.

What was left unsaid is home is where that quilt is. Home is where loved ones await, where friends can sit on the sofa and drink a beer and watch a ballgame. Home is where a little dog named Gabby barks and barks and barks, so happy to see her daddy. Home is even a mess in the living room and an uneaten Pop-Tart in the toaster oven.

Home, Glen Gondrezick now knows more than ever, is where the heart is.

THINGS

Dakar Rally, Jan. 10

Part of the reason the Indianapolis 500 is known as “the ultimate test of man and machine” is that there are so many things that can put you out of the race.

Engine. Gearbox. Suspension. Ignition. Oil leak. Crash. Check Mario Andretti’s name in the box scores and you will find at least two of each under “Reason Out.”

You will not, however, find “Jihadist Suicide Bomber.”

The Dakar Rally, the granddaddy, mother and crazy uncle of off-road racing events all rolled into one, was canceled on extremely short notice — an hour before tech inspection — Friday. Intelligence reports revealed al-Qaida-backed terrorists had planned to attack somewhere along the treacherous 3,600-mile race route from Lisbon, Portugal, to Dakar, in the West African republic of Senegal.

The Democratic Caucus, Jan. 19

Sometimes late at night, when I am sitting alone in my sitting room after the third repeat of “SportsCenter,” I wish it was 1988 again, just so I could catch Jesus Jones in concert and caucus for Dukakis.

Actually, I don’t know if I actually would have caucused for Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor who represented the Democratic Party in the 1988 presidential election in the manner Hawaii represented college football have-nots in the Orange Bowl. But I do like saying it.

Caucus for Dukakis. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Pretty much the same thing.

But if you’re a sports fan, “caucus” is one of those words you should know the meaning of but probably don’t.

You can’t just say it’s something they do in Iowa every four years, because some people might think you are referring to the Hawkeyes beating either Michigan or Ohio State in football. And then when you get to the polling place you will probably cause a disturbance, because I have found that volunteers at polling places appreciate humor, or attempts at it, about as much as TSA agents at airport security.

February, Feb. 1

The frozen trees and dirty snow aren’t the only reasons to detest the second month of the year, especially if you are a sports fan with a high-definition TV set the size of Montana.

What about these?

• “Murray State wins the tip, and Eastern Illinois falls back into a 2-3 zone.”

• Because February made me shiver with every paper I delivered.

• Two words: Daytona qualifying.

• If you make the mistake of falling asleep during the Accenture Match Play Championship, some guy named Henrik Stenson is liable to win it.

• “Great Moments in Pro Bowl History.”

• Because some whimpering Lhasa apso most likely will win the nonsporting group at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show when your money is on the Tibetan spaniel.

• The huge disappointment you feel on tuning into the Winter X Games after putting the wife and kids to bed, only to discover that everybody’s wearing clothes.

A lot of clothes.

Daytona 500, Feb. 14

This is Daytona 500 weekend, which means even sports fans who don’t change their oil in the Checker Auto Parts parking lot might be tuning into NASCAR on TV.

My suggestion is that if you know somebody from North Carolina, invite him over, or else you’ll never be able to understand what Larry McReynolds is saying in the booth. Last year, he kept using words like “hisself,” which I immediately figured out, and “ohl,” which I didn’t, until midway through the race, when one of those lead foots who answers to Dale or Lee Roy “just spun hisself in his own ohl.”

For the record, there are two guys named Dale in the race but none named Lee Roy, although there ought to be, because if this is NASCAR, there needs to be a Lee Roy. Or a Buddy. But to show how mainstream NASCAR has become, there are four Daves, a Dario and a Jacques who will try to qualify, but not a single Lee Roy or Buddy. You can ask Larry McReynolds hisself.

Jocko Flocko, Feb. 25

If you were responsible for making NASCAR more interesting for say, a guy from Brooklyn or Queens, or Jack Hanna, Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and star of late night television, one idea you might consider is adding monkeys to the cars as co-drivers.

But it won’t work. At least it didn’t in 1953.

Well, actually, it worked for a while for Tim Flock, who a month before his death in 1998 was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers.

On May 15, 1953, Flock and his co-pilot, a rhesus monkey, teamed up to win a Grand National Race at Hickory, N.C.

Jocko Flocko, which is what Flock called his racing sidekick, thus became the first and only monkey to win a race in NASCAR’s top division. That is, if you don’t count Tony Stewart.

But Jocko’s career would last only one more race.

