Get ready for the Super Bowl shuffle.

With the start of NFL training camps probably days away, and every team angling for the ultimate prize, a major player reshuffling is in the works. Two years worth of unrestricted free agents are expected to hit the open market this week, and clubs are bracing for an unprecedented flurry of signings.

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If things follow the anticipated course and players approve the collective bargaining agreement team owners have offered, free agency will begin Wednesday with franchises getting a chance to retain their own unsigned players, and continue Saturday — the same day camps are expected to start — when teams are eligible to sign the remaining free agents.

There are more than 400 unrestricted free agents this year, roughly double a typical year, because in last year’s uncapped season the requirement for free agency was increased from four seasons of service to six. Under the proposed CBA, that number drops back to four seasons.

And it won’t be just free agents who are switching teams. There are likely to be some high-profile trades too.

A look at some of the better-known players who could find themselves with new teams this season — or who could at least strike lucrative deals with their current teams:

Quarterbacks

Kevin Kolb, Philadelphia: With the resurfacing of Michael Vick, Kolb didn’t get much of a chance with the Eagles to prove what he could do as the starter. He could wind up finding his opportunity out West, as Kolb would be a good fit in Arizona or Seattle, among other places. There are rumblings that the Cardinals might strike a deal involving cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie for Kolb.

Donovan McNabb, Washington: As much as Mike Shanahan says he loves McNabb, the coach’s actions say otherwise. The Redskins could wind up trading him — perhaps to Minnesota? — but they would have to rework his contract first. McNabb is due a $10-million bonus if he’s still on the roster after Week 1.

Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle: When he’s healthy, which isn’t often, Hasselbeck is a crafty player who can move the offense. The Seahawks seem unwilling to give him anything longer than a one-year deal. Maybe he’ll wind up finishing his career in Tennessee, helping bring along his Northwest neighbor, Jake Locker.

Carson Palmer, Cincinnati: Palmer says he isn’t going back to the Bengals and will retire if they don’t relinquish his rights. From the look of things, Bengals owner Mike Brown plans to call his bluff. Palmer’s old coach, Pete Carroll, would love to have him in Seattle.

Running backs

DeAngelo Williams, Carolina: In 2008, the last time he played a full season, Williams ran for 1,515 yards and scored 18 rushing touchdowns. A popular projection has him heading to Denver for a reunion with Coach John Fox, who is looking to help Knowshon Moreno.

Cedric Benson, Cincinnati: The Bengals gave Benson a second chance and he made the most of it . . . until his recent arrest on a charge of assault causing bodily injury to a family member, that is. Now, he’ll be able to test the free-agent market, although Cincinnati has identified re-signing him as a priority.

Ahmad Bradshaw, New York Giants: Bradshaw was very productive for the Giants last season and has said he’d like to stay. But the Giants have a lot of decisions to make on their high-profile free agents; are they willing to commit the cash to keep both Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs?

Receivers

Sidney Rice, Minnesota: The Vikings would love to keep the 6-foot-4 Rice, who’s coming off an injury-shortened season, but he’ll have his share of suitors. New England is rumored to be interested.

Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards, New York Jets: The Jets can probably keep either Holmes or Edwards but will be hard-pressed to hang on to both free agents.

Malcom Floyd, San Diego: Floyd has not been consistent, but the Chargers could be left short-handed if they let the free agent go and Vincent Jackson also finds his way out of town. Jackson’s agent is claiming the receiver’s rights have been violated because he has been prevented two years in a row from testing the free-agent market because San Diego put the franchise tag on him (under the old labor agreement). That argument is still pending.

— With Puerto Rican flags waving in the breeze and many of his countrymen cheering in appreciation, Roberto Alomar was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.

Speaking first in his native Spanish, the third Puerto Rican player to be enshrined, along with Orlando Cepeda and Roberto Clemente, said he felt proud to be a Puerto Rican.

“I always played for my island,” he said at Sunday’s ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., before adding, “It is a true blessing to be able to share this moment with all of you. I have you in my heart.”

The governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno, took a moment to congratulate Alomar, saying that his induction “is an honor for all Puerto Ricans.” He thanked Alomar for representing his Caribbean homeland well in the big leagues.

Alomar, a member of the Toronto Blue Jays’ World Series championship teams in 1992 and 1993, is the first player to enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Blue Jays cap and only the 20th second baseman to be inducted.

“I did not know how nervous I would be,” said Alomar, who was bypassed in his first year of eligibility and on his second try was named on 90% of ballots cast, becoming the 26th player to garner at least 90% in any election. “Suddenly, I feel speechless.”

The switch-hitting Alomar won a record 10 Gold Gloves at second base, was a 12-time All-Star and a career .300 hitter. Full of baseball smarts and grace, he’s also linked with one of the game’s most tawdry moments — he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument in 1996. The two have long since moved past that, and Hirschbeck was invited to come Sunday. He had to decline because he was working a game in Pittsburgh.

Also inducted Sunday was right-hander Bert Blyleven, the first Dutch-born player to be enshrined. He thanked his late father and 85-year-old mother for the drive and determination he needed to succeed.

Blyleven, whose amazing curveball frustrated batters, finished with 287 wins, 3,701 strikeouts, 60 shutouts and two World Series rings — in 1979 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and 1987 with the Minnesota Twins.

Blyleven’s path toward the Hall was slow and steep — he drew the backing of only 14.1% one year — but on his 14th try became the first pure starting pitcher to be selected by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America since Nolan Ryan in 1999.

Blyleven’s father, who died of Parkinson’s in 2004, fell in love with baseball and the Dodgers after the family moved to Southern California in the late 1950s.

“I wish he was here,” Blyleven said. “But you know, Mom, I know he’s up there looking down right now.”

Front-office guru Pat Gillick was the other inductee. His teams posted winning records in 20 of his 27 seasons as a general manager and advanced to the postseason 11 times. He was general manager when the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993 and when the Phillies won in 2008.

Reporting from Baltimore —

While rookies Tyler Chatwood and Mike Trout were teaming up to beat the Orioles on Sunday, aging sluggers Bobby Abreu, Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells remained on pace for career-worst seasons in more than one major offensive category this year.

But Angels Manager Mike Scioscia isn’t ready to blame the decline on age.

“These guys are going through rough stretches now, but they’re athletic, they’re still in great shape. Their bat speed’s there,” Scioscia said. “At times in a hitters’ career you have to come to a point where you have to make some adjustments.”

That time has definitely come for the 37-year-old Abreu, a .295 lifetime hitter who is on pace to hit .265 with career lows for homers (five) and runs batted in (62). Abreu has never hit fewer than 15 homers or driven in less than 74 runs in a full season.

“It’s not the same. It’s not me,” Abreu said.

Abreu, hitting .159 in July, has been working with hitting coach Mickey Hatcher on moving closer to the plate to improve his coverage. That appeared to work Sunday when he walked, drove in the Angels’ first run by squirting a ground ball through the infield, then lined out to third on an outside pitch.

“When you’re not swinging well and you’re not comfortable in the box, everything from your slugging percentage to your batting average, everything’s going to start to wither,” Scioscia said.

Hunter, who turned 36 last week, is hitting a career-low .236 and is on pace to strike out a career-high 130 times. He too showed signs of breaking out Sunday, drilling a ball off the top of the center-field wall for a double in the third, then driving a ball over the wall for his 13th home run of the season in the eighth, giving him a team-high 49 RBIs.

