Sports Beat
Percy Miller, a.k.a. hip-hop impresario Master P, worked out with
the Denver Nuggets last week and said there was no limit to his
NBA dreams. "Hopefully I'll get a shot once camp starts [on July
9]," says Miller, 33, who played with the CBA's Fort Wayne Fury
in 1998-99 and later was in training camps with Charlotte and
Toronto. "People put up boundaries, but I think I have a good
shot [at making the NBA]." The 6'5" Miller worked with about a
dozen Nuggets players at the behest of general manager Kiki
Vandeweghe. "He's a good player, absolutely," said Vandeweghe,
who insists this is no publicity stunt. Miller played in five
preseason games with the Raptors in '99, averaging 2.6 points and
4.6 minutes.
Bob Hope, who turned 100 last week, is a man for all sporting
seasons. Growing up in Cleveland, he toyed with the idea of
becoming a boxer--until he got knocked cold in one amateur fight.
In June 1963 Hope appeared on the cover of SI after he bought a
stake in the Cleveland Indians. He also owned a small piece of
the Los Angeles Rams from 1947 until '62, and on his Christmas
specials he traditionally introduced the AP All-America college
football team. Still, it's the comic's connection to golf that
the world knows best. Since 1960, Hope has hosted what is now
called the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He golfed with eight
presidents, and his 1985 golf book, Confessions of a Hooker, was
on The New York Times best-seller list for 53 weeks. "Golf is my
profession," Hope once said. "I tell jokes to pay my greens fees."
In its 44-year history, the Daytona International Speedway has
never been the site of a nonracing event. That will change on
June 28 when Alabama, Brooks & Dunn, Sheryl Crow, Kenny Chesney,
the Goo Goo Dolls and Hootie & the Blowfish come to the track for
the Dale Earnhardt Tribute concert. The daylong show will benefit
the Dale Earnhardt Foundation, which Earnhardt's widow, Teresa,
established in 2001 to support the charities Earnhardt helped in
his lifetime, including children's issues and wildlife
preservation. The late Earnhardt appeared in the Brooks & Dunn
video for Honky Tonk Truth, and he was the inspiration for the
duo's Sunday Money. Fox will air the concert on July 10.
Does this make Hillary Clinton a dark horse candidate in the
2004 presidential election? The State University of New York at
Morrisville, where graduates are traditionally escorted to the
commencement ceremony by horses from the school's equine program,
has named a standardbred foal in honor of U.S. Senator Clinton,
this year's graduation speaker. The filly, Hillary's Hope, who
was born at the school in February, comes from impressive
lineage. Her sire, Space Shuttle, won 21 of 50 starts and earned
$728,695 for his career.
When Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere walked onto the set
of The Tonight Show to greet Jay Leno on May 23, Kevin Eubanks's
band played Giguere's theme song, Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It. Giguere
is only the third hockey player to appear on the show: Detroit
forward Brendan Shanahan visited in '97, and Wayne Gretzky
dropped by back in '88, when Johnny Carson was host.
COLOR PHOTO: MARK KAUFFMAN (HOPE) A century of Hope
COLOR PHOTO: REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS (O'CONNOR)
COLOR PHOTO: MICHEL EULER/AP (DAVENPORT) PICTURE THIS Just wear it. In a city famous for haute couture, Nike took advantage of the French Open's relaxed dress code and cornered the Paris fashion market last week, supplying six players with identical blue-on-blue, two-piece outfits. The models (clockwise from top left): Lindsay Davenport, Ashley Harkleroad, Evie Dominikovic, Daniela Hantuchova, Amelie Mauresmo and Maria Sharapova.
TWO COLOR PHOTOS: MICHAEL KOOREN/REUTERS (HARKLEROAD, HANTUCHOVA) [See caption above]
COLOR PHOTO: CLIVE BRUNSKILL/GETTY IMAGES (DOMINIKOVIC) [See caption above]
COLOR PHOTO: JACQUES DEMARATHON/AFP (MAURESMO) [See caption above]
COLOR PHOTO: CLIVE MASON/GETTY IMAGES (SHARAPOVA) [See caption above]
THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE
The June 25 auction of Barry Bonds's 73rd home run ball will be
televised live by ESPN.
THEY SAID IT
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR
U.S. Supreme Court justice, whose son, Brian, 43, summitted Mount
Everest on May 25 despite her strenuous objections that the trip
would be too dangerous: "So you can see how much my opinion
matters when it really counts."