Up close and personal
At 11 a.m. today, Brad Sham will commence calling Tony Stewart’s race at the Daytona 500. While Darrell Waltrip and the rest of the folks at Fox are calling the entire 43-driver field for a national television audience, Sham will be calling Stewart’s race for DirecTV subscribers. At his side will be analyst Ray Dunlap from Speed Channel. This Tony Stewart channel will have dedicated cameras and microphones to ensure all-Tony, all-the-time coverage. Four other drivers will receive similar treatment. The day of racing at Daytona of Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. also will be dissected ad nauseam. And so it will go throughout the Nextel Cup season with the possibility of changing drivers from week to week. Of course, after giving viewers a free pass at Daytona, DirecTV will begin charging for the service ($99 for the season).
Time is on his side
Dusty Baker is going to Disneyland. He is off on a trip to the Magic Kingdom with son Darren for one of the theme park’s busiest times: a three-day, holiday weekend. Baker had no idea he’d be fighting big crowds – and how would he? Every other February for decades he has been in uniform and hard at work either as a manager or player. It certainly has been an adjustment for the former skipper, most recently with the Chicago Cubs, to be away from the field at the start of spring training. “It’s a little weird not being there,” said Baker, 57. “It’s all good – just a little different.” Typically, the family fun came on the field after the players had gone home for the day and Baker would pitch to Darren, now 8. Baker hasn’t been in this situation – wearing street clothes all the time – since a brief stint as a stockbroker in 1987, the year after he retired from a 19-year major-league career. He became San Francisco’s hitting coach the following season.
Some trifecta
“Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman. You’ve got God, his son Jesus – and I’m the devil.”
Dennis Rodman, on his days with the Chicago Bulls