Wells, 32, who homered twice in the series, is batting .246 in July and .219 for the season — 61 points below his career average. His on-base percentage of .250 is more than 50 points lower than his previous worst.

“There’s different reasons for everybody,” Scioscia said. “I don’t think we view the decline in Torii and Bobby as much age as it is just really getting into some bad mechanics at times.

“These guys both have a lot of baseball left. We need that production now.”

Quiet time

The Angels gave Trout the silent treatment in the dugout after his first big-league homer Sunday.

“I was figuring on something,” said Trout, who showered and dressed quickly after the game so he could visit with his parents.

But with so many young players on the Angels roster, the prank proved difficult to pull off. Peter Bourjos, who has less than a year of major league experience, was among the first to crack.

“It lasted longer than I thought it would,” he said of the cold shoulder Trout got in the dugout. “I was just so happy for him I had to go over.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

PARIS — After two runner-up finishes, Cadel Evans finally stood at the top of the podium on the Champs-Elysees as champion of cycling’s great race.

Wrapped in his country’s flag and with tears in his eyes, Evans listened as Australia’s national anthem played Sunday after he became the first Australian — and the oldest rider since World War II — to win the Tour de France.

“I couldn’t be any happier. A few people always believed in me. I always believed in me. And we did it,” Evans, 34, said.

He celebrated after crossing the finish line in the pack on the Champs-Elysees, embracing riders from different teams as the massive crowd on France’s most famous thoroughfare cheered wildly.

Evans bounded up the steps onto the podium, taking deep breaths, then appeared at the top looking calm.

“Thank you to everyone. It’s really incredible,” he told the crowd.

Evans was joined on the podium by the Schleck brothers of Luxembourg — Andy, who finished second overall for the third consecutive year, and Frank. Andy finished 1 minute 34 seconds behind Evans in the final standings.

Australian singer Tina Arena sang the national anthem. Evans’ Italian wife, Chiara, stood beside him after the presentation ceremony.

“I think he’s worked very hard,” she said.

Evans is only the third non-European to win the Tour since the first edition of the race in 1903. Greg LeMond broke the European dominance in 1986 with the first of his three wins, and fellow American Lance Armstrong won seven titles in a row beginning in 1999.

It has been a long wait for Evans, who first showed himself as a challenger for major races in 2002 and twice finished second in the Tour, in 2007 and 2008.

Evans is the oldest Tour winner since World War II, narrowly eclipsing Gino Bartali of Italy, who also was 34 but slightly younger when he won in 1948. The race’s oldest winner was 36-year-old Firmin Lambot of Belgium in 1922.

“Cadel was the best of the Tour and he deserved to win,” Andy Schleck said. “Second isn’t bad, and my brother was on the podium too. I’ll be back to win this Tour. We have a date for next year.”

Sunday’s 21st and final stage — the most prestigious for the race’s sprinters — was won by Britain’s Mark Cavendish for the third year in a row even though he had to change bikes on the Champs-Elysees. He also took the green jersey, awarded to the overall best sprinter.

Cavendish crossed the line holding out the green jersey he was wearing, then he kissed it. Despite his 20 Tour stage victories, the jersey had eluded him until now.

“Finally!” he said.

Second place in the stage went to Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway, and third to Andre Greipel of Germany.

This year was a far cry from the Tours of many recent years that were dominated almost from the start by Armstrong or, later, Alberto Contador. This was a race that defied predictions and was hanging in the balance on the final weekend.

Evans rarely made his presence known, but he was always there. Up every mountain he was never more than one bicycle length behind his rivals. With a small lead that he picked up in the early stages of the race and a lot of strength in time trials, he knew he did not need to attack to win.

Still, when Andy Schleck broke away from the field on the climb of the Galibier pass Thursday, observers thought Evans’ BMC team had made a crucial mistake. But Evans remained calm.

He went into the time trial Saturday needing to make up almost a minute on Schleck; he made up more than 21/2.

“The real highlight was the last three to four kilometers of the time trial yesterday, because I knew we were on the right track,” Evans said.

The polka-dot jersey, awarded to the best climber, went to Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez of Spain, who brought his two children onto the podium. The best young rider was Pierre Rolland of France, who won the classic climb up the Alpe d’Huez on Friday.

Before setting off Sunday, riders removed their helmets and observed a minute of silence in tribute to the victims of the attacks in Norway on Friday.

“When this kind of thing happens, everybody forgets about the sport,” Norwegian rider Thor Hushovd said. “It’s not even important in comparison.

“It’s quite nice that everybody thinks of us. We’re a small country … unfortunately, this can happen anywhere.”

Hushovd and countryman Boasson Hagen won two stages each in this year’s race.

BUENOS AIRES — Diego Forlan scored two goals and Luis Suarez had one as Uruguay won the Copa America for a record 15th time, beating Paraguay, 3-0, on Sunday.

Suarez scored in the 11th minute, and Forlan’s goals came in the 41st minute and the 89th.

“We played as a group,” said Suarez, who was selected the tournament’s best player. “I think when groups are united like this, everyone together and going for the same thing, you can get things done.”

Uruguay won its first Copa America title since 1995. The team reached the World Cup semifinals a year ago, surpassing the performance of South American powers Brazil and Argentina.

Argentina and Brazil were upset in the quarterfinals of this tournament. Uruguay defeated Argentina on penalty kicks and Paraguay eliminated Brazil, also in a shootout.

Argentina has won the Copa America title 14 times, Brazil eight. Brazil had won four of the previous five titles.

Uruguay was the clear favorite going into the final, wrapping up a tournament filled with surprises.

Brazil and Argentina were eliminated early, and Venezuela reached the third-place match Saturday before losing, 4-1, to Peru. Those two teams have been the weakest in the region in recent years, but they suddenly look formidable going into regional World Cup qualifying this year.

Uruguay’s squad featured 20 of the 23 players it took to the World Cup a year ago, and it showed teamwork and unselfish play with none of the vast star power of Argentina or Brazil.

“The important thing was getting started well,” said Suarez, who had four goals in the Copa America — second most in the tournament to Peru’s Paolo Guerrero, who scored five. “With two goals in the first half, I think it was very difficult for them to come back.”

Suarez gave Uruguay the lead in a match it dominated in the opening minutes. Receiving a pass in the area, the Liverpool forward beat defender Dario Veron and scored on a left-footed shot that was deflected and went in off the far post behind goalkeeper Justo Villar.

Forlan made it 2-0 by lashing a left-footed shot from 13 yards that left Villar flat-footed. The Atletico Madrid striker had not scored in his 12 previous matches for the national team.

Forlan scored the game’s final goal in the 89th minute, taking a pass from Suarez and scoring into the far corner.

“This has been a lot of work, going back many years,” Forlan said. “It’s been a job of doing things well and it’s yielded results.”

Paraguay, which seldom threatened, played without injured forward Roque Santa Cruz and winger Aureliano Torres. Paraguay Coach Gerardo Martino and top assistant Jorge Pautasso were suspended for the match after they were sent off for repeatedly arguing with the referee in the team’s semifinal victory against Venezuela on Wednesday.

Martino, an Argentine, is seen as a leading contender to take over Argentina’s national team. The Argentine federation was to meet Monday and decide on the future of Coach Sergio Batista.

With a dive to his right and a kick to his left, Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart provided the difference in Sunday’s exhibition match against the Galaxy. Hart blocked A.J. DeLaGarza’s attempt and then made his own to win the shootout, 7-6, after nine rounds.

