There is a 10 foot alligator just chilling in the visiting teams dugout at our field #MilbProbz pic.twitter.com/DSP0OKGd8F
— kyle mckenzie (@kmckenzie13) July 24, 2015
The Toronto Maple Leafs stunned the hockey world Thursday when they announced they had signed Lou Lamoriello to a three-year deal as their general manager. It couldn’t have been that much of a story, though, as the Toronto Sun only did 10 pages on the Leafs in Friday’s paper. . . . Lamoriello never met a media person with whom he wanted to deal. The Maple Leafs are owned by media conglomerates Bell and Rogers, so, like, what could go wrong? . . . There are reports that retired New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and gal pal Hannah Davis — she of the commercials with the talking horse — went Dutch on a pizza while in Italy. Which caused RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com to ask:“What kind of people report on these things? The pizzarazzi?” . . .
“Tiger Woods said he still has his sights on Nicklaus’ record 18 majors,” Currie writes. “It was so inspiring, I mailed another marriage proposal to Anne Hathaway.” . . . One more from Currie: “Ex-Blackhawks defenceman Johnny Oduya has signed with the Dallas Stars — a two-year, US$7.5-million deal. Which is a fine-how-do-you-Oduya.” . . . TC Chong, who blogs out of Richmond, B.C., writes: “Sen. Lindsay Graham posted a video on YouTube of him destroying his cell phone with a bat, chainsaw and golf club after Donald Trump gave out his number. Hope he wasn’t driving at the time.” . . .
“Santa Claus threw a terrible first pitch at a recent Tigers game,” reports Bill Littlejohn, our South Lake Tahoe, Calif., correspondent. “The good news for him is that it wasn't in Philadelphia.” . . . Littlejohn also reports that “an alligator was found in the dugout prior to a minor league game between the Daytona Tortugas and Charlotte Stone Crabs in Port Charlotte, Fla. Animal control reportedly tranquilized the gator and returned him to his natural habitat at the local golf course.” . . . One more from Littlejohn: “In Cooperstown, Reggie Jackson reportedly got into a heated confrontation with a fan who was in line for a second autograph. Reggie reportedly told him, 'Just one straw per drink!’ ” . . .
Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times isn’t too hyped for the release of Creed, the seventh instalment in the Rocky movie series. “Not that Rocky Balboa is showing his age or anything in Creed,” Perry writes, “but the eye of the Tiger now has cataracts.” . . . Forward Josh Smith signed with the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers the other day, getting only the veterans’ minimum. “At the end of the day, you know, I do have a family,” he told the Detroit Free Press. “So it is going to be a little harder on me this year. But I’m going to push through it, you know.” . . . Smith, who has made about US$91 million in his career, and his family will have to get by on $6.9 million for 2015-16. . . .
You may recall earlier this year when Washington legislators voted that the state’s four WHL teams don’t have to pay minimum wage to their players. Well, the state of California is enacting legislation under which professional sports teams must pay at least minimum wage to their cheerleaders. . . . A number of WHL players are said to be considering career changes. . . . Take the worst thing you have ever seen on TV and then multiply that by 10. What do you get? Those horrid attack ads paid for by Stephen Harper and his friends. . . . Never mind Justin Trudeau; those ads just aren’t ready for anything but the garbage. . . .
Taking note of the drought situation in Vancouver, comic Torben Rolfsen points out: “We are at Stage 3 water restrictions in Vancouver (no lawn watering). Stage 4 is no showers in strip joints.” . . . Rolfsen also wondered: “Has PETA complained about that surfer punching the shark yet?” . . . Headline at SportsPickle.com: Shark just grateful to be uninjured after terrifying encounter with surfer. . . .
Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald has a question: “Do we really need the ‘heat index?’ Isn't it bad enough knowing that it's 100 degrees without being told it ‘feels like’ 112?” . . . Dickson, again: “President Obama just became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. He hasn't seen that many inmates since he welcomed the national-champion Florida State football team to the White House.” . . . “In Idaho,” writes Janice Hough, aka The Left Coast Sports Babe, “a cyclist stopped to defecate in a ravine and decided it would be a good idea to light his toilet paper on fire afterwards rather than littering with it. And he accidentally started a 73-acre wildfire. Talk about a dumb shit.”
(Gregg Drinnan is a former sports editor of the Regina Leader-Post and the late Kamloops Daily News. He is at gdrinnan.blogspot.ca and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears here on weekends, except when it doesn’t.)
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