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LEFTOVERS: Wacha gets serenade of one-hitters

So, how do you honor someone who throws a one-hitter?

If you’re Damon Oliver, the in-house DJ for the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium, you play songs from groups that were, well, one-hit wonders.

During Wednesday’s Cardinals-Nationals game, Oliver paid tribute to Cards pitcher Michael Wacha, who lost his no-hit bid with two outs in the ninth inning Tuesday. Between innings, Oliver busted out such classics as “Mickey” by Las Vegas High school alumnus Toni Basil, “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, “500 Miles” by The Proclaimers and “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne.

Pretty clever, right?

If it were up to us, our playlist would have included “Tighter and Tighter” by Alive and Kickin’, “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” by Edison Lighthouse and “The Rapper” by the Jaggerz. But when you lived through the music of the 1970s, who needs Vanilla Ice?

■ BOBBLEHEAD BUTCHERY — When it comes to pregame ceremonies, few, if any sports organizations can top the New York Yankees. If you saw Sunday’s tribute to Mariano Rivera, you know what we’re talking about.

However, when it comes to bobblehead dolls, the Yankees are as adept as the 1962 Mets.

On Tuesday, the team held “Mariano Rivera Bobblehead Night” at Yankee Stadium, an event that had been planned months ago. So imagine the surprise and ultimate anger of the thousands who showed up to receive their collectible, only to find that the truck carrying the bobbleheads had broken down in Newark, N.J.

Why it took so long to have the figurines delivered to the Bronx is a mystery. But when the gates opened late, there were no Rivera dolls. Instead, vouchers were handed out to angry fans. Then the Yankees ran out of vouchers, leaving thousands more bobblehead-less.

By the time the bobbleheads showed up in the third inning, a line had formed from the field level to the upper deck. In an effort to appease the ticked off fans, the team offered a free ticket to a game in 2014 to any customer who attended Tuesday’s debacle.

But wait, there’s more.

On Wednesday, the Yankees had a “Charlie Brown bobblehead” giveaway. How appropriate. The poster boy for failure is given away 24 hours after the Rivera fiasco. And on the night the Yanks were eliminated from postseason consideration, no less.

To that, what else can we say but “Good grief!”

■ EVERYONE SITS — High school kids get in trouble from time to time. But in Roosevelt, Utah, football coach Matt Labrum had all of his Union High School players turn in their uniforms after last week’s 40-16 loss.

This had nothing to do with losing a game, but rather it was over a disturbing trend of bad behavior, breaking rules, skipping classes and cyberbullying of a fellow student.

“We felt like everything was going in a direction that we didn’t want our young men going,” Labrum told the Deseret News. “We felt like we needed to make a stand.”

Labrum gave his players a letter outlining his expectations from them if they wanted to continue to play football. By Wednesday, all but nine had been reinstated in time to play in Friday’s homecoming game against Emery.

COMPILED BY STEVE CARP LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

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