“I couldn’t wait,” Hart said of his rare chance to view the goal from the outside. “I was trying to take it earlier.”

After 90 minutes the match stood knotted up at 1-1, thanks to a 53rd-minute goal from Galaxy forward Mike Magee that equaled Manchester City forward Mario Balotelli’s penalty-kick goal in the first half.

On their way to the goal before the shootout began, Hart and Galaxy goalkeeper Brian Perk could be seen talking and laughing. Galaxy midfielder Juninho provided the first miss in the shootout, hitting the left post, but Perk evened the festivities by blocking forward John Guidetti’s attempt in the fifth round.

“It was a lot of fun,” Perk said. “There is no pressure at that point, it’s just a friendly, and the kickers are expected to make them, so we’re just out there having a blast.

“I can’t tell you guys [what was said before the shootout]. It’s between me and him in the heat of the moment, so I’ll have to take that to my grave.”

Magee managed to get past Hart with a 25-yard shot into the upper corner of the goal, but aside from that score Hart made four saves.

“There were a lot of quality saves that he made in the game,” Perk said. “It was pretty much me watching him … trying to take a little bit away from his game and put it into my game.”

Galaxy midfielder Dan Keat opened the goal-scoring sequence by crossing the ball over to midfielder Chris Birchall. Birchall headed the ball directly to an open Magee.

“When I saw that ball bounce the way it did and he was able to volley it, I had a feeling he was going to get it on goal,” Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena said. “It was a fabulous goal against a fabulous goalkeeper.”

Balotelli’s afternoon ended shortly after his 20th-minute penalty kick slipped by Galaxy goalkeeper Josh Saunders, who played the first half. Less than 10 minutes later, Balotelli had a breakaway for what should have been an easy goal, but instead he stopped, spun and kicked the ball with his right heel. The ill-advised trickery sent the ball wide right, and Manchester City Coach Roberto Mancini sent Balotelli straight to the bench following the showboating in front of 24,897 fans at the Home Depot Center.

“In football you should be serious always,” Mancini said. “If you have a chance to score, you should score … For him, I hope it’s an important lesson.”

douglas.farmer@latimes.com

twitter.com/d_farmer

Rocky Bridges never took himself too seriously.

A major league journeyman, minor league manager and major league coach, he joked that he didn’t like the national anthem because every time he heard it, he had a bad day.

• Jerry Crowe

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In truth, every day in baseball was a great day for Everett Lamar Bridges, whose infectious enthusiasm and proclivity for making people laugh superseded his playing ability.

“I had fun playing baseball,” he says. “Many of the players now, I’m not sure they have fun playing the game.”

Even bouncing among seven teams in 11 seasons did little to temper his zeal for the game, Bridges once noting, “I’ve had more numbers on my back than a bingo board.”

Bridges, who played for the Angels in their debut season of 1961, also said he wouldn’t eat snails because “I prefer fast food.” He described one club executive as so skinny he could tread water in a test tube. And he said of a diet drink he’d supposedly concocted, “You mix two jiggers of Scotch to one jigger of Metrecal. So far I’ve lost five pounds and my driver’s license.”

In a lengthy Sports Illustrated profile from 1964 — how many other power-deficient .247 career hitters are afforded such treatment by Sports Illustrated? — Bridges was described as “one of the best stand-up comics in the history of baseball.”

Vin Scully, whose second season with the Brooklyn Dodgers was Bridges’ rookie season with the club in 1951, recalls the former utility infielder as a “beautiful guy,” beloved by all.

And former major league pitcher Jim Bouton, author of “Ball Four,” called Bridges “my all-time favorite manager” even though Bouton never played for him.

“In fact, I’ve never even met him,” Bouton wrote in his 1973 collection of short stories, “I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad,” which took its title from a Bridges quote. “However, I’ve spent a good piece of my life sitting in bullpens around the country listening to different ballplayers talk about how much fun it was when they played for Rocky Bridges. …

“The reason Bridges was a great manager was that he understood that baseball is supposed to be mainly fun.”

Bridges, born in Texas but reared in Long Beach, signed with the Dodgers after graduating from Long Beach Poly High.

“It got me off riding my bicycle delivering The Times,” Bridges, 83, says from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where he moved from Long Beach 40 years ago. “I was the best peddler The Times ever had. I worked five years there and never missed a morning.”

As a ballplayer, Bridges had a front-row seat to history, including the famous National League pennant race of 1951, the 1952 World Series, the 1958 All-Star game and, in his swan song, the Angels’ inaugural season.

“I watched Bobby Thomson’s home run — from the bench, naturally,” he says. “I didn’t play much.”

Bridges’ longest stint with one team was four years with the Reds in Cincinnati, which he says was fortunate because “it took me that long to learn how to spell it.”

When he was selected for the All-Star game with the Washington Senators in 1958, Bridges notes, “That surprised everybody. They were close to launching an investigation.”

Bridges didn’t get into the game, nor did he play in the ’52 World Series, won by the New York Yankees over the Dodgers.

He hit only 16 home runs, noting after ending a two-year drought in 1961, “I’m still behind Babe Ruth’s record, but I’ve been sick. It really wasn’t very dramatic. No little boy in the hospital asked me to hit one. I didn’t promise it to my kid for his birthday, and my wife will be too shocked to appreciate it. I hit it for me.”

Is labor peace just around the corner for the NFL?

According to an ESPN report, the NFL Players Assn. and league have reached an agreement on the remaining points in a proposed 10-year collective bargaining agreement.

The report, citing unnamed sources from both sides, said the NFLPA is planning a major news conference Monday and that player representatives’ executive committee is flying to Washington for a Monday vote.

If the executive committee votes to approve the CBA, which was ratified Thursday by NFL owners, the agreement will then be put to a vote of player reps from the 32 teams.

Assuming the new agreement clears those hurdles, players will vote on it Wednesday at their various team headquarters. It requires a majority vote to pass. At that point, if the CBA is approved, teams can begin contract talks with their own players, among them draft picks and free agents.

That would set the stage for free agency and training camps to start Saturday.

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– Sam Farmer

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Oddest great game ever pitched by Chad Billingsley. Talking Bizarro great, Alice in Wonderland great.

Billingsley started Sunday as if he was going to work on the shortest outing of his career. He could do nothing right. He walked his first batter, hit his second and then gave up two singles.

That left the Dodgers down, 1-0, with the bases loaded and still no outs. The only question seemed to be how many body parts Billingsley would leave behind before he was dragged off the mound.

Only then, the strangest thing happened. Clark Kent jumped into the phone booth. Suddenly, bullets bounced off his chest.

Billingsley struck out the side, did not give up another hit and retired 21 of the last 22 batters he faced.

And the Dodgers eked out a 3-1 victory against the Nationals before an announced crowd of 36,458 at Dodger Stadium.

Billingsley (9-8) ended up pitching seven innings. After throwing a staggering 38 pitches in the first, he threw 77 pitches over the next six innings.

He struck out 10, walked two and lowered his earned-run average to 3.92.

After Billingsley gave up that early run, the Dodgers rallied with two runs in the bottom of the first against Jason Marquis (8-5) after Rafael Furcal singled with one out.

Furcal was erased when Andre Ethier bounced into a fielder’s choice, but Matt Kemp then singled. Aaron Miles, batting fifth, then laced a hit to center fielder. Ethier scored easily and third-base coach Tim Wallach waved Kemp home.

