For the Record

Author:
SI Staff

Died

At age 96 of respiratory failure, fitness guru Jack LaLanne (above), who preached diet and exercise—including weightlifting at a time when doctors deemed it risky—long before the national fitness craze. The way LaLanne told it, he was a sugar-addicted teen when a nutrition lecture turned his life around. LaLanne started a makeshift gym for local fire- and policemen in his backyard; and at age 21 he opened the prototype for what would become a nationwide gym/juice bar/health food store chain. He took his spiel to the air in '51 with The Jack LaLanne Show, pushing health products and simple exercise routines in his trademark short-sleeved jumpsuit. Later in life he showed off his chiseled physique (5'6" and roughly 150 pounds) in TV stunts, such as when, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he towed 70 boats and 70 passengers by swimming a mile and a half while handcuffed and shackled. "I can't die," he grew fond of saying later in life. "It would ruin my image."

Disqualified

From the Abu Dhabi Championship after an e-mail from a TV viewer alerted event organizers to the fact that a golfer had moved his own ball while removing a coin, three-time major winner Padraig Harrington. The Irishman had finished round 1 last Thursday with a seven-under 65 and trailed leader Charl Schwartzel by one stroke, but because Harrington had failed to take a two-stroke penalty for the infraction, which could be seen on TV, he was disqualified for an incorrect score. Harrington said his action was incidental and joked, "I hope that this many people watch the European tour." Friday's ruling was not the first of its kind. Earlier this month a call from a viewer led to the disqualification at a PGA event in Hawaii of Camilo Villegas, who was shown on TV to have illegally swatted grass out of the way of his rolling ball.

Announced

By CBS Sports and Turner Sports, the new broadcaster lineup for the 2011 NCAA men's basketball tournament, which will air for the first time across CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV as part of a $10.8 billion deal reached in April. This year's tournament has been expanded from 65 to 68 teams and will tip off with four play-in games, dubbed the First Four, starting on March 15. Beginning with those games, CBS's top team of Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg will be joined by TNT's Steve Kerr, and CBS's studio unit will be complemented by TNT NBA analysts Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. Kerr and Marv Albert will be added as a regional team, and Kerr will call the Final Four alongside Nantz and Kellogg.

Ruled

By a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco, that a number of former MLB players, as well as Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi, will be allowed to testify at the perjury trial of former Giants slugger Barry Bonds, which begins on March 21. The ruling permits prosecutors to go ahead with plans to question players about their relationship with Bonds's former trainer Greg Anderson, who has said that he won't take the stand against his former employer. Prosecutors hope to establish that Anderson sold drugs to those players and that he was explicit about what he was providing them, shooting down an assertion by Bonds—who has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of perjury and to an obstruction of justice charge—that he never knowingly took steroids.

Died

At age 89, former Negro leagues and MLB first baseman George Crowe (above). A two-sport star during the early years of integration, Crowe was the first Mr. Basketball in Indiana, in 1939, when the state was still considered to be a Ku Klux Klan hotbed. He played on the New York Renaissance, the first black-owned, all-black pro basketball team, and also briefly alongside Jackie Robinson on the integrated Los Angeles Red Devils before both players moved to baseball. In the bigs Crowe split nine seasons between Boston, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and St. Louis. He hit 31 home runs in 1957 and was named to the All-Star team a year later; and when he retired, Crowe held the record (14, later broken) for pinch-hit home runs.

Demanded

By the NFL, that carmaker Toyota alter one of its television commercials, which referenced concussions incurred while playing football. The 30-second spot, which first aired in November, originally featured a woman worrying about her son playing football. The ad explained how Toyota was sharing crash research with scientists who were studying football-related concussions; it also depicted two players colliding head-on while digital lines rippled from their helmets to suggest the force of impact. But a Toyota spokesperson says that the league insisted that the ad be altered and threatened to end the company's ability to advertise during NFL broadcasts if changes weren't made, including toning down the sound of the hit. ("We felt it was unfair to single out a particular sport," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said last week.) Toyota has since re-cut the spot and last week began airing a new collision-free version in which the mother worries "about my son playing sports."

THEY SAID IT

Caroline Wozniacki

Top-ranked women's tennis player, responding to criticism at the Australian Open that her press conferences were boring because she always gives the same answers:

"I find it quite funny because I always get the same questions."

Go Figure

Three-pointers missed by the Hawks (7 of 31) and Heat (7 of 30) on Jan. 18, tying the NBA single-game record for long-distance futility.

Number of players named Gerald Dixon who committed this month to play football at South Carolina. Both are linemen and sons of former Gamecocks linebacker Gerald Dixon.

Estimated percent of fans who are legally drunk when they leave sporting events, according to a University of Minnesota study.

$30

Price for one ounce of Unbreakable, the unisex fragrance being marketed by the Lakers' Lamar Odom and his wife, Khloé Kardashian, as a "representation of [their] indestructible bond."

4:44

Length in hours and minutes of Francesca Schiavone's win over Svetlana Kuznetsova at the Australian Open last Sunday, the longest women's Grand Slam match of the Open era.

100

Score rolled by Tom Daugherty at the Professional Bowlers Association Tournament of Champions last Saturday, the lowest ever in a televised PBA event.

PHOTO

BETTMANN/CORBIS (CROWE)

PHOTO

MATTHEW STOCKMAN/GETTY IMAGES (WOZNIACKI)

January 31, 2011