Two weeks later, at the Raleigh 300, the monkey got loose from the special seat on the dashboard Flock had made for him and started running around the floorboard. He pulled on a cable, opening a trap door that the drivers of that era used to check tire wear. When he did, a rock from the track hit him right between the eyes.

Jocko went berserk. He jumped on Flock’s neck and started clawing at him, sort of like what like Stewart does every time Kurt Busch cuts him off heading into turn one, only without the scratching his armpits part.

Bad predictions, March 23

In the deep recesses of the Qwest Center, back where the Omaha cops sit idly on their motorcycles, waiting for a Jayhawk to jaywalk, sit two portable restrooms that are better appointed than a Chrysler Cordoba. Somebody even said the seats are made of Corinthian leather.

“CBS Personnel Only,” reads the sign on the door.

This, apparently, is where they deposit Clark Kellogg’s and Seth Davis’ predictions after the game.

A few hours after CBS’ NCAA Tournament studio hosts — and a lot of others — penciled Kent State into the second round of their brackets, the Rebels erased the (not so) Golden Flashes. The final score was 71-58, and if you were watching at home — which for once was a good possibility, considering this wasn’t a Mountain West Conference production — then you know it wasn’t remotely that close.

Modern technology, April 10

I wouldn’t say I have totally embraced modern technology. But I do hold hands with it. Still, every time the topic comes up, I am reminded of my stepdaughter racing over to show her mom and me her new SUV and all its bells and whistles. She said it even had this hidden sensor that tells her when it’s raining, which could come in handy on the two or three days it actually does.

She was so enthusiastic about the hidden sensor that I didn’t want to spoil it by saying that when I want to know if it’s raining outside, I just check the windshield.

Playoff beards, May 13

During their five-year existence the Las Vegas Wranglers have found themselves in any number of hairy predicaments.

But none so literal as the one right now.

For the first time, the Wranglers have made it to the third round of the ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs, which means the beards they began growing in homage to playoff hockey tradition when the postseason began three weeks ago have fully sprouted.

More or less.

It’s not a pretty sight.

Wherever you turn, be it on the blue line, at center ice or in the attacking zone, there is stubble. There are whiskers in the crease; unused cans of Edge in the slot. The team barber has been traded to the Florida Everblades for Don Rickles and a bag of hockey pucks.

Playoff beards began to take form — some more slowly than others — in the National Hockey League during the early 1980s. The New York Islanders supposedly are to blame — er, started the tradition. At first, it used to be just a few players. Now, even guys who play air hockey send their razors and Lectric Shave to the penalty box once the puck is dropped in the postseason.

Every member of the Wranglers has grown a beard. Or at least is trying. Even Billy Johnson, the club president, had one until a week ago. He said it looked like “H-E Double Hockey Sticks,” so he shaved it off.

The consensus among the players is that it was only a slight improvement.

The triple crown, May 19

It might come as a surprise to you I know it did to me that Pimlico is a famous residential area in central London known for its 19th century architecture and quaint hotels.

For years, I knew it only as the track where they ran the second jewel of horse racing’s triple crown.

The beauty of horse racing’s triple crown is that if you are a casual sports fan, those are the only three races you need to watch. They last only about two minutes, so that leaves plenty of time to mow the lawn and check out “Iron Man” at the movies.

Sports would be better if it had more triple crowns. Baseball has one, but it’s only statistics (highest batting average and most home runs and RBIs). Plus, it’s hard to win. Carl Yastrzemski was the last guy to do it, in 1967. The last National League player to win it was Ducky Medwick in 1937. Baseball could use more guys named “Ducky,” but that’s another story.

Hockey in May, May 22

It was 108 in the shade Monday — and the Wranglers were getting ready to play another hockey game.

One hundred eight degrees. Hockey.

That had to be the strangest convergence of diametric entities since Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett.

Human Torch, meet Mr. Freeze.

“The Flight of the Phoenix,” meet “Ice Station Zebra.”

Habanero pepper, meet Chunky Monkey.

Las Vegas isn’t the only place where this could happen, but the team in Phoenix stinks and the Timbuktu Travelers folded a couple of years ago.

Racing lawn mowers, May 23

Two of my dad’s favorite Memorial Day pastimes were mowing the lawn and listening to the Indy 500 on the radio.

He would have absolutely loved the U.S. National Lawn Mower Racing Association.

This is the biggest auto racing weekend of the year with the 92nd Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 both set for Sunday. But

Gasoline Alley gets a little wider this year with the Azalea City Mow Down Show Down for racing lawn mowers making its debut in Mobile — or, as it has been renamed for this weekend, “Mowbile” — Ala.

