Sounds Familiar: Hearn on Lakers

It was suggested in a recent column that Marge Hearn should be invited to join the all-woman announcing team working the Fox Sports Net 2 telecast of Tuesday’s Laker game against New Orleans.

Sure enough, Hearn got a call Friday from Laker executive Jeanie Buss, who invited her to be part of the special telecast.

“I guess she read the paper,” Hearn said, adding, “I’ll try to be the female Charles Barkley. I think he’s great.”

Trivia time: What player holds the record for the highest NCAA tournament scoring average?

A fitting salute: Of Tiger Woods’ plans to spend four days training with soldiers at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press wrote: “He doesn’t have to salute all the officers. He can just concentrate on the majors.”

A new slogan: From Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press, sensing the Army’s next promotional campaign: “Put a Tiger in a tank.”

Breaking barriers: The Toronto Blue Jays are planning Gay Community Day for a home game against the Montreal Expos on June 25, the Toronto Sun reported.

The day will coincide with Gay Pride Week in Toronto and will be promoted at various gay bars and clubs.

Paul Godfrey, the president of the Blue Jays, called the promotion “ground-breaking.”

Asked if he was worried about any kind of backlash, Godfrey said, “I’m not concerned. We’re not a homophobic organization.”

For what it’s worth: The most popular player in the NBA, judging by the number of page views on NBA.com, is LeBron James with 3.1 million hits this season. James is followed by Allen Iverson (2.7 million), Yao Ming (2.3 million) and Kobe Bryant (2.2 million).

The Lakers are the most popular team with 37.5 million page views.

Finger fodder: Bud Geracie of the San Jose Mercury News, on the injury that had sidelined Philadelphia Phillie reliever Billy Wagner: “An inflamed middle finger -- something you often see while driving.”

Mellow middle man: CBS’ Dick Enberg, about working with Al McGuire and Billy Packer at NBC, once said, “I guess if somebody were to have a continuum of personality -- a personality ruler if you will -- you would have to put Al McGuire at one end, Billy Packer at the other and ‘Mr. Vanilla’ Enberg in the middle.”

Looking back: On this date in 1971, UCLA defeated Villanova, 68-62, to win the seventh of its 10 NCAA basketball championships under John Wooden.

Trivia answer: Austin Carr of Notre Dame -- 41.3 in seven games, 1969 to ’71. He scored an NCAA tournament-record 61 points against Ohio in 1970.

And finally: NBA Commissioner David Stern, talking on NBA TV about attending a game in Minneapolis earlier this week: “Everyone wanted to know if I had brought the MVP Trophy to K.G. [Kevin Garnett]. They were disappointed I hadn’t.”

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