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I’ve observed in a detached manner as candidates emerge as possibilities to purchase the Dodgers. I say detached because I don’t know some of the groups and am not qualified to recommend one over the others. But I was jolted the other day by the news that Magic Johnson has entered the competition. And I was intrigued to hear that his group includes Stan Kasten and Mark Walter. Kasten has been the president of two major league teams, the Braves and Nationals, and has been mentioned as possibly th...
Everyone could see it except Rick Neuheisel. UCLA was losing the all-important recruiting wars. The Bruins were 21-28 in Neuheisel’s four years as head coach. A 50-0 loss to USC Saturday night clinched it. Losing in such a humiliating fashion would be hard for fans, boosters and students to accept. And on Monday, Neuheisel was fired by athletic director Dan Guerrero even before the Bruins play in the Pac-12 championship game Friday at Oregon. Neuheusel will be permitted to coach in that game but...
Observer Editor In my less enlightened days I thought one-person plays wouldn’t be very interesting. Thankfully I no longer think that way, and Sunday night at the Kirk Douglas Theatre I thoroughly enjoyed Charlayne Woodard’s presentation of “The Night Watcher.” On opening night all of the theatre’s 317 seats were filled. As I drove in the rain I wondered if that would be the case, but the theatre was sold out and there was also a line of folks without tickets hoping for cancellat...
The Texas Rangers have been in the World Series two straight years. The Angels haven’t made the playoffs two straight years. That’s enough to greatly concern Arte Moreno, the Angels’ owner who has a reputation of spending what it takes to keep his team in playoff contention. Now add the fact that Mike Napoli, the former Angels catcher, was traded to Toronto and then dealt again to Texas a few days later and has become one of the Rangers’ key players. It’s enough for Moreno to respond harshly....
When the 1971-’72 Lakers went to training camp not much was expected of them. Wilt Chamberlain had joined the team in 1968 but no championships were won with Butch van Breda Kolff or Joe Mullaney as coach. So even the arrival of Bill Sharman, who had guided the Utah Stars to the American Basketball championship the previous season, didn’t stir the imagination of forecasters. After all, all-time National Basketball Association great Elgin Baylor was close to retiring. But the Lakers won 33 con...
Observer Editor I like country music, so it pleases me that ‘I’ve Never Been So Happy” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre is a two-hour musical with a Western theme. The near capacity crowd at the Sunday matinee agreed if we can judge from the frequent applause and occasional ovations. But if you object to raw language that isn’t necessary it may not be for you. I thought the play would have been better without the four-letter words. However, I’ve seen a lot of plays at the Kirk Douglas and this one...
By Mitch Chortkoff Observer Editor Shortly after I entered the Kirk Douglas Theatre Saturday afternoon to see “The Method Gun” ushers approached the audience with a pencil and slip of paper. We were asked to write the name of a teacher who had inspired us early in life, someone who made a difference. The play began and for the next 90 minutes there was no mention of the request. The play was about a popular teacher who suddenly departed for South America, leaving her students and former stu...
Michael Ritchie, Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group, has set the 2011-2012 season at CTG’s Kirk Douglas Theatre. The new season is the eighth at the theater in Culver City and will feature four productions and the popular DouglasPlus programming. It will run from September 17, 2011, through June 2012. The new season will include the poignant storytelling of Charlayne Woodard in her newest play, “The Night Watcher”; the riveting Ebony Repertory Theatre production of Lorraine Hansb...
The NBA lockout is beginning to bring on new worries to club owners. Their players are heading to foreign countries. I see nothing wrong with this choice because basketball is their profession and if NBA teams won’t pay them teams from other leagues will. Kobe Bryant seems serious about playing elsewhere. At this writing a team from Turkey appears to be losing interest but China is a strong possibility because Bryant is extremely popular there. Pau Gasol is leaning toward playing for his n...
As Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball continue wrangling for ownership of the Dodgers, one fact stands out above all others. McCourt has lost the trust of fans who are now expressing their feelings by staying away from Dodger Stadium. Less fans means less revenue for a cash-starved owner and it’s hard to see how he can pull out of his current financial problems and operate the franchise successfully long-term. On Tuesday McCourt and MLB baseball agreed to postpone an MLB financing plan u...
Prieto Does One Of His Best Jobs By Mitch Chortkoff Observer Sports Editor After Culver City and Santa Monica tied for the Ocean League baseball championship a year ago both teams began this season hoping to contend again with young talent. Both had lost key players to graduation and the Centaurs’ problems magnified early when star catcher and co-captain Garrett Gerngnani suffered a broken arm. A solemn Rick Prieto announced that Gerngnani would be out for the season. The games proceeded with j...
After winning three CIF baseball playoff games, Culver City High was one victory away from reaching the Division 3 championship game at Dodger Stadium. However, the Centaurs’ season ended Tuesday in a semi-final 2-1 loss to Woodbridge High of Anaheim. The win qualified Woodbridge to oppose another Anaheim school, Beckman, today at 4:30 in Dodger Stadium. Both teams are members of the Pacific League. The loss was a close call for Culver City, which won two playoff games in Orange County and was p...