Gentlemen, start your riding mowers. And don’t forget to bag the clippings.

Tough coaches, May 27

When I was in high school, most of my coaches looked like Coach Buzzcut from Beavis and Butt-head. They were Marine drill sergeants in short pants and sweat socks. They yelled a lot and made us run. Sometimes, they let us get a drink of water. But only sometimes.

You never complained about being thirsty to your parents, because if you did, your old man would yell even louder than Coach Buzzcut. Then he would put his foot up your rear end. This could be painful, because most of our dads worked at the mill and wore those Red Wing boots with the steel reinforced toe.

Sports spelling bee, May 30

To celebrate the Scripps National Spelling Bee — or perhaps to hammer home that the finals will be broadcast on ESPN today — six ESPN Zone restaurants, including the one in New York-New York on the Strip, held sports spelling bees Wednesday night.

Verdict: Those kids in D.C. don’t have anything to worry about.

Thirteen brave souls, most of whom appeared coherent, signed up here. I think the turnout would have been better had the Red Wings-Penguins game not run long.

“I dunno,” said one of the contestants when I asked where the stage was. “I hope it’s not in front of those big screens or these people are gonna kill us.”

Down in front.

D-O-W-N-I-N-F-R-O-N-T.

Down in front.

Actually, the words were a little tougher than that, but only a little.

The first name was “Joe Frazier.”

The contestant was a woman from Canada. She got “Joe” right but was eliminated when she recited the Canadian spelling of “Frazier.”

F-R-A-S-E-R.

Down goes contestant No. 1! Down goes contestant No. 1! Down goes contestant No. 1!

She apparently thought the “Thrilla in Manila” had something to do with Imelda Marcos shopping for shoes.

Postponed hockey, June 2

Well, they finally found somebody who could stop the Wranglers’ power play and slow down those pesky Cincinnati Cyclones.

The Charlie Daniels Band and a miniature schnauzer.

If you are wondering why the Wranglers played Games Three and Four of the ECHL finals on back-to-back nights and bypassed Saturday night to play on Monday, you can blame it on some band blowing Dixie double four time, or whatever Mark Knopfler was talking about in the “Sultans of Swing.”

I’ve heard of a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out but a Tropicana Avenue Freeze-Out is something altogether different.

The devil left Georgia and went down to the Orleans Arena instead, icing the Wranglers, the building’s primary tenant, on Saturday night. The Charlie Daniels Band was the headliner at Volunteer Jam, a benefit concert that also featured fellow southern rockers 38 Special and Shooter Jennings, who, when last seen, was losing a big golf match to Happy Gilmore.

And playing on Sunday wasn’t an option, either, not with the Animal Foundation’s Best in Show dog show having dibs on the building.

So if you see the Wranglers’ defensemen skating sort of gingerly around the blue line tonight, there might be a perfectly good reason for it. Somebody said just to be on the safe side, they might attach a pooper scooper to the Zamboni for Game Five.

Day baseball, June 10

It was a few minutes past noon on a Sunday afternoon brighter than the T-shirts of the Cashman Field parking lot attendants when the No. 3 hitter from Tucson took a mighty swing and lifted a pop fly straight up the chute.

This was no ordinary pop fly. This was a major league pop fly in a Triple-A ballyard. This was a Dave Kingman-with-the-bases-loaded pop fly. They could have put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin onboard and saved a ton on rocket fuel.

Dwayne Pollok, the 51s pitcher, stood there like Jackson Pollock. He’s a pitcher and pitchers don’t catch pop flies. Thank God, he must have been thinking.

A.J. Ellis, the Las Vegas catcher, didn’t want anything to do with it, either. That left Angel Chavez, the third baseman. It was probably his ball, anyway. One thing about pop flies, even major league ones, is that at some point, they lose altitude and become cans o’ corn, and Chavez had this one totally measured.

Or so it seemed.

At the last second, Chavez’s glove, which he had been holding high over his head, flopped into an underhanded position. He made an emergency basket catch, turning what should have been a routine play into an adventure. I couldn’t tell if he lost the ball in the sun, the cloudless sky, or was just paying homage to Willie Mays.

Anyway, had it been a night game, I’m sure Chavez could have caught this ball in his back pocket.

Fishing, June 17

Most kids love to fish, even if they don’t know it, because they spend all of their free time playing video games and sending text messages to their friends.

