This Mural Already Is a Real Timesaver

TNT is going all out in promoting its coverage of the NBA All-Star game at Staples Center.

Besides sponsoring Jeff Burton’s stock car in the Feb. 15 Daytona 500 as a reminder of the basketball game later that evening, the cable network commissioned a mural to be painted on the nearby Hotel Figueroa.

One problem, though. The TNT mural faces away from Staples Center. That’s because ESPN owns rights to the wall on the other side of the hotel.

At least TNT has the correct time on its mural. An ESPN mural, promoting last summer’s ESPYs, displayed the Eastern time for the telecast.

Good taste: TNT, which last fall put video screens above urinals in sports bars and restaurants to promote its Pacific 10 Conference college football telecasts, is being a little more tasteful with its NBA All-Star promotions.

TNT, among other things, has bought space on 125,000 L.A.-area pizza boxes.

Trivia time: Robert L. Shoop’s new book, “Down to the Wire: The Lives of the Triple Crown Champions,” profiles the 11 horses that have won the Triple Crown. How many can you name?

Rewrite needed: Damon Runyon, a 7-year-old trotting gelding, recently won a race at Florida’s Pompano Park, pushing his earnings to $185,079.

Noted Ken Weingartner of the U.S. Trotting Assn., “Perhaps the success of Runyon the trotter would cause Runyon the author to reconsider his famous observation: ‘All of life is 6-5 against.’ ”

More rewrites: Of coaching decisions made by Mike Martz and Mike Sherman last weekend, Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald, wrote: “Get me rewrite on the phrase, ‘Be like Mike.’ ”

Fashion statement: Freddie Mitchell was asked by NFL Network’s Rich Eisen how, as a UCLA guy, he started wearing mink coats.

“You try living in 10-degree weather,” the Philadelphia Eagle receiver said. “You’ll find a mink to keep you warm. I have a plethora of minks -- black mink, white mink, all kinds.”

Eisen: “Did you just say ‘plethora’?”

Mitchell: “I’m sorry. It’s the UCLA education coming out.”

Long pit stop: Mike McCarley, an NBC Sports publicist, organized a NASCAR fantasy league involving TV sports columnists. The season ended Nov. 16, but McCarley just recently sent out the final standings.

Quipped Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News, one of the participants: “I guess the NBC folks would have us believe these ‘plausibly live’ results are up-to-the-minute.”

Trivia answer: Sir Barton, 1919; Gallant Fox, 1930; Omaha, 1935; War Admiral, 1937; Whirlaway, 1941; Count Fleet, 1943; Assault, 1946; Citation, 1948; Secretariat, 1973; Seattle Slew, 1977; Affirmed, 1978.

And finally: “Boxing promoter Bob Arum is being investigated by the FBI, possibly for fixing fights,” writes Michael Ventre of msnbc.com. “If you ask me, this is like fishing outside a hatchery.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.