Young Fresno golf titlist is impressive

Published online on Saturday, May. 30, 2009

Enter the Warzone, your Manny Ramirez All-Star campaign headquarters.

The Warzone barely knows a divot from a dimple, but even he came away impressed watching 18-year-old Michael Weaver become the Fresno City Amateur's youngest champion.

Asked about his son's unflappability (yes, it's a real word) under fire, Bill Weaver brought up Michael's former days as a go-kart racer.

"Not those toy go-karts, but the ones that go 70 to 80 mph," Bill Weaver said. "That's where I think he gets it from."

Too bad go-karts aren't allowed on cart paths.

We love a good travesty around these parts (especially at Bud Selig's expense), hence our enthusiasm for Manny in the All-Star Game.

But why stop there? Imagine Pete Rose as National League manager, Brian McNamee as trainer and Rafael Palmeiro as honorary captain. Then have Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battle it out in the Home Run Derby. That is, if either can clear the fence clean.

Congrats to 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kan., winner of the National Spelling Bee.

With a name like that, she had a pretty good head start.

Shivashankar could immediately land a job with the Washington Nationals, who recently trotted out a couple players wearing "Natinals" jerseys and are selling Teddy "Rossevelt" bobbleheads as souvenirs.

C'mon, Nats. This isn't "Wheel of Fortune." You don't have to buy vowels.

Sure didn't take long for Jesus Guzman and Kevin Frandsen to find their way back to Triple-A Fresno after going a combined 1 for 26 in the majors.

Who's the next Grizzly in line for the Fresno-to-San Francisco shuttle? Probably John Bowker, batting .342 thanks to a better plan at home plate with fewer strikeouts (26) than walks (31).

Loved those photographs by our man Darrell Wong depicting the Kerman High softball and Edison High baseball teams celebrating their section titles.

These days, we need every expression of pure joy we can get.

Like the rest of the world, we were hoping for -- no, counting on -- a Kobe-LeBron matchup in the NBA Finals.

Instead, we likely get Dwight Howard, whose only move is the power dunk. So much for artistry on the hardwood.

So John Calipari evidently didn't run a clean program at Memphis after all.

Raise both hands if you're surprised. (Truck drivers and chain-saw operators excepted.)

For no particular reason: Sergei Bubka.

Duffer Dean Gorman, 97, on why he didn't go nuts after hitting a hole-in-one:

"At my age," he told the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, "getting out of bed each day is a pretty good thrill."

To the floppy-haired kid in the yellow shirt who did a back flip off a planter box on the southeast corner of Bullard and Fruit last Saturday night:

Nice landing.