Kemp would have been out by several feet, but catcher Jesus Flores couldn’t hold on to the throw and the Dodgers were up, 2-1.

They added another run in the third after Furcal walked and stole second. He took third on an infield single by Kemp and, after Miles walked to load the bases, scored when the Nationals couldn’t turn a double play on a bouncer by James Loney.

The rest was left to the suddenly unhittable Billingsley.

Kenley Jansen shut out the Nationals in the eighth, extending his scoreless streak to 14 innings, and rookie Javy Guerra pitched a scoreless ninth for his seventh save, after earning the victory on Saturday.

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– Steve Dilbeck

Photo: Chad Billingsley delivers a pitch against the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium. Credit: Kirby Lee / Image of Sport / US Presswire

The Angels are a long way from giving up on the present. But Sunday they took a good, long look at what could be their future just the same.

And that future looks awfully bright.

Just ask the Baltimore Orioles, who were kept on the ropes for seven innings by right-hander Tyler Chatwood before center fielder Mike Trout delivered the knockout blow with a three-run, eighth-inning home run in a 9-3 Angels win at Camden Yards.

For Chatwood, who only recently turned old enough to drink, it was arguably the most complete outing of his rookie season. For Trout, the youngest player in the majors, the homer was the first by a teenager in the big leagues since 2007.

It was enough to make 52-year-old Manager Mike Scioscia, who played his last game before Trout had mastered walking, feel young again.

Neither player figured in the Angels plans this season.

But Chatwood, called up in early April for what was expected to be a cameo appearance, seized a spot in the rotation. Sunday he went seven innings for the third time in his last six starts, dropping his earned-run average over that span to 2.48.

Among Angels starters, only Jered Weaver has a better ERA in his last six starts.

“I don’t think we’ve seen him as crisp. He had great stuff,” Scioscia said of Chatwood (6-6), who didn’t walk a batter for the first time this season. He made only one mistake, giving up a two-run home run to Adam Jones in the sixth.

Now Trout, promoted from double A 21/2 weeks ago when Peter Bourjos was sidelined by hamstring tightness, is trying to make a case that he should stay too. Friday, he had his first two-hit game in the majors and also stole his first base. Then Sunday, with the Angels clinging to a one-run lead, he lined a shot deep into the left-center-field bleachers.

“Mike’s been doing something every game,” Scioscia said. “You have to keep pinching yourself and telling yourself this kid’s 19.”

Trout had a little bit of a home-field advantage since he grew up only two hours from Baltimore. As a result, he said, a couple hundred friends and family members attended the three-game series here, with his parents and girlfriend in attendance Sunday.

“My parents, I think that’s [my] first home run they’ve seen in pro ball,” said Trout, adding it was a feeling that “can’t be described in words.”

The Angels said the ball was caught by Zack Hample, a 33-year-old New York collector who claims to have snagged more than 5,000 baseballs at various ballparks, experiences he shares in three books.

Hample asked for a picture and an autograph in exchange for this baseball, which Trout quickly handed over to his parents.

Whether he’ll get a chance to collect any more mementos this season is up to Scioscia, who originally thought Trout’s visit would be a short one.

Now he’s not so sure.

“If there’s an appreciable role for anybody that’s going to help us to be a better team, a more complete team, they’ll be on our team,” he said. “This guy’s advanced physically and mentally, but he still hasn’t played a long season.

“He needs to play every day.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

Every summer when the temperature goes up, people start stripping down. At the risk of sounding like a prude, I find it unseemly. Toddlers look cute in just a pair of shorts. Middle-aged men do not. Most women don’t look good in shorts, period.

Yes, there are starlets strutting down Sunset Boulevard beautiful in little short-shorts, but they’re the exception. I don’t see them at my local grocery store leaning over the frozen food case. What I see reaching for the ice cream is just way too much. I’m not talking about age. I’m not talking about weight. I’m just asking for modesty. I don’t want to be confronted with body parts best seen only by your doctor.

But America is a free country, and imposing any kind of dress code starts us down a very slippery slope.

I was hiking in Griffith Park with a friend and she told me how happy she was about the law in France prohibiting Islamic full-face veils in public. I was appalled. It’s freedom of religion, I said, and freedom of speech. It’s oppression of women, she replied. How do you know? I asked.

At that moment, two young women jogged past us in tiny, stretchy shorts and bikini tops. Nothing was left to the imagination. They were fit and attractive, but I found myself thinking I’d almost rather my teenage daughter wore a burka. One outfit is as extreme as the other. Both get second and third looks. Each conveys an image of the woman wearing it, a supposition that may or may not be true.

As for oppression, what sort of response will the girls in bikinis get, especially from men? To be ogled and objectified doesn’t do much for women’s equality. You could argue, as my friend did,

neither does a religion that requires women to be completely covered. But in a democratic society, America or France, people should be free to wear whatever they want.

Driving in the Fairfax district, I love to watch Orthodox Jewish families walking to temple. The men in their long coats and big hats, the women in tailored suits and wigs, and especially the little boys with curling payos and yarmulkes and the tassels of their prayer shawls flapping.

There is a Buddhist temple in my neighborhood, and the monks wear wonderful orange robes and shave their heads, men and women alike.

I lived in Utah for seven years, and Mormon “garments,” worn under clothing, cover more skin than what most people wear in my Trader Joe’s. I would find their nylon jumpsuits oppressive, but it’s none of my business.

If we outlaw burkas, then we should ban all manner of religious dress, including nuns’ habits and priests’ collars. And if we’re suppressing that personal expression, where will it end?

A 20-year-old college football player got on a plane in San Francisco reportedly wearing his pants so low his whole butt — in tight black briefs, according to one account — showed. I don’t know how he walked to his seat, but it was a fashion statement: He must have thought he looked cool. A flight attendant took exception and asked him to pull up his pants. What happened next is in some dispute, but eventually he was arrested. He missed his flight, but he wasn’t charged.

Just days earlier, same airline, an older man, white-haired, got on a flight wearing blue women’s underwear, a matching spaghetti-strap, midriff-baring top, a cropped see-through sweater and black thigh highs and high heels. Airline personnel didn’t say a word.

Now, it was the white-haired man’s right to look ridiculous (up to a point, which no one has said he crossed), but the same right was not extended to the football player. Was it because the football player was black? Was it because he was young? Was it because he looked “gangsta”? The flight attendant made a judgment based at least in part on a pair of sagging sweatpants. Isn’t that repression?

When does one person’s “expression” become more important than another’s? An 11-year-old was sent home from school for wearing a T-shirt that read “Obama a Terrorist’s Best Friend.” If another kid wore a shirt reading “Obama the Best President Ever,” some might disagree, but who would prevent him from sharing his opinion?

At the mall some years ago I passed a young woman wearing a T-shirt bearing a vulgar message about President Bush almost impossible to explain to your 9-year-old. But I absolutely defend her right to wear it.

I think France is wrong. President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “The full veil is contrary to the dignity of women,” but laws about what we can and cannot wear degrade everyone’s dignity.

Yes, I wish my across-the-street neighbor would put on a shirt when he stands in his driveway to smoke a cigarette. His sweaty chest hair over man-boobs is a sight I could live without. But then I remind myself: Summer won’t last forever.

Diana Wagman is the author of the novels “Skin Deep,” “Spontaneous” and “Bump.”

