'X' Did Not Mark the Spot for CBS' Nantz

‘X’ Did Not Mark the Spot for CBS’ Nantz

By Larry Stewart

May 31, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

CBS’ Jim Nantz, in an interview with Golf Digest, was asked to name his most embarrassing on-air moment. Nantz said it might have occurred at the 2003 AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, shortly after Davis Love III had won the event.

“Clint Eastwood was in the 18th tower with me, live on the air,” Nantz said, “and I told him that Davis’ father had been a huge Clint Eastwood fan. I said, ‘I’ll bet that you didn’t know that when Davis was a young boy, one of the first adult films his father ever took him to see was one of yours.’ Without hesitating, Clint turned to me on camera and said, ‘I have never made an adult film in my life.’ ”

Trivia time: Last week pitcher Randy Keisler got his first hit in the majors in the bottom of the 14th inning to give the Cincinnati Reds a 4-3 victory over the Washington Nationals. Who was the last pitcher whose first big league hit ended a game?

Hazardous duty: What’s it like working on a pit crew? David Hyder, crew chief for NASCAR driver Ken Schrader, told Monte Dutton of the Gaston (N.C.) Gazette, “It’s like changing the tires on the left side of your car on an interstate during a state troopers’ strike.”

A different era: Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times wrote, “We found a basketball primer so old that ‘hip-hop’ was defined as ‘a sure sign Coach could use some replacement surgery.’ ”

Not too hip: Elliott Harris of the Chicago Sun-Times offers this as a reason to pray there’s not an NBA lockout: “Ron Artest would have even more time to record another rap CD.”

Tall order: A 7-foot-8 Chinese basketball player hopes to follow in the footsteps of Yao Ming.

Sun Mingming, two inches taller than Yao, has attended a training camp in the U.S. and hopes to be picked in the NBA draft next month, the South China Morning Post reported.

Former pro basketball player Keith Gatlin, a coach who has worked with Sun, told the newspaper that Sun needs to work on his agility.

“He really doesn’t get much lift,” Gatlin said.

How much lift does a 7-8 guy need?

Buttering up Tiger: Norma “Duffy” Lyons, 75, is known as Iowa’s “butter cow lady” because each year for nearly five decades she has carved a full-size cow out of butter to display at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. In recent years, she had made butter sculptures of people, such as Elvis Presley and Garth Brooks. Now she is planning to make a butter sculpture of Tiger Woods for this year’s fair in August.

Looking back: On this day in 1983, the Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA championship with a 115-108 victory over the Lakers, completing a four-game sweep.

Trivia answer: The Dodgers’ Darren Dreifort on May 27, 1994. Dreifort hit a two-out, pinch-hit single in the 10th inning to give the Dodgers a 6-5 victory over Pittsburgh.

And finally: From Jerry Greene of the Orlando Sentinel: “The San Antonio Spurs might win the whole thing behind the Force of Obi-Wan Ginobili.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].