The Beat
As a seasoned reality-TV vet Trishelle Cannatella (The Real World, The Surreal Life) is certainly no rookie when it comes to running around on camera in her underwear. Now she'll be doing it on the gridiron. On Feb. 5 she'll join fellow Surreal Life alum Adrienne Curry, supermodel Amber Smith and singer Willa Ford (A Toast to Men) as celebrity QBs in Lingerie Bowl III, which will air on PBS--no, actually on pay-per-view opposite Super Bowl XL. Cannatella (left), 25, played intramural football at Southern Miss. "I was supposed to be a boy--Andrew III--and I ended up a tomboy instead," she says. "So this will be easy. I could play quarterback in high heels if I had to."
■ Now Britney Spears has somewhere to put that baby on board placard. The five-months-pregnant pop star will star in and produce a fictional movie about two veteran NASCAR drivers who drift apart following an accident until they are persuaded to reconcile by the daughter of a team owner. Trading Paint begins filming next year.
■ Though he's barely hitting .140, Indians third baseman Aaron Boone has attracted the attention of Oscar-winning documentarian Robert David Port (2003's Twin Towers). Port got the idea for the tentatively titled flick Aaron Boone ... Love of the Game after the Yankees released Boone because he tore his ACL playing pickup basketball, which was prohibited in his contract. "He told the Yankees the truth and people criticized him for not lying," says Port. "I thought, 'What have we become?' I decided to put sports into perspective with Boone as my straight man." Port has filmed at spring training and at Angels and Dodgers games for more than a year and hopes to wrap by 2006.
■ In five seasons as Greg on The Brady Bunch, Barry Williams never once picked up a tennis racket. "They always had me either playing basketball, football or fixing my bike," he laughs. "But I was really a tennis player." Now he's proving it. Williams, who counts a win over Eight Is Enough's Grant Goodeve at a charity event in 1990 as his greatest tennis thrill, is joining up with the U.S. Tennis Association and athletes such as Richard Jefferson, Monica Seles and Luke Jensen for a series of "block parties." The free instructional sessions will take place this month in Birmingham, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Hamilton, N.J., and Palo Alto, Calif.... Celluloid pool sharks are often hunky (see Paul Newman and Tom Cruise), but that didn't stop Lions Gate from snapping up the film rights to the life story of heavyset pool hall hustler Danny (Kid Delicious) Basavich (SI, Feb. 14, 2005). Producer Peter Block sees the story of Kid and his sidekick, "Bristol" Bob Begey, as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets The Hustler. He wouldn't mind seeing someone like Jack Black star in the picture. (The first draft of the script is being written by SI's L. Jon Wertheim.) "Like Jack, [Basavich] is just a lovable lug," says Block. "You want to put your arm around him and protect him, but then you realize at the same time he probably has his hand in your pocket, stealing your wallet."
PICTURE THIS
Every great outfielder has a special skill: Ichiro boasts a cannonlike arm, Torii Hunter can jump out of the building--and Eric Byrnes makes a mean open-field tackle. So discovered a fan who ran onto the McAfee Coliseum field on Sunday. When he tried to escape, Byrnes grabbed and held him until security arrived. His reward? Before his next at bat the P.A. announcer introduced him as "right defensive back Eric Byrnes."
THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Cyclist Tyler Hamilton blamed a positive blood-doping test on a "vanishing twin" that shared his mother's womb.
They Said It
DREW GOODEN
Cavaliers forward, on the ups and downs of his three-year NBA career: "I've had to overcome a lot of diversity."
COLOR PHOTO
JEAN-PAUL AUSSENARD/WIREIMAGE.COM (CANNATELLA)
COLOR PHOTO
JED JACOBSOHN/GETTY IMAGES (PICTURE THIS)
COLOR PHOTO
DAVID LIAM KYLE/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES (GOODEN)