Bimbos, hookers off the air

A new sports-talk radio show is surfacing in the St. Louis area, and John Kijowski, who runs the station airing the program, said it will differ from competing shows.

"Talk about bimbos, hookers on our air? No way," Kijowski told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "There's no reason to dumb it down. Just because you're a guy doesn't mean you have to talk about that stuff."

• SO TRUE -- A timely observation from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: "Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will produce just one fewer playoff RBI this year than he did the past three Octobers combined."

• BACKUP PLAN -- A minor league hockey team in Bakersfield, Calif., has invited vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to be the team's honorary VP.

The reasoning? The Alaska governor "is considered by many to be the most famous hockey mom in the country," said Matthew Riley, president of the Bakersfield Condors.

If Palin agrees, her title would be "Team Mom of Condorstown."

• EMPTY UNIT -- If there's a bright spot for fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who missed the playoffs, it's that they do not have to suffer through another Randy Johnson outing. Of the 45-year-old, who struggled down the stretch, Greg Hansen of the Arizona Star writes, "It's Muhammad Ali fighting Leon Spinks."

• UNEASY RIDER -- Bad-luck bike rider Robert Evans, 46, of Boulder, Colo., somehow escaped life-threatening injuries recently, the Denver Post reported, when he got clipped by a car, then -- seven hours later -- got sideswiped by a train.

In other words, he was just a bus and a truck shy of getting hit for the cycle.

• RUTHLESS CRITIC -- Babe Ruth raised the curtain on Yankee Stadium in 1923 with the first home run hit there, but no such pedigree in last Sunday's curtain-dropper.

"Having a journeyman catcher such as (Jose) Molina hit the last home run at Yankee Stadium," Bill Foley of Butte's Montana Standard wrote, "is like having Danny DeVito play Batman."

• COACH'S DREAM -- Those escape clauses in John Beilein's coaching contract must be a doozy.

"I have said that there are only two places I would rather coach at," the Michigan basketball coach said, as quoted in the Grand Rapids (Iowa) Press. "One is an orphanage, because I wouldn't have their parents bothering me. And second, a prison, because I wouldn't have to worry about the alumni coming back."

• MANNY HAPPY RETURNS -- From Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News: "If you still don't think winning cures everything in sports, look at the spit-polishing Manny Ramirez has done to his image because he has hit the way he has hit for the Dodgers."

• PRIME CUT -- The late race-car driver Paul Newman (who also did a little acting), when Playboy asked if he ever was tempted to stray during his 51-year marriage to actress Joanne Woodward: "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?"

• NO LION -- Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press, on last week's firing of Matt Millen as general manager of the Detroit Lions: "It's so late in coming, it should be wearing bell bottoms."

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