A highlight for me of this month’s NBA all-star game at Staples Center will be the presence of Kevin Love. The third year member of the Minnesota Timberwolves returns here after playing one year at UCLA. You see, I saw tapes of Love’s high school games in Oregon and drew upon my many years of traveling with Laker teams to determine that this was a special player. I saw he could score, rebound and pass and had the instincts to do each one at the right time. I expected a lot, and Love led the Bru...
Throughout my sportswriting career I’ve believed coaches know more about their teams than anyone in the media. That’s because they see their players and assistant coaches every day and we don’t. There are times, however, when I question something a coach has done. That’s normal for a probing journalist. And today is one of those days UCLA’s football team has been 4-8 the last two years. After three seasons Coach Rick Neuheisel has failed to turn the program around. And in recent months th...
Maurice Jones is 5-foot-7, a freshman from Michigan and a key player for the USC basketball team this season. This is what I like best about college basketball. A newcomer can arrive and make an immediate impact. On the team. USC is particularly interesting now as it comes back from NCAA trouble regarding guard O.J. Mayo. New coach Kevin O’Neill has proven adept at fixing broken programs and the Trojans were 16-14 last season despite numerous player defections. It looked like the team could b...
It happened in the NFL this season and now it’s happening in the NBA. The teams expected to dominate aren’t doing that. and others are doing surprisingly well. When the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs played for first place the game hadn’t been chosen for national television. In the NBA the Miami Heat were pre-season favorites but lost four of their first nine games. The Lakers got off to an 8-0 start but lost their next two to Denver and Phoenix. I don’t know anyone who expected New Orle...
When the Lakers moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles for the 1960 season Frank O’Neill was hired as their trainer. O’Neill held the job until 1974. Many years later he returned to the team, briefly filling in for Gary Vitti and he also worked with the Clippers. O’Neill, who died last week at 81, is an example of a professional, dedicated to his work. Trainers aren’t paid anywhere close to what NBA players make, but for most of them it’s a valued profession. I bring this up to offer a contrast...
Practice has begun for the Pac-10 football season and we all have some adjusting to do. The day Pete Carroll left USC we knew a lot would change. Very quickly, we've seen the landscape has been considerably altered. It's different already. Carroll is gone, enough players have left sot there are only 71 Trojan players on scholarship and Oregon is favored to win the 2010 conference championship. My media friends who attend Trojan practices tell me the environment has changed, There's tighter...
When I was traveling with Laker teams for many years we used to pass idle time by discussing a variety of basketball topics. One time Jerry West told me it was important to make changes, usually among the reserves, every season regardless of how successful the team had been. He thought it was best to do that for team chemistry. Mitch Kupchak is the general manager now and it’s obvious he was well trained by West. The Lakers have won the NBA championship the last two years but they’ve rec...
For most of my life I have for the most part ignored soccer. For a guy living in the land of the Dodgers, Lakers and Rams a sport with seemingly little action didn’t appeal to me. What I saw was a huge field, players running around and rarely scoring a goal. But my schedule permitted me to watch a lot of the World Cup in recent weeks and I began to appreciate what was going on. Its true there’s only an occasional goal but the near misses are exciting and the athleticism of the participants is...
There’s been a lot in the sports pages lately about Pete Carroll’s departure from USC and the hiring of controversial Lane Kiffin as coach. Now we go across town to see what they’re thinking at UCLA, which would like to emerge from USC’s shadow. Rick Neuheisel, the UCLA coach, has quickly gone on the offensive. At halftime of the USC-UCLA basketball game Saturday night in Pauley Pavilion, Neuheisel arrived on the basketball court with about 20 Bruin players and spoke boldly into a microph...
The Lakers have completed half of their 82-game regular season schedule with the best record in the NBA. The defending champions look good again, but there are some reasons to doubt their greatness – a few issues to deal with in the second half of the season. The Lakers’ 32-9 record is predictable considering that they have outstanding players and have had a ridiculously favorable schedule. They’ve played 26 home games and only nine well-spaced road games. Considering that, nine losses at this...
Now that there’s controversy about USC tailback Joe McKnight’s use of an automobile possibly in violation of NCAA rules, it’s proper to wonder what the Trojans’ record would have been without him. About the same, with four losses in Pac-10 conference games? Quite likely. The point here is not to downgrade the efforts of a young man. However, it is a fact universities recruit high school superstars to do special things and lead teams to high profile bowl games. And McKnight was brought to USC...
It will be a festive occasion at Staples Center Christmas Day when Kobe Bryant and LeBron James oppose each other. National television. The NBA’s two biggest stars facing off. I’ll eagerly arrive at my seat in the press box. That’s the glamour. But now the reality. The key to the Lakers’ chances of stringing together a succession of championship will be how Andrew Bynum progresses. If the 22-year-old kid matures and becomes dominant on a consistent basis the Lakers will be close to unbeata...
Contrary to popular belief, it’s possible USC can represent the Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl Game this season. The Trojans’ chances seemed to end with losses to Washington and Oregon, but a three-way tie for first place is possible, and the tiebreaker system favors the Trojans. As we were waiting for Coach Pete Carroll to begin his weekly press session Tuesday in Heritage Hall, Trojan radio announcer Pete Arbogast explained the situation to several writers. If USC defeats Stanford Saturday, then als...
