Special Las Vegas edition of Sports Illustrated hits newsstands

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 | 5:57 p.m.

NOW

This week's issue must be the special Las Vegas edition of Sports Illustrated because I counted no fewer than eight Las Vegas references or references to athletes with Las Vegas ties. And there may be more, because I had to stop when the subscription cards kept falling out and threw off my train of thought.

Here they are in the order they appear:

--- Page 18. For the Record. Owed, by Charles Barkley, a $400,000 gambling debt to Wynn Las Vegas casino. Next week's issue will probably read "paid" instead of "owed" -- unless Sir Charles likes the Spurs. Or the Penguins. Then it will probably say "owed" again.

--- Page 20. SI Players. Mike Tyson, a longtime Las Vegas resident, was in Cannes for the film festival where a new movie about him drew rave reviews. According to the magazine, Iron Mike said watching movies in Cannes is a lot better than doing time in the can.

--- Page 25. The Pop Culture Grid. Giants outfielder Aaron Rowand, who makes his home in Summerlin, says the sports figure he's dying to see in action is Shaquille O'Neal; the most ridiculous tattoo he's seen is "I love Billy Koch" on Justin Miller's rear end; Jimmy Fallon replacing Conan should be awesome; the language he's dying to learn is Spanish; and his favorite pickup line is "Hi. What's Your Name?" (Which, I suppose, is more effective than "I'm a .288 lifetime hitter stuck playing center field for one of the worst teams in baseball.")

--- Page 25. The Pop Culture Grid. Indy Racing League driver Graham Rahal says the sports figure he's dying to see in action is Natalie Gulbis, the LPGA golfer who makes her home at Lake Las Vegas. (The sports figure he'd least like to see in action is Alex Lloyd, who slowed going into the pits, forcing 19-year-old Rahal into the Turn 4 wall during Sunday's Indy 500.)

--- Page 27. Faces in the Crowd. David Schacter of Henderson, a senior at Nevada-Reno, gets top billing for becoming the fifth boxer to win four titles at the National Collegiate Boxing Championships. Thankfully, Schacter was photographed without the silly looking amateur boxing headgear.

--- Page 35. All-Bizarro Team. The verdict on Cardinals right fielder and Las Vegas native Ryan Ludwick is that his .336 batting average is "fluke" rather than "for real." A .336 batting average in May is not a fluke. What is a fluke is that nobody told Frank Deford he needed a haircut when he used to write for Sports Illustrated.

--- Page 52. In a special advertising feature, NASCAR phenom and Durango High grad Kyle Busch is depicted as an M&M peanut. Lucky for him he doesn't drive the Bush's Baked Beans car in the Nationwide Series.

--- Page 57. Bishop Gorman is ranked the eighth best high school sports program in the land by SI. Punahou of Honolulu is No. 1. Mr. Hand will be chagrined to learn that Ridgemont High didn't even receive an honorable mention this year.

THEN

--- When most of the boys in my class were checking out Cheryl Tiegs' statistics in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, I was checking out Woodie Held's statistics in Baseball Digest. While I'm not exactly sure when I decided to become a sports writer, it was probably a day or two after that.