From the front door of the house to the back is a straight shot unbroken by walls, handy for pacing, 24 steps each way.

It is a small house on a small lot in Highland Park, a Los Angeles neighborhood that was on its way up until the recession. The house has not always been well tended: It’s old and a bit shabby, but it stands pretty much foursquare.

I bought it in 2005 for $503,000, most of it borrowed, and lived there six years, longer than I’d lived anywhere since childhood. The house was meant to be my refuge, a place where I could plant perennials and know I’d see them flower year after year, an investment for my daughter and me after many years of renting.

The sellers had trashed the house before leaving for Colorado, and perhaps I should have walked away when I discovered the devastation. Instead, friends helped me clear away rotten food and broken furniture and repair gouged walls. I rescued a dog. I made improvements: bolting and bracing the foundation, removing one tree and planting others, installing a security system and attic insulation.

To help pay for the work, I refinanced in 2007 at $511,000 with a five-year fixed-interest first lien and a variable-rate equity loan. With the real estate market continuing to rise, a Wells Fargo Bank loan officer assured me, it would be easy to refinance to a fixed-rate loan before my rate went up in 2012.

With little money for extras after fixing the foundation, I scaled back to projects I could do myself: painting and planting. I tore out the frontyard grass and filled the garden with roses, irises, bougainvillea, jasmine, trumpet vines, gardenias, callas and cannas, hibiscus. Springs were glorious.

By mid-2008, some neighbors on my short hillside street had started defaulting on their loans. One eventually negotiated a short sale; two others went into foreclosure. Worried, I called Wells Fargo in March 2009 to see about refinancing in advance of my adjustable-rate mortgage payments rising significantly. The house was already underwater, the banker told me. My equity was gone, so there was no way I could refinance. He suggested that I wait it out and hope things improved before the rate rise in 2012.

By October 2009, it was clear that the real estate market was only getting worse. I sent Wells Fargo my first application for a mortgage modification, beginning a months-long slog through dead-end phone calls, faxes, lost documents and conflicting information from the bank. Over a period of five months, Wells Fargo denied three mortgage modification applications. The last denial was based on a bank error suggesting that I had a spending deficit of more than $1,600 a month, despite my having exemplary credit. When I wrote a detailed explanation, the banker with whom I next spoke said, unapologetically, “We read numbers, not words.”

In November 2009, the Los Angeles County assessor’s office informed me that the assessed valuation of my home had dropped $129,060 since the 2006-07 tax year. As I grew more anxious about money, my health declined. Problems that had been in abeyance for more than 20 years returned, and my medical bills began to climb as a result.

In January 2010, one of the telephone bankers at Wells Fargo suggested a short sale. It felt like a gut blow. Sell my home? My refuge? My garden full of flowers and fruit trees?

In February, Zillow.com said the house on which I owed $511,000 was worth $381,500. A comparable house a block away sold for $260,000. I clearly needed a bailout. I made my last desperate bid for help from the bank, offering to pay the full mortgage at a lower interest rate if only I could keep my home. I also wrote to regulatory agencies and to my elected federal, state and local politicians to ask for ideas. Some responded; most didn’t; none could offer an idea I hadn’t tried.

In April, I consulted a credit counselor; he said that I was doing all the right things and that my credit score was “fabulous.” His only suggestion was the one I’d already rejected: Consider a short sale.

In May, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage suggested a short sale.

On June 1, 2010, I acknowledged defeat. I declined to make my mortgage payment and two weeks later hired a short-sale expert and listed the house.

That decision brought no relief. Instead, I endured months of daily dunning phone calls from Wells Fargo, which then rejected an offer from a buyer. The bank set a date for a foreclosure sale, then postponed it. Finally, in April, it agreed to an offer of $325,000 for the house. The sale closed less than 48 hours before the bank’s scheduled foreclosure sale.

By that time I’d moved. My rental house is three times as far from work as the old one and about half its size. The new neighborhood is quieter and less friendly, but the air is cleaner. Gardening, once a joy, is a chore I’d rather skip. Once in a while I return to Highland Park, but I cannot drive past my house. I fear the changes I might see.

A couple of months before moving, I applied for a small credit union loan, just to see if I could get one. I could not. My credit, once exemplary, is shot. My lack of financial security is disconcerting, and I expect it will dog me for years.

I can’t find a life’s lesson here; no insight into why this has happened to so many people. The banks could help us, but they don’t.

I will recover, but it’s unlikely I will ever own another house.

Kathy Gosnell Seiler is a copy editor at The Times.

Postcards from the recession is an Op-Ed series of on-the-ground reports from throughout Southern California on how the economic downturn has hit individual neighborhoods.

For a man who hasn’t formally decided whether to run for president, Texas Gov. Rick Perry sure sounds a lot like a candidate.

“I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in,” Perry told the Des Moines Register, the biggest newspaper in Iowa, where the first big test in the Republican nomination race is held. “But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.”

• Doyle McManus

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And Perry isn’t just being called; he says he’s being actively pushed to run by his wife, Anita, a former nurse.

“Get out of your comfort zone!” he says his wife told him. “Yeah, being governor of Texas is a great job, but sometimes you’re called to step into the fray.”

So Perry has taken all the preparatory steps a potential candidate should take. He’s hired political consultants to prepare a blueprint. He’s met with conservative grandees, including Kansas’ Koch brothers and others who once bankrolled another Texas governor, George W. Bush. He’s visited California twice in the past month to feel out potential donors and supporters. He’s even spent time boning up on foreign policy.

And that’s been enough to touch off a boomlet of Perrymania, at least in some parts of the Republican Party. Perry says he may not decide whether to run until Labor Day, but the mere possibility was enough to vault him into second place in two polls released last week, close behind the dogged but unloved frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who unlike Perry is actually running, came in third.)

Polls don’t mean much at this early stage of a presidential race, but they do reveal whether anyone has the contest sewed up, and Romney clearly doesn’t. In a Fox News poll, Romney came in first with an underwhelming 17% — although, to be fair, Fox offered a long wish list of names, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, neither of whom appears to be actively preparing a candidacy.

The point is that most Republican voters haven’t found their dream candidate yet. There’s a big hole in the Republican field, and it’s made to order for a Southern governor who’s conservative on social issues but not censorious, and who’d rather talk about cutting government spending and holding down taxes.

Perry’s favorite claim is that in recent years Texas has created almost as many jobs as the other 49 states combined, and that his low-tax, low-regulation policies are the reason. Economists debate how much credit Perry deserves; the fact that Texas produces oil and we’re in an oil boom helped too. But Texas has done better at job creation than most states, and it’s hard to think of a more potent talking point in a campaign that will be fought largely over economic issues.

Perry’s conservatism goes beyond low taxes, though.

His pre-campaign book, “Fed Up,” is mostly an essay about the evils of federal power and an appeal to move decision-making back to the states as laboratories of democracy.

“We are tired of being told how much salt to put on our food, what kind of cars we can drive, what kind of guns we can own [and] what kind of prayers we are allowed to say,” he writes in his list of complaints against the federal government (which doesn’t actually tell people any of those things, unless you count Agriculture Department brochures about salt).

Last month, he sponsored a bill in the Texas Legislature that would have made it a criminal offense for a federal airport security screener to perform an “intrusive” pat-down on a passenger in Texas. (The bill failed.)

And he proclaims himself a good notch more conservative than his predecessor, George W. Bush, whom he blames for launching a “big-government binge” by expanding federal programs in education and healthcare.

But in the spirit of states’ rights, Perry is cheerfully tolerant of diversity in social policy. He’s a vigorous opponent of gay marriage, but if the voters of other states want it, he seems to think that’s their problem. “Vote with your feet,” he advises. “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas. If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.” (The news that Californians voted to prohibit gay marriage in 2008 apparently never made it to Austin.)

Perry wears his evangelical Christian faith on his sleeve, which will help him with some voters but not others. In April, he called for three days of prayer for divine intercession to end Texas’ drought. (It didn’t work.) Next month, he’s holding a seven-hour prayer rally at Houston’s professional football stadium with some of the biggest names in evangelical ministry.

What’s holding him back from running?

“We don’t know whether it’s doable,” Perry’s political strategist, David M. Carney, told me. “Most people running for president do it for years. We’d be trying to do it in 200 days.”

The biggest practical problem Perry faces, Carney said, is fundraising. It could take $50 million to run a credible primary campaign. “It takes time to raise money — the candidate’s time,” he noted. Major donors want to meet a candidate in person before they write a check or recruit their friends to help.

But even if Perry decides that the fundraising challenge can be conquered, he has a more basic decision to make.

“He needs to do a gut check,” Carney said. “You can’t run for president as a hobby.”

And there’s a third question Perry needs to consider, in the view of some potential supporters: Can he present his ruggedly conservative views in a way that will appeal to voters far from Texas?

The conventional wisdom is that he’s too conservative, too controversial and maybe not as book smart as the men he’d be running against. But that’s what they said in 1980, when the candidate was Ronald Reagan.

Shawn Steel, former chairman of the California Republican Party — who met with Perry in Newport Beach last month — isn’t sure that Perry can pull off a Reagan-style victory. The former California governor, he noted, could “take controversial positions and make them sound like ice cream. Can Perry do that?”

Right now, Perry’s rawboned conservatism doesn’t sound much like ice cream. It’s more like strong tea, with no sweetener. But even his toughest critics in Texas say he’s a formidable campaigner, so if he runs, we’ll see an epic battle for the heart of the Republican Party.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Seismic risk mitigation is the greatest urban policy challenge the world confronts today. If you consider that too strong a claim, try to imagine another way in which bad urban policy could kill a million people in 30 seconds. Yet the politics of earthquakes are rarely discussed and, when discussed, widely misunderstood.

Take Japan’s Sendai earthquake on March 11, which released 600 million times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb. The ensuing partial meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant prompted international hysteria about nuclear power, but few seemed to realize that a far deadlier threat had been averted. As seismologist Roger Bilham aptly put it, houses in seismically active zones are the world’s unrecognized weapons of mass destruction — and Japan’s WMD didn’t go off. Its buildings — at least those that weren’t swept away by the accompanying tsunami, a force of nature against which we are still largely helpless — remained standing, and the people inside survived.

That so few buildings collapsed in the earthquake was a human triumph of the first order. But cities around the world seem happy to ignore the earthquake threat — one that is only growing as the cities themselves get bigger and bigger.

The Japan quake was not the catastrophe it could have been because the country learned from experience. In the wake of the 1995 Kobe quake, in which 200,000 buildings collapsed, Japanese engineers took extensive measures to reinforce buildings and infrastructure. They installed rubber blocks under bridges. They spaced buildings farther apart to prevent domino-style tumbling. They introduced extra bracing, base isolation pads, hydraulic shock absorbers. A minute before the March earthquake, seismic monitoring systems sent warnings to Japanese cellphones. Elevators glided obediently to the nearest floor and opened. Surgeries were halted. Videos from Tokyo show skyscrapers swaying gracefully, like cornstalks in the wind. Not one collapsed.

Cities at risk

But many of the world’s biggest cities are at massive seismic risk, built more like Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2010, than like Kobe. Eight of the world’s 10 biggest cities are built on fault lines, and they are growing larger every day. The urbanization trend is continuing upward, as is the trend of housing migrant populations in death traps. As a result, it’s likely that before long we’ll see a headline announcing, “1 Millon Dead in Massive Earthquake.”

Yet, just as we know how to build airplanes that don’t crash, we know how to construct buildings that don’t collapse. We also know which cities are most at risk: Bogota, Cairo, Caracas, Dhaka, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Katmandu, Lima, Manila, Mexico City, New Delhi, Quito and Tehran. Los Angeles and Tokyo are prime candidates for a major quake, but they will probably survive because they are well-built — though Los Angeles could do better.

It’s tempting to think that people in certain countries are cavalier about the risk because they’re poor. The argument goes like this: Safe houses cost more to build than cheap ones. Cement watered down with sand stretches further. People in poor cities don’t have the money to build safe houses, or if they do, they have decided to use it to mitigate more immediate risks such as hunger.

If wealth was all there was to it, the solution would be, if not simple, at least obvious: To prepare for an earthquake, promote economic development and cross your fingers. When a country becomes wealthy enough, the problem will solve itself.

This theory has been voiced in Istanbul, where I live. Mustafa

Erdik, chairman of the Department of Earthquake Engineering at Bogazici University, has suggested that Turkey’s best hope is rapid economic growth. If growth happens fast enough, he says, property owners will be able to replace the worst housing stock before the ground starts shaking. If we look at it this way, we see seismic risk reduction as a paradox: The best way to reduce the risk is to ignore it.

The idea is tempting and elegant. But it’s wrong.

Money isn’t everything

Wealth in and of itself is not enough to get people to take earthquakes seriously. Here is the evidence. On Feb. 27, 2010, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck near the city of Concepcion, Chile. Though the epicenter was not at the heart of the city, this quake was 100 times bigger than the one that leveled Port-au-Prince. It was so massive that it shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds and moved the Earth on its axis by eight centimeters. When it was over, the entire city of Concepcion had been moved three yards to the west.

The death toll from this monster was 521. Each death was its own disaster, of course, but the number was nevertheless astoundingly small for an earthquake that, by all rights, should have destroyed Chile as a whole. Chile did so well because it has some of the strictest and most advanced building codes in the world, and because the codes do not merely exist on paper — they are enforced.

Now consider Turkey. Like Chile, Turkey is no stranger to earthquakes. In 1509, an earthquake killed between 5% and 10% of Constantinople’s population. The Ottomans called it Kiyamet-i Sugra, the Minor Judgment Day. Since then, the city has suffered serious quake damage 11 times, most recently at the end of the 19th century.

There is not a geologist alive who doubts that a major earthquake is likely to hit Istanbul soon. In 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey put the odds of it happening within 30 years at 62%. Erdik has estimated that it will kill 200,000 to 300,000 people. The cost of the cleanup — $50 billion would be an optimistic estimate — will surely set Turkey’s economy back decades. It will be a political cataclysm, with massive ramifications for the entire region.

Every day I walk past buildings in Istanbul that are clearly unsound. I see ground floors, for example, with walls or columns removed to make way for store displays, violating one of the most important principles of earthquake-resistant construction. There are vast neighborhoods filled with illegal, flimsy structures called gecekondu, “landed overnight.” Gecekondu aren’t built by engineers. They tend to be built on bad soil. They are packed with children.

Even buildings approved by engineers, warned a recent study by the Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers, are largely not built to code. The group also warned that 86% of the city’s hospitals were at high risk of collapse.

