Odds and ends

Interesting tidbit from the Jeopardy! show -- Any child born these days has a better chance of living to be a 100, than being left-handed. No pun intended, but can that be right? If you thought quality southpaw major league pitchers were hard to come by now, in a couple decades it might get ridiculous.

Loved Charles Barkley's observation on Shaq's Buick commercial. It shows Shaq walking up to the car, then the scene changes and it shows Shaq seated in a small 4-door sedan. Sayeth the Chuckster, "I want to see how he got IN that little car. They didn't show that part. Ain't no way". Touche.

Wow. Not that long ago, we were rooting on the "blade runner", South African Oscar Pistorius, who was running Olympic track events on two prosthetic legs. Now he's been accused of murdering his girlfriend? Say it ain't so.

If there was any doubt before who the best pro basketball team in LA is, it's gone now. The Clips just blistered the Lakers by 24. Still think it's funny how when those two clubs play, "home" and "away" teams are designated. They share the same home arena (Staples Center). They each have their own home locker rooms. All they do is change the designs on the floor.

Actually, when you think about it, both teams have an advantage over all the rest of the other NBA teams. The Clips and Lakers play each other 4 times a year, 2 "home" and 2 "away" for each. But even the "away" games are 2 more home games that the other 28 teams don't get. They have to go on the road and stay/play in hostile surroundings. Somehow that doesn't seem fair.

Back to Barkley. Evidently, he's not sold on the Clips being serious contenders. According to Sir Charles, there's no way a team can be that good when their toughest guy is only 5' 10" (point guard Chris Paul). Food for thought.

The Paterno family is fighting back, still claiming the late Joe had nothing to do with the child-molesting horrors that went on at Penn State, including looking the other way or any sort of cover-up. The people that gathered the evidence accusing him of the same are standing by their story. Bottom line? In the end, we'll probably never know for sure exactly what he did or didn't do.

And the major league baseball teams are reporting to spring training camps. Just think -- only another 8 months until the World Series. Idle thought --- I can understand why northern clubs like Detroit, Boston, NY, etc., go south for spring training. The weather. But why do teams like the LA Dodgers go to Arizona? Isn't their home field just sitting idle anyway? Worse yet, why do the Arizona Diamondbacks go to a different place in their own state for the same? Regular games in Phoenix but spring training in Scottsdale? Weird.

Come to think of it, why do they call it spring training anyway? It's still winter, at least in the northern hemisphere, where major league baseball is played. Spring doesn't start for another month.