Bob Miller, the L.A. Kings' venerable play-by-play announcer and, with Vin and Chick, part of the Big Mic Trio, gets his well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday at 11:30 a.m. The Daily News' Tom Hoffarth, whose sports-media column and "Off the Wall" blog are always must-reads, had an excellent retrospective column about Miller on Friday, complete with Miller's filmography (is there anyone else who can claim to have been in both Rollerball and The Mighty Ducks?) and a list of locations of other sports broadcasters' Walk of Fame stars.
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Sportswriters for Freedom of the Press is a newly-formed organization that backs Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the intrepid San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke the BALCO case, wrote a much-praised national bestseller (Game of Shadows), and, in an unbelievably distressing twist, face jail for refusing to name their sources. The Sportswriters for Freedom group now has a web-site, with pertinent information about the reporters, the case (the pair's deadline to file an appeal is Oct. 25) and all of the legal issues involved.
The latest edition of "SportsLetter," the online newsletter published by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, contains the usual hi-jinks, as well as interviews with authors of two very different books. The first Q&A is with New York Times sports columnist Bill Rhoden about his controversial polemic Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. The second interview is with local journalist and TV producer Randy Williams, who's written a lively, comprehensive guide to sports and the movies in Sports Cinema: The Best of Hollywood's Athletic Winners, Losers, Myths, and Misfits (due in November). (Full disclosure: I contribute content to SL.)
