Wild World of Wednesday - May 7, 2008

In spite of my complaints yesterday, I found some fun stories today about sports that made me smile. Besides that, there is so much going on this week! May is a great sports month with NBA and NHL playoffs, the MLB season getting in full gear, and action sports are happening everywhere!

The best story so far this week has to be that of high school freshman Gabby Sanchez. She pitches and beat out fifteen boys to make the cut on her junior varsity high school baseball team. Gabby has never played softball, but has played baseball since she was four years old. I’ve heard many say that if a woman was to play Major League Baseball, it would be a pitcher. Go Gabby go!

Another fun story is that of Brett Favre’s retirement. Sort of. David Whitthoft stopped wearing his Favre jersey after 1,561 days. Of course, plenty of mature people commented on this but if you ignore that the story is funny. Why is it newsworthy? Because it isn’t someone going to jail, doing drugs, or otherwise causing controversy. This is just a quip about a young boy that was an avid sports fan and someone found him to write a story about it. There are far more ridiculous stories in the news nowadays…

The “worst kept secret in the NBA” was finally announced yesterday. Kobe Bryant is officially, really the league MVP for 2007-08. There is plenty of chatter about this in the blogosphere and mainstream media. Many Angelinos have a love-hate relationship with Kobe. He is admirable on the court but causes controversy when off.

Hey, did you notice that David Beckham is scoring more? Really, he is! I’ve seen several highlights lately. In fact, he was named the MLS Player of the Week! Keep it up Becks!

Speaking of Player of the Week, Los Angeles Dodgers OF Matt Kemp nabbed the MLB NL title for his 11 RBI week! Is there hope for the Dodgers? They’ve won 10 of their last 11 games...

And while we are in Los Angeles, the Lakers play game 2 in their series against the Utah Jazz. New Orleans plays the Spurs in San Antonio and the Magic host the Pistons in game 3. The Celtics won a close one against the Cavaliers last night. Ah, the NBA playoffs…what a great time of year…

And the NHL playoffs continue as well with only 4 teams remaining.


Today in Sports History:

1959 – The first Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball attendance record at the Coliseum was set with 93,103 fans in attendance for Roy Campanella Night. Sandy Kofax pitched a 6-2 win against the New York Yankees. Not until this year (2008) did the worldwide record for one baseball game's attendance fall when the Dodgers returned to the Coliseum to celebrate their 50th year in Los Angeles.

1972 – Los Angeles Lakers defeat the New York Nicks for the NBA title 4 games to 1.

1982 – A federal jury rules that the NFL violates antitrust laws by preventing the Oakland Raiders NFL team from moving to Los Angeles.