Most kids like baseball, too, but fishing is better, because on the river, nobody will give Junior a hard time for striking out with the bases loaded.

Free tickets, June 23

If, as Forrest Gump said, life is a like a box of chocolates, then Daren Libonati would be the raspberry truffle on the outside of it.

Outside the box is where the director of UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center and Sam Boyd Stadium does his best thinking. He’s the Angus MacGyver of the arena business. Had he been on the NASA payroll in 1970, Jim Lovell and his pals on Apollo 13 wouldn’t have had anything to worry about. Wanna fit a square peg into a round hole? Call Libonati.

That’s just what he did this weekend. He took a square peg — a bunch of little-known boxers and mixed martial artists — and a round hole — an empty Thomas & Mack Center — and kept pounding away until they fit together like fingers in a glove, or whatever you call those things that MMA guys wear over their bloody knuckles.

Every seat in the Thomas & Mack Center was spoken for Friday night for a promotion dubbed “A Night of Combat.”

“Free for All” would have been a better name for it, because that’s exactly what it was.

Every ticket was free.

The beer, however, was not.

Bad nicknames, June 26

When the Las Vegas Triple-A baseball club changed its nickname from “Stars” to “51s” in 2001, I hated it. But seven years later, just as the team’s president, Don Logan, predicted it would, the nickname has grown on me. Now it even sounds right. Plus, I sort of dig the alien on the cap. It reminds me of the old “Outer Limits” TV series.

There is nothing wrong with the nickname of your Triple-A baseball team. Do not attempt to adjust your score card. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume ... by selling $1 beers. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper ... by cutting off $1 beer sales after the sixth inning. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We will control if the right fielder hits the cutoff man ... ”

Well, the Control Voice apparently is no longer warming up in the bullpen. Last week, the 51s announced a contest to rename the 51s. While the nickname has grown on the new owners, too, it’s apparently in the manner of a wart. They want it eradicated ASAP. Monday is “Compound W Night” at Cashman Field.

“What the heck is a 51?” proclaimed the headline in the “Rename the 51s” ad that ran in the newspaper last week.

That’s easy. A 51 is two more than a 49er, and 25 fewer than a 76er.

Boxing at the Las Vegas Hilton, July 8

When I heard the Las Vegas Hilton was getting back into the boxing business it rekindled two memories.

The first was a day-after press conference — I think it was after the Tommy Hearns vs. Iran Barkley fight — when I was introduced to Bo Derek, who was quite the fight fan. I remember thinking the movie people had scored her too low, that she was more like a “12” in real life. Her fragrance was still wafting in the part of my brain where unspoken fantasies go when somebody came crashing through the door and said one of the Mayweathers — I think it was Roger — had just wrecked his car out on Paradise Road.

The second memory was of March 17, 1990. That was the day I met Jim Murray, the best sports writer who ever lived. It also was the night Meldrick Taylor fought Julio Cesar Chavez. How’s that for an exacta?

Korean Basketball League draft, June 21

It is 5,983 miles from Las Vegas to Seoul, so I suppose holding the Korean Basketball League draft in Las Vegas, which they did Saturday afternoon, makes perfect sense.

Maybe if you were starting a new automobile racing series featuring fuel-efficient sedans you might hold an organizational meeting in South Korea, because that is where they make Hyundais and Kias, which get much better mileage than the American SUV I drove to the KBL draft. But other than that, I don’t know what the equivalent would be.

So my narrow world of sports got a little wider Saturday afternoon because, I must confess, I had never heard of the KBL. Or, for that matter, the Renaissance Hotel on Paradise Road, which is where they held the draft.

TV contracts, July 23

In keeping with the spirit of the weekend, I thought it would have been really cool if Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson had made his annual State of the Conference address dressed as the Joker.

Then this could have been his opening remark:

“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it, y’know? I just do things. I don’t have a plan.”

That would explain why it has taken the Mountain West nearly two years to secure a national TV provider for The Mtn., the conference’s experimental TV network devoted mostly to minor sports you don’t care about with some football and basketball games mixed in.

It didn’t have a plan. So there were a lot of Dark Knights. Or at least Nights.

1975, Aug. 5

It was the summer of 1975 and I’m sure America’s “Sister Golden Hair” was playing in the background, because “Sister Golden Hair” always was playing in the background when I was 18 years old. That, and the infernal “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain and Tennille.

I’d walk the five or six blocks in my American Legion baseball uniform to the community center in the middle of our town, where we’d gather for a road trip and set records for stuffing wannabe ballplayers into the backs of station wagons and old Impalas that used to have vinyl tops.

But it was the two-block stroll down 119th Street that I enjoyed almost as much as playing baseball in the summertime. That was the main street in our town. People you didn’t even know would see you in your crisp white uniform with the red and navy trim and that embroidered patch with the American Legion logo on your shoulder and they’d smile and slap you on the back and wish you luck.

Then the Boys of Summer who played American Legion baseball for Post 80, at least the ones who didn’t have a summer job or call in sick, would stuff themselves into the backs of station wagons and rusted-out Impalas for the ride to Hammond or East Chicago or Highland.

Or maybe even Crown Point, where the city ended and the fence in right field was made of corn stalks.

Chuck wagon racing, Aug. 29

Some people in town want to revive chuck wagon racing.

I didn’t think they were serious, because if there’s one thing I have learned from covering sports in Las Vegas for 21 years, it’s that chuck wagon fans are known pranksters.

The chuck wagon races were held downtown in 2002. Competitors loaded a stove and tent poles and drivers named “Cookie” into horse-drawn covered wagons and raced around an obstacle course. You had to see it to believe it, and even then, you might not have believed it.

Chuck wagon racing lasted just one year. No reason was given for its demise, although I think it had something to do with the giant dogs that kept slipping on the linoleum on the kitchen floor.

Chuck wagon racing is extremely popular in Western Canada.

But then so was the rock group Loverboy.

Transistor radios, Oct. 30

I’m not exactly sure when the transistor radio died. It was either when they started playing Led Zeppelin songs on FM or when they started playing World Series games at night.

Ol’ Teal, Nov. 19

It’s official: Ol’ Teal is dead.

They found my 1996 Chevy S-10 pickup truck that was stolen from the Sun parking lot. Its final resting place is an auto auction salvage yard in North Las Vegas.

From the looks of things, Ol’ Teal died a slow and painful death.

Engine: Gone.

Radiator: Gone.

Tires: Gone.

Rims: Gone.

Seat: Gone.

Radio: Gone.

Bed liner: Gone.

Bungee cords that held the bed liner in place, keeping it from blowing across the 215 freeway: Gone.

My truck looked like a carcass in the desert. The buzzards had gotten to it. Or Tony Soprano. The only things Pruneface and Flattop didn’t strip were the doors, steering wheel and the Chicago Cubs sticker on the back window. I’m sure had it been a Dodgers decal, they would have taken that, too.

The salvage yard asked if I wanted to keep my truck.

Yeah, I said. It’ll make a lovely planter. I think I’ll put some geraniums where the engine used to be.

Baseball Winter Meetings, Dec. 11

While trying to make sense of the better part of a Tuesday spent at the Baseball Winter Meetings at the Bellagio, David Letterman’s voice kept popping into my head. “Is this anything, Paul?” I mean, it sure looks like something. But once upon a time, Sports Illustrated put Clint Hurdle on the cover — when he was playing baseball, not managing it. That looked like something, too.

When I arrived, the one guy there not dressed in the official uniform of the Baseball Winter Meetings — shirt open at the collar, navy blazer, khakis or pressed jeans, tasseled loafers (or cowboy boots, if you represent the Diamondbacks or one of the Pioneer League teams) — was standing near the podium. He was holding a maple bat, which was barely recognizable because it was still in one piece, and using esoteric expressions that would have blown Yogi Berra’s mind, such as “slope of the grain.”

“I’m off to see if I can find a sandwich for under $45,” said one of the baseball writers, who must have been representing the Pioneer League, too, or he wouldn’t have been worried about the Bellagio’s sky box prices for a ham on rye.

But after lunch, I saw the joy in an old man’s eyes when he retold the story of a chance meeting with his boyhood idol on Monday. Robin Roberts is 82 now, but the two old men talked for 15 minutes about how today’s players don’t respect the game, and although the first old man knew that, hearing it from No. 36 on the Phillies made it seem like a revelation.

I was beginning to think the Baseball Winter Meetings aren’t such a waste of time after all when a booming voice said the Orioles and the Phillies would “announce something” in 15 minutes.

Is this anything? It sure sounded like it.

It was a trade. Ramon Hernandez, described as a veteran catcher, for Ryan Freel, described as a utility infielder, and two minor leaguers, described as minor leaguers.

They would have been better off announcing where to get a sandwich for under $45. Now that would have been something.