After Manchester United’s 7-0 rout of the Seattle Sounders in an exhibition game Wednesday night in Seattle, perhaps expectations should be lowered for the Galaxy’s match against Manchester City on Sunday. Then again, perhaps they should have been lowered before the European clubs came stateside.

“Teams come over here and look for fitness and they want to win these games,” Galaxy midfielder David Beckham said. “And that’s what they do. That’s what their managers expect of them.”

Going into Saturday, the two Manchesters, along with Real Madrid, had trounced MLS squads four times in the past few weeks by a combined score of 17-3, including Real Madrid’s 4-1 win over the Galaxy on July 16. The exhibitions include a few variations from usual match rules — most notably the use of 22 players instead of the usual 14.

“It’s worse when an elite club can play more players,” Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena said upon learning of the Sounders’ score Wednesday. “If you tell those guys they only have to play 45 minutes, it’s 45 minutes of hell. The advantage is to these clubs when they get to play more players, because they obviously have better players, deeper players, more quality.”

To be clear, Arena does not think his squad, nor any of the MLS teams, would do remarkably better against the European powers under normal conditions.

“The results haven’t been good, no question about that,” he said Thursday. “It’s a difficult competition to gauge some of the results. I do believe if we played Real Madrid 10 times, they’d probably beat us 11.

“We’ve brought some of the great club teams in the world to the United States to play MLS club teams and others. It’s to show these great teams and players.”

Manchester City will not be pulling any punches at the Home Depot Center. After heavy rains created a less-than-ideal playing surface for its 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps on Monday in Canada, Roberto Mancini’s squad is looking to close its trip to North America with a strong performance.

“The last game is what we’ve been looking forward to against the Galaxy,” Manchester City midfielder Gareth Barry said. “They’re a big team out here with some big players. A perfect send-off for us before we start our season.

Mancini said his starters will “probably” play 90 minutes, while Arena expects to cap his starters’ time at 45 minutes.

douglas.farmer@latimes.com

twitter.com/d_farmer

Scanning the long-range forecast for Spartanburg, S.C., Ryan Kalil sits in the comfort of Manhattan Beach and can’t help but cringe — the wilting heat, the steam-room humidity, the relentless thunderstorms.

Carolina Panthers training camp is the last place he wants to be this summer.

And the only place.

Kalil isn’t just the team’s starting center, but he’s also the anchor of its offensive line, the club’s franchise player coming off his second consecutive Pro Bowl appearance.

He’s in limbo now — just like every NFL player — unsure of when the bitter labor fight will actually end, allowing him to un-click the pause button on his career.

“Cooler heads will prevail,” said Kalil, a former USC standout. “There’s a sense of urgency for us to get back to the game of football. We don’t want to miss any games. I don’t want to miss any games.”

But he’s quick to add that players aren’t going to rush to approve a deal that they’re still wrapping their heads around. If they’re going to ink their names to a collective bargaining agreement that runs through the 2020 season, they sure as Spartanburg better have 20/20 vision heading into it.

“Look, these NFL owners are unbelievable businessmen,” he said. “It’s not that we think they’re shysty or are trying to pull a fast one on us; it’s that we have to go through the process to protect us. Because these guys are phenomenal businessmen. And we’re not. And we know that.”

Three full days of digesting the agreement that owners approved Thursday might just be enough for the players. An ESPN report Saturday, citing an unidentified source, said the league and players have tentatively agreed that the 11-member executive board of the NFL Players Assn. will vote Monday on the proposal. That would allow players to begin arriving at training camps Wednesday to vote on whether to re-form as a union, a necessary step to forging a final accord.

Passions have been inflamed over the past several days, especially among the players, who have been largely mistrustful of league owners and executives, certainly during the past year and in some cases dating to when the owners opted out of the last CBA in 2008.

After several quiet weeks of mostly calm negotiations, tempers flared Thursday night after owners approved the latest deal, putting the players on the clock to accept that offer as soon as possible but no later than Tuesday.

The players resisted, of course, branding it an obvious power play to force their hand and ratchet up the public pressure on them to do the deal. Most hadn’t even seen the terms of the agreement — although NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith spent weeks working on it together — and they weren’t about to trust that it had their best interests at heart.

One reason the league didn’t present the deal to the players before voting on it was the concern that there was no way to keep the terms out of the media if 1,900 players got an advance look at them. Then the sides would again be negotiating in the media, something that could have sidetracked the process.

Regardless, for the players, many of whom are deeply concerned about the owners affording them respect through these negotiations, seeing the basic deal terms for the first time on NFL Network felt like a slap in the face.

A few days later, it seems the sting has gone out of that slap, and from the perspective of Kalil and others, the players will soon be ready to make a clear-headed choice.

“I think we’re still close, and I definitely believe 100% that the people we elected to represent us are working as hard and as quickly as they can to get a deal done so that we can get back to football,” Kalil said. “We don’t want to miss games either.

“I think we’re playing football this year. I can’t see us missing games. The thing I don’t know is the time frame or whether we’ll miss some preseason games. But I’ve got to believe we get to the regular season, and I’ve got to believe we’ll play all 16 games.”

For now, Spartanburg awaits.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

twitter.com/latimesfarmer

The annual rites of summer are in full swing in the U.S., with Europe’s big and not-so-big clubs over here for a few weeks to play Major League Soccer’s not-so-big and some-quite-small clubs, as well as a couple of Mexico’s alleged giants.

So far, so bad.

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Real Madrid thrashed the Galaxy, 4-1, and the most meaningful comment to come out of it was Jose Mourinho’s remark that it is pretty to cool to come to America and be able to train in obscurity — or something like that.

“The training conditions are good,” Mourinho said. “The freedom that we have is also good, because in Europe our lives are difficult. Socially, it is difficult. Here, players feel some freedom. They can walk in the street. They can be together. They can share some time together.”

Want a translation? It means that very few of the people who might have run into Real Madrid’s millionaires on the boulevards of Westwood or Marina del Rey could tell the difference between their Pepe and their Kaka.

The players were not bothered because they were not recognized.

Perhaps if Real had been training in or wandering around East L.A. instead of UCLA it might have been otherwise. Perhaps even Cristiano Ronaldo might have been spotted and hounded by fans and media.

Switch north, now, to Seattle, where Manchester United demolished the Seattle Sounders, 7-0, and the debacle — witnessed by a crowd of 67,052 — brought the admission from Seattle Coach Sigi Schmid that perhaps he should not have “rewarded” his bench by giving everyone a chance to say that they once played against Wayne Rooney.

Better from Schmid was his pregame observation that “every player hopes in the back of their minds, whether they say it or not, that this is their breakthrough game; this is their game in front of Cecil B. DeMille and they get discovered.”

Well, Cecil B. is long, long gone and the Sounders were not discovered, they were exposed.

Of course, so was Chivas de Guadalajara, which was made to look downright ordinary by Marcelo and Co. in Real Madrid’s 3-0 whitewash of Mexico’s supposed powerhouse down San Diego way.

What applies to MLS apparently also applies to the Mexican league, except that the Mexican league occasionally produces a player such as Javier Hernandez, and MLS is light years away from achieving that. Landon who?

On Saturday, large throngs were expected in Chicago to watch Manchester United, and in Philadelphia to watch Real Madrid and in Toronto to watch Juventus and Sporting Lisbon.

