Klesko Got His Two Cents’ Worth

In the Dodgers’ game Sunday at San Diego, plate umpire Doug Eddings took a lot of heat from both teams. The most vocal was the Padres’ Ryan Klesko in the eighth inning. He was coming out of the game anyway, so he had nothing to lose, provided he wasn’t suspended or fined.

Observed Vin Scully: “Klesko was playing with house money.”

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Lost memento: Scully said he once ran across Babe Ruth at the Polo Grounds in New York when he was a kid. Ruth, instead of signing autographs, handed out business cards with his signature, and Scully got one.

“And I have no idea where it is,” Scully said.

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Trivia time: The Chicago Cubs last won a World Series in 1908. When was the last time they made it to a World Series?

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Positive review: Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune is among those who liked the trade that brought Nomar Garciaparra from the Boston Red Sox to the Cubs. Downey called it “one of the great, great, great trades in the history of Chicago baseball.”

Downey added: “I do know what some people think: That when it comes to the Cubs and Red Sox, hey, nobody wins. Sorry, not this time. In this one, Cubs win.”

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Parting perks: Kevin Millar of the Red Sox, a guest of Fox Sports Net’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” on gifts he got from Garciaparra: “I’ll be on EBay next week.”

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On the clock: The 1,230-game NBA schedule was announced Monday on NBA TV. Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times wrote that it was a good thing the announcers decided not to “take ‘em one game at a time.”

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Top this: When Andre Agassi was younger, he could brag to other kids about what his father did for a living.

Appearing in an A&E; “Biography” show about the Las Vegas Strip, Agassi said his father used to work in a Vegas showroom that featured a production titled “Jubilee.”

“I would sometimes sneak into the showroom because I could see some dancing girls topless,” he said.

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Long time coming: Defensive lineman Carl Eller, a five-time finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, will be inducted Sunday along with Barry Sanders, John Elway and Bob Brown.

Brown, an offensive tackle, called Eller one of the toughest pass rushers he ever faced.

“Every time I saw Carl Eller, he had his ‘A’ game going and I had my ‘A’ game going too,” Brown said. “Because if I didn’t have my ‘A’ game going, then I was going to look like a jerk.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1949, the National Basketball League and the Basketball Assn. of America merged to form the NBA.

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Trivia answer: 1945. The Cubs lost to the Detroit Tigers, the team they’d beaten in the 1908 World Series.

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And finally: Talk about a contrast. The day Shaquille O’Neal was traded, which had to be a gut-wrenching one for Mitch Kupchak, Jerry West was playing golf at Riviera.

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Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].