This Time, Miller Will Put Pride on the Line

Bode Miller, the most hyped U.S. athlete before the Winter Games in Turin but a bust during them, has signed to play one game for the Nashua (Pa.) Pride, an independent baseball team, to raise money for charity.

“If Miller gets to run the bases,” wrote Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post Dispatch about the opinionated skier, “it will be interesting to see if he veers crazily into the stands, then flees the ballpark without speaking to reporters.”

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Trivia time: Name the 12 players who have held the No. 1 ranking since the men’s Official World Golf Rankings debuted 20 years ago?

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Size matters? Looking back at the World Cup, Jennifer Floyd Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wondered, “Why is it that the ‘biggest sporting event in the world’ has the teeniest trophy? Seriously, I received a bigger trophy for winning the 100-yard breaststroke on my summer swim team in sixth grade.”

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Sequel might sink: According to Jay Leno, Johnny Depp’s next movie is “about a baseball team that can’t win: ‘The Pittsburgh Pirates of the Caribbean.’ ”

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Armed and embarrassed: One of the Half Gassed Awards handed out by Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News, honoring dubious baseball achievements of the season’s first half, was the “That’s What Comes of Eating Healthy Award,” given to pitcher Matt Wise of Milwaukee, “who cut the middle finger of his pitching hand on a pair of salad tongs.”

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Ancient (former) Mariner: Brad Rock of Salt Lake City’s Deseret News, on 32-year-old shortstop Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees saying that he’s getting too old for the nightclub scene: “Ain’t it the truth. One day you’re clubbing with the beautiful people. Next thing you know, you’re checking out the early bird dinner special with Randy Johnson.”

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Attention, David Stern: Before he was ejected for head-butting an Italian opponent in the chest, Zinedine Zidane scored France’s only goal in Sunday’s World Cup final -- after teammate Florent Malouda drew a foul.

Wrote Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Shaquille O’Neal must have said, ‘Wait. One French dude gets fouled and his teammate gets to take the free shot? I’ll be damned.’ ”

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Green over Brown: Of the PGA Tour’s plans to award $10 million to the winner of a four-tournament series, an attempt to add late-season drama to the Tour, David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel wrote, “It will be the largest prize in sports, unless you count Larry Brown’s unemployment checks.”

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Trivia answer: Seve Ballesteros, Fred Couples, David Duval, Ernie Els, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Tom Lehman, Greg Norman, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods and Ian Woosnam. (Note: Lehman was ranked No. 1 for one week.)

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And finally: Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on the news that Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat would sign a three-year contract extension, not five years as first believed: “Heat fans are still smiling, but 40% less broadly.”