On Sunday, Manchester City is in Carson to give the Galaxy a second lesson in humility, assuming, of course, that City takes the game seriously and that Mario Balotelli and friends are not in L.A. simply for some beach time before their real work begins.

Later still, Barcelona and Mexico’s Club America will be making their annual pilgrimage to U.S. shores, the difference being that it is they who will be bowed down to rather than them doing the bowing. Soccer idols and all.

It is difficult to tell whether this annual incursion of European and Mexican teams is a good thing or not.

On the plus side, it does give U.S. soccer fans the chance to see in person some of the players they normally can only read about or watch on television. It also feathers the financial nest of MLS and its clubs, large crowds and fat television contracts translating into welcome revenue.

On the other hand it does expose the gulf that still exists between the best of MLS and the best of Europe, which in turn keeps fans from going to MLS stadiums and has them tuning in, instead, to the Premier League or Serie A or La Liga.

Don Garber, the MLS commissioner, argues that the rising tide lifts all ships, which is meant to indicate that if big crowds come out to see the world’s top clubs, some of those same fans might be moved to sample an MLS game or two.

As trickle-down theories go, it doesn’t hold a tremendous amount of water. Not enough to float a ship.

Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena has another theory, one he expressed in a midweek news conference.

“It’s a lot more difficult in these games — the way they’re set up in this format — for the MLS clubs than it is for the visiting teams,” Arena said, “because the whole tournament is set up to accommodate them. Our needs are not addressed at all.”

Sandwiching high-profile friendly games, whose results mean nothing but require effort and commitment if only to save face, between league matches that count in the standings, is not an ideal scenario.

Unlimited substitutions is what the European clubs want, but their roster depth (in numbers and talent) makes that an unfair fight when MLS teams go to their bench.

But that’s the situation MLS has gotten itself into each summer. It wants the prestige of playing against top clubs. It wants the revenue from those games. It wants to foster relationships with Europe’s and Mexico’s powers.

But it’s the league’s players and coaches who pay the price.

grahame.jones@latimes.com

Chivas USA forward Justin Braun made it look so easy Saturday night.

With a touch here, a tap there, and a slide to finish it all off, the striker snapped his team’s five-game losing streak to the Houston Dynamo with casual grace and a grin.

Behind his three goals, Chivas picked up three critical points with a 3-0 victory over the Dynamo to send the team confidently into a five-game road trip after the All-Star break.

“We’re excited about not only the result, but the way we were able to play tonight,” Coach Robin Fraser said. “At the end of the day, some of the goals were really, really good.”

Outstanding service found Braun in all the right places Saturday, and he converted on almost every quality chance for his second hat trick of the season.

The first goal came in the 31st minute, when Chivas midfielder Jorge Flores dropped a pass back to defender Ante Jazic, who sent a perfect cross to Braun, who struck the ball in the air with his left foot from 10 yards out. Then, just nine minutes later, Blair Gavin’s chip dropped at Braun’s feet as he made a run alone in the middle of the box. Braun calmly tapped the ball over goalkeeper Tally Hall’s head to put Chivas up 2-0 before halftime. The game was long decided by the time Braun notched his third and final goal, sliding into a ball sent into the right side of box in the 86th minute.

The goals gave Braun seven on the season, moving him ahead of Nick LaBrocca for the team lead.

“It’s cool to get another hat trick,” Braun said. “I had hit a little dry spell, but this helped take that weight off my shoulders.”

Before Saturday night, Chivas (6-7-8) had only one win in 15 tries against Houston (5-7-9), and the team entered the game shorthanded in the attacking third with striker Ben Zemanski sidelined by an injured ankle.

Even so, Chivas played with a sense of offensive urgency largely absent this season. By the 12th minute, Gavin had already shimmied past a defender and sent a strike just high. After that, Chivas kept the pressure on, peppering Hall with quality chances to the end.

“Coming off this win, going into that long stretch of road games certainly gives your confidence a little bit of a boost,” Fraser said. “For us, to be in striking distance [of the playoffs] is important.”

matthew.stevens@latimes.com

twitter.com/mattstevenslat

Zab Judah might have disputed the ending, but there was no decrying the harsh lessons that the younger champion Amir Khan delivered his older Brooklyn opponent Saturday.

Khan picked apart Judah in the fifth round, and landed another stiff right to the face that caused the 33-year-old Judah to bend downward. Seeing another hole, Khan threw a hard right uppercut that struck Judah on the top half of the belt.

Judah sank to the canvas, referee Vic Drakulich told him to get up and began counting toward a knockout — six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

At the 2:47 mark of the fifth, Khan had won.

Judah was able to spring up then, only in argument mode.

“It was a low blow,” Judah said afterward. “I was trying to get myself together and that was self-defense. [The punch] lifted my belt.”

The complaint was in vain. It was a legal blow.

The 24-year-old British Khan improved to 26-1 with his 18th knockout, and the 33-year-old Judah (41-7) handed over his International Boxing Federation junior-welterweight belt to Khan’s collection, which includes a World Boxing Assn. belt.

Khan outpunched Judah 284-115 and landed more than triple the punches (61-20). He bloodied Judah’s lip in the second round, continued landing blows to the face in the third and expertly followed several jabs with a hard right to Judah’s mug in the fourth.

“I knew he was getting hurt,” Khan said afterward. “He kept moving away and ducking. I kept hitting him right in the face, and the shot that knocked him out was right on the belt. … It was only a matter of time.”

Perhaps in early 2012, Khan will be able to fight Coachella Valley’s Timothy Bradley for all four major titles.

“If Bradley didn’t want to fight him before, he doesn’t want to fight him now,” Khan promoter Richard Schaefer said after the bout, listing the Aug. 27 Robert Guerrero-Marcos Maidana winner or Erik Morales as other possible December foes for Khan.

The unbeaten Bradley, nicknamed “Desert Storm,” declined the match earlier this year as he negotiates a split with his promoters and he told The Times in a Saturday night telephone interview that he anticipates a 2012 Khan bout after a tuneup fight in the fall.

“He’s not ready for ‘The Storm,’ I’m not impressed,” Bradley said. “I know all the comments that are coming about this Khan performance, but I’m not stressing. … No way possible he can be No. 1 [at 140 pounds]. When we do get in the ring, everyone will see who the best in the world is.”

What Khan showed Saturday before the ending was another advanced level under the guidance of Hollywood’s famed trainer Freddie Roach, who also counts Manny Pacquiao in his stable.

Khan’s precision against Judah showed the Roach effect, and what the Brit ensured Saturday is that the payday with Bradley will be richer than the $1 million-plus he collected in the softer touch versus Judah.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

twitter.com/latimespugmire

Reporting from Baltimore — Bobby Abreu slumped into a chair in the corner of the Angels’ clubhouse and reached into his locker for a sock.

What he was really looking for, however, were answers.

Answers to why he’s hitting .153 this month. Or why the Angels are averaging 3.2 runs a game and rank last in the American League in hitting since the All-Star break.

And answers, like an approaching baseball when Abreu is at the plate, are proving elusive.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Well, here’s a guess: The Angels just may be hitting themselves out of a pennant race.

As evidence, look no further than Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

The Angels took a quick first-inning lead on Vernon Wells’ two-run home run. Then they didn’t get a man to third base the rest of the game.

They had runners on base in seven innings and got a man to second base three times. But they also hit into two double plays and were 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position.

And, fittingly, the game ended with Howie Kendrick, the Angