The Beat
• Watch out Paul Tagliabue: Snoop Dogg is running a football league. The rapper, who last year coached the Rowland Raiders to the Orange County Junior All-American Football Conference championship (the team bus was decked out with TVs and video games), has started the eight-team Snoop Youth Football League. The decision has irked some rival-league parents, mainly because players have begun jumping to Snoop's circuit. On Aug. 25 Snoop will join the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ice Cube for a concert in Los Angeles with proceeds going to the SYFL. "It's so easy for a kid to join a gang, to do drugs," says Snoop. "We should make it that easy to be involved in football and academics."
• Serial pitcher dater Alyssa Milano (left) is at it again. The Charmed star, who went out with the Yankees' Carl Pavano and was linked with Oakland's Barry Zito, is now seeing Dodgers ace Brad Penny. The righty has told friends the two are an item, and Milano, a Dodger Stadium regular, has followed the team on road trips.
• Few things get past the Patriots' offensive line--especially a chance to poke fun at their golden boy quarterback. After Tom Brady (right) posed for a less-than-rugged photo spread in the September issue of GQ, center Dan Koppen and tackle Matt Light taped some of the photos on their backs at practice last week. Every time Brady lined up, he was forced to look at himself holding a baby goat and wearing cowboy and sailor outfits. "I got it bad," said Brady.
• Football fanatic Tim McGraw--who counts Brett Favre as a close friend--is excited that ABC will use his 1995 hit I Like It, I Love It to accompany its Monday Night Football halftime highlight reel. He's been thinking about how he'll rework the lyrics every week. Says McGraw, "So far, the hardest part has been trying to come up with something that rhymes with Urlacher."
• In the midst of an Aug. 3 game against the Braves, Reds first baseman Jacob Cruz spotted what he thought was a brawl in the rightfield bleachers. "Then you realize it's not a fight," he says. "And then there's a stretcher and someone getting carted off. Then stories start trickling down." The unfortunate story, in this case, was that 49-year-old Reds fan Spencer Brock had died of a heart attack while with his six-year-old grandson, Antonio. Reds officials, realizing the boy was suddenly alone, invited Antonio into the clubhouse, where he talked to players after the game until his mother picked him up. But, says Cruz, "that's not the kind of memory you want him to have of a ball game." So Cruz began taking donations from his teammates, and last week he brought Antonio back to the park for another game--and gave him an electric scooter, a Sony PSP and a ball and glove.
• The NHL season doesn't start until Oct. 5, but gloves will be hitting the ice well before then. On Aug. 27, 16 former pro goons--including ex-NHLers Lyndon Byers and Kent Carlson--will duke it out in full hockey gear and skates in the pay-per-view Battle of the Enforcers. The idea came to promoter Darryl Wolski five years ago when he saw bar patrons cheering highlights of an NHL fight.
THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE
The Ohio Senior Amateur golf championship was held in West Virginia.
They Said It
MARCUS GILES
Braves second baseman, after a recent loss to the Giants: "I don't want to say this is no big deal, but it's no big deal."
COLOR PHOTO
MAX NASH/AP (PICTURE THIS)
PICTURE THIS
Batman looks much less imposing in the cold light of day, doesn't he? On Sunday, David Moore of Middletown, Conn., and 25 other human-powered flight enthusiasts took leaps of faith at the annual International Bognor Birdman competition in Bognor Regis, England. Moore, aboard a contraption called Fletcher: A Giant Human Batsuit, won the Leonardo da Vinci class for the most unique design.
COLOR PHOTO
GREGG DEGUIRE/WIREIMAGE.COM (MILANO)
COLOR PHOTO
COURTESY OF BRUCE WEBER/GQ, SEPTEMBER 2005 (BRADY)
COLOR PHOTO
DAVID BERGMAN (GILES)