Rangers and Angels feel the heat | Seattle Times Newspaper

Throwing high heat certainly wasn't a problem.

Last week's Angels-Rangers series in Arlington, Texas, featured game-time temperatures of 102, 103, 105 and 102 degrees.

Slower, lower, weaker

Eight badminton players were expelled from the Olympics for not playing to win.

Which probably explains why they raised a white flag during the medal ceremony.

Headlines

• At TheOnion.com: "Bob Costas about 2 seconds away from comparing badminton scandal to 1919 Black Sox."

• At SportsPickle.com: "Baseball cards found in attic sell for $27.50."

Coincidence?

"So on the night Hernandez dominated the Yankees," tweeted Times sports writer Larry Stone, "Jeter beat Felix in the women's 100M at the Olympics."

Lay off the tweets

Kentucky football coach Joker Phillips has banned his players from using Twitter during training camp.

Violators, we assume, will be doing a lot of fingertip push-ups.

Olympic insider

"According to Wikipedia, a regulation shuttlecock is made from — I swear this is an actual quote — '16 or so overlapping feathers, usually goose or duck and from the left wing only,' " wrote syndicated columnist Dave Barry. "Wikipedia does not say why only left-wing feathers are used, or whether this causes the geese and ducks to fly in counterclockwise circles."

Name game

So who will be the most-feared DB in college football this season: Georgia's Bacarri Rambo, Oklahoma's Eric Striker or Cincinnati's Leviticus Payne?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Rapper Snoop Dogg says he's changing his name to Snoop Lion.

"And in a related story," wrote comedy writer Argus Hamilton, "Ice-T just changed his name to Arnold Palmer."

Quote marks

• Brad Dickson of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, on jocks at North Carolina getting steered into classes where they didn't even have to show up: "The athletes appreciated the gesture but said the commute to Norman, Okla., was a bit taxing."

• Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press, after London mayor Boris Johnson was left dangling for five minutes during an ill-fated Olympic zip-line stunt: "He really should leave the daredevil stuff to the experts. Like the queen."

• Ex-Dream Teamer Charles Barkley, to ESPN.com, on the U.S. men's 156-73 rout of Nigeria: "That's probably how many points they'd beat the '92 team by — if we played today."

• Times reader Bill Littlejohn, on reports that Kobe Bryant's wife was outraged after seeing a photo taken of him at a Team USA party: "Which means he has just gone from playing for the gold to playing for the diamond."

Take that, Usain Bolt

Sarah, an 11-year-old cheetah at the Cincinnati Zoo, broke her own land speed record by running 100 meters in 5.95 seconds.

Think that's impressive? Imagine the poor sap who had to collect the post-race urine sample.

Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com

By Dwight Perry The Seattle Times

By Dwight Perry
The Seattle Times