TBS a no-show for start of ALCS Game 6

So you got comfortable on the couch late Saturday afternoon, a few beverages and some munchies at hand, your appetite for more of the ALCS heightened by the thrilling Red Sox comeback from a 7-0 deficit to an 8-7 victory in Game 5.

Knowing the first pitch on TBS would be thrown at 5:08 p.m., you flipped on your television at 5 p.m. and there it was, a bloopers show.

A rainout of the game? No, wait, Tampa Bay's Tropicana Field is covered.

The bloopers show ended and there it was, the Steve Harvey Show.

What in the world was going on?

A nightmare in Atlanta, home of TBS, was going on.

"Two circuit breakers in our Atlanta transmission operations tripped," said TBS spokesman Sal Petruzzi in a statement, "causing the master router and its backup -- which are necessary to transmit any incoming feed outbound -- to shut down.

"This [prevented] our live feed from being distributed to any of the other networks in the Turner portfolio and caused the daily in our coverage. ... We apologize to baseball fans for this mishap."

Even an audio feed wasn't possible.

The game finally came on 20 minutes later at 5:28 with the Rays' Carlos Pena at bat in the bottom of the first, the seventh hitter of the game. Tampa Bay already led 1-0 on a B.J. Upton home run, which was quickly replayed by TBS.

At the start of the second inning, TBS play-by-play announcer Chip Caray told his audience, "We again apologize profusely for the technical difficulties we had back in Atlanta. You haven't missed much."

If you were a Tampa Bay fan, you happily could have missed the whole game. Boston won, 4-2, to force a Game 7 on Sunday.

-- Steve Springer   

Photo: Tampa Bay's B.J. Upton delivers the first telling blow during Game 6 of the ALCS with a solo home run in the first inning. Credit: Mike Carlson / Associated Press

No playoffs for Beckham, Donovan and Galaxy

For the third year in a row, Tim Leiweke's Galaxy is not going to the Major League Soccer playoffs.

The team that the AEG head man has tinkered with -- to the point where it now bears not the slightest resemblance to the once-proud and successful Galaxy of pre-AEG days a decade ago -- was knocked out of postseason contention on Saturday.

Once again, there will be no playoffs for David Beckham, the league's highest-paid player.

Once again, there will be no playoffs for Landon Donovan, arguably the league's most accomplished American player.

Once again, the Galaxy will be on the outside looking in.

Three goals in a nine-minute span in the first half gave the two-time defending MLS champion Houston Dynamo a convincing 3-0 victory over visiting Los Angeles on Saturday and the Western Conference regular-season title.

The Galaxy has one game remaining, a now-meaningless match in Carson next weekend against an FC Dallas team that also was knocked out of the playoff race Saturday.

It is supposed to be fan appreciation night, but the only thing Galaxy fans have to appreciate in 2008 is the fact that this most disastrous of seasons is blessedly over with and done.

Even if the Galaxy wins its final game, its record would be 9-13-8, barely one point better than 2007's abysmal 9-14-7 and the team's third consecutive losing season.

Don't put all the blame on the succession of mediocre players and the revolving door of coaches.

It's time the blame went where it belonged -- straight to AEG and Leiweke, for taking something that wasn't broken and trying to fix it. For trying to build a brand instead of a soccer team. For undermining a club that once had everything going for it.

There will be major changes between now and the time the 2009 season begins, but the change that would benefit everyone the most will not come about.

But, honestly, isn't it time the Galaxy had a new owner?

-- Grahame L. Jones

Photo: Tim Leiweke, right, and David Beckham during the Galaxy's welcoming ceremony for the England star in June of 2007. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Umpire knocked out of game

An injury to home-plate umpire Derryl Cousins caused a 15-minute delay before the fourth inning  of tonight's American League Championship Series Game 6 between the Red Sox and Rays.

A Jason Varitek foul tip in the second inning hit Cousins on the bottom of the face mask and bounced into the umpire's chest. He remained in the game for 1½ more innings but had to come out of the game before the fourth.

Crew chief and first-base umpire Tim McClelland took over behind the plate, left-field umpire Brian Gorman moved to third base, Alfonso Marquez remained on the right-field line and the rest of the game was played without an umpire down the left-field line.

Cousins was examined during the game and was expected to be OK.

-- Mike DiGiovanna

Photo: Home-plate umpire Derryl Cousins is examined after getting hit by a foul tip in the third inning Saturday night. Credit: Chris O'Meara / Associated Press

Rick Neuheisel's crowd deflater

UCLA had a chance to score a touchdown just before halftime of its game against Stanford this afternoon at the Rose Bowl. With the help of several Stanford penalties -- including a very ill-considered late hit by Stanford's Michael Thomas on Bruins quarterback Kevin Craft, who had scrambled out of bounds, and a pass interference call with under five seconds left -- UCLA had the ball on the Stanford two-yard line with two seconds to go and a 14-3 deficit as some extra incentive.

If Rick Neuheisel's young Bruins are to have any chance of going to a bowl game, of earning themselves some concrete proof that they are improving, beating Stanford here is imperative and it doesn't seem as if a second field goal, when the (rather sparse) homecoming crowd was urging for some daring and impetuousness, is going to help much this afternoon.

But Neuheisel took the safe play. He had Kai Forbath kick the 19-yard field goal. Stanford leads 14-6 at halftime. Many in the crowd booed. Then the Rose Bowl turned silent as the Bruins ran off the field.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Stanford running back Toby Gerhart had 69 yards rushing and two touchdowns in the first half. Credit: Kirby Lee / US Presswire

No term limits for Bruno Grandi

In election news, and this is not an upset, Bruno Grandi (pictured at right) was reelected by "a sound majority" of the 90 delegates who voted the Italian professor to his fourth consecutive four-year term as president of FIG, the international gymnastics federation.

It was Grandi who said, with a straight face, that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing when Yang Yun, a Chinese gymnast who won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics, said she was 14 at those Sydney Games. If that's true, Yang would have been age-ineligible for competition. Grandi, who enjoys being called "Professor Grandi" because he once served as a professor of physical education in Italy, said that Yang giving her own age in her own words during an interview on state-run Chinese television was not convincing proof of any wrongdoing by the Chinese gymnastics federation. "We trust the passport, not the Internet," Grandi said.

Grandi also proudly admired his federation's grand accomplishment of increasing the age of participants at the Olympics even as documents by the dozens had been uncovered casting doubts on the ages of three Chinese gymnasts at the 2008 Beijing Games. The FIG's post-Olympic investigation of those documents found nothing, nothing! However, that pesky Yang interview means Grandi's group is still "investigating" the 2000 Olympics. Thank goodness the good professor has another four years to figure out how to erase Yang's words off that pesky Internet.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo credit: Mark J. Rebilas / US Presswire

Hail Rafa (and a moment or two for Roger)

The Dead Zone of tennis -- otherwise known as the post-U.S. Open, pre-Australian Open time period -- actually produces plenty of newsworthy events. Retirements, un-retirements  ... changes  at the top of the game, which, on the women's side, seems to be a near-monthly thing.

So this morning, I spotted the familiar ESPN News crawl and learned that Rafael Nadal (pictured above) will finish the season ranked No. 1 by virtue of Roger Federer's three-set loss today to Andy Murray in Madrid. 

(Viva España! Nadal became the first Spanish male, in the Open era, to secure the year-end No. 1 ranking. Will have to find out at tonight's Laker game if Pau Gasol sent Nadal a congratulatory text message.)

Murray had reversed his loss to Federer in the U.S. Open final, and it was noted that Federer had not won a Masters Series level tournament this year.

Somehow, I doubt that will keep him awake at night. After all, Federer's so-called "off" year resulted in a Slam title (the U.S. Open) and an Olympic gold medal in doubles in Beijing. But the persistent questions about a newly vulnerable Federer ended up winning him more fans and admiration by the end of the year.

Federer does get criticized for curious things. A friend of mine, a casual tennis fan, was grilling me about Federer a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it was because we were at a birthday party in Las Vegas for Perry Rogers, who is Andre Agassi's boyhood friend and agent, and Agassi and his wife Steffi Graf were on hand at the club Tryst at the Wynn.

So there were many tennis questions coming my way. Hmm, quiz show or date?

He asked me if Federer had ever said anything truly funny in an interview. I knew he had but couldn't think of anything specific in those years of news conferences and a couple of one-on-one interviews. (Perhaps I was too mesmerized by the waterfall in the nightclub.) I finally mumbled something about one of Federer's cows.

This week, finally, a good answer came to mind. Federer was asked about the current global financial crisis during the Madrid tournament, and he spoke about his conservative approach in regard to money.

"Anyway, I have a big mattress," he said.

Not quite Goran Ivanisevic, gold-medal stuff ... but perhaps enough to get Federer on the podium.

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo credit: Justin Lane / EPA

Stanford banned -- or band? -- from scoring at Rose Bowl

Stanford comes into today's game against UCLA having not scored a point in the Rose Bowl in 156 minutes 47 seconds, covering two-plus games.

It would be easy to attribute this to the Cardinal having some woeful teams -- it finished the 2006 season with a 1-11 record.

But consider this: Stanford has not scored a point since its band was not allowed to perform a show at the 2002 game.

The irreverent Stanford band, famous for spotted owl formations and being banned from Notre Dame, was preparing a show "Things Upon Which Both Stanford and UCLA Can Agree" for the 2002 game. Word leaked that the performance would include jabs at Bruins quarterback Cory Paus and his two drunk driving arrests ( " ... even if it doesn't end your collegiate athletic career, drinking and driving could end someone's life," was a line included in the routine). Stanford officials did a pre-emptive strike and banned the show.

Michael Sgroi kicked a 42-yard field goal with 6:47 left in the first half, giving Stanford an 18-10 lead. Halftime came and went without the band performing its bit. Stanford has been outscored by the Bruins 70-0 since.

It doesn't take a Stanford degree to do that math.

Call it the "Curse of the Stanford Band."

-- Chris Foster

Photo: Although precision never has been a priority with the Stanford band, sending a pointed message always has been a focal point of their performances. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

Everybody's (Mid-season) All-American

Well, not quite everybody's.

Phil Steele publishes the most comprensive college football magazine on the market, so comprehensive you need a jumbo Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass to read the very fine print.

But there was something missing from Steele's Mid-Season All-American team, released this week:

USC and UCLA players.

USC placed only two players among the 81 on Steele's first, second and third mid-season teams. Considering USC is ranked No. 4 in early BCS projections, doesn't that make Pete Carroll the mid-season coach of the year? How does USC do it with such a rag-tag bunch of over-achievers?

USC fared better than UCLA, which came up with an eight-clap goose egg on Steele's list.

Safety Kevin Ellison was the only USC and/or Pac-10 player to make Steele's first team. Trojan linebacker Rey Maualuga made second-team defense.

Oregon had twice as many players, four, as USC on Steele's three-deep roster, which makes you wonder how the Ducks lost to USC, 44-10.

Interestingly, USC had four defensive starters on Steele's pre-season All-American team, but Kevin Ellison wasn't one of them.

The four Trojans were defensive tackle Fili Moala, linebackers Brian Cushing and Maualuga and safety Taylor Mays. Moala, Cushing and Mays have since received the Steele shaft.

Can't wait for Steele's Three-Quarter Season All-American team, if there is such a thing.

-- Chris Dufresne

Photo: USC safety Kevin Ellison moves in to break up a pass intended for Arizona State's Kerry Taylor during a 28-0 victory last week. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Rays defense: Kind of Gross

Don't be surprised if Rocco Baldelli or even Fernando Perez, the rookie speedster who scored the winning run in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series with a daring dash home on B.J. Upton's sacrifice fly to shallow right field, start in right field over Gabe Gross for Tampa Bay in Game 6 tonight.

Gross is a left-handed hitter who usually starts against right-handed pitchers, and right-hander Josh Beckett will be starting for the Red Sox tonight. But Gross is hitless in nine ALCS at-bats and is batting .067 (one for 15) in seven postseason games.

And lost in the bullpen meltdown -- and the questionable managerial decisions that may have led to them -- that led to the Rays blowing a 7-0, seventh-inning lead in an 8-7 loss in Game 5 at Fenway Park, were two plays that, had Gross made them, could have prevented the stunning defeat.

The Red Sox had runners on first and third with two outs in the seventh and were still trailing, 7-0, when Dustin Pedroia flared an RBI single to right field. Off the bat, the ball looked like a sure hit, but replays showed the ball hung in the air and had a little more arc than a typical single.

Gross came in on the ball but gave up too early, pulling up and letting it drop about 10 feet in front of him. Had the right fielder been a little more aggressive, sprinted in from the start and kept going, he could have caught the ball to end the inning.

Instead, Pedroia's single made it 7-1, and David Ortiz followed with a three-run home run to trim Tampa Bay's lead to 7-4.

Some also thought the J.D. Drew liner that sailed over Gross' head in the ninth inning for a game-winning ground-rule single could have been caught. After watching several replays, it appeared Gross might have caught the ball with an extraordinary effort, and a leap or a dive, but he didn't get a good enough jump off the bat to put himself in position for such a play.

-- Mike DiGiovanna

Photo: Rocco Baldelli is congratulated by Rays teammates Dioner Navarro and Fernando Perez after hitting a three-run home run in Game 3 of the ALCS. Credit: Jim Rogash / Getty Images

David Beckham falls victim to thieves

Lesson No. 1: Don't steal.

Lesson No. 2: If you do steal, don't steal readily recognizable items.

Lesson No. 3: If you do steal readily recognizable items, don't put them up for auction on the Internet.

"Beckingham Palace" in the English county of Hertfordshire, was where these lessons are being taught. As the name suggests, it is David Beckham's English home near the village of Sawbridgeworth.

Although the Galaxy star and his family live in Los Angeles, they have employees looking after their English mansion, where it appears some light fingers have been at work.

According to reports in England, a married couple and their adult son are, as they so politely say on the other side of the pond, "helping police with their inquiries" after several unique and valuable items appeared for auction on eBay that Beckham's parents recognized as coming from their son's home.

Lesson No. 4: If you do steal readily recognizable items and you do put them up for auction on the Internet, hope that the victim's family isn't computer savvy.

The investigation continues.

-- Grahame L. Jones

Photo: David and Victoria Beckham at Macy's in New York on Sept. 26 during the unveiling of their Beckham Signature fragrance collection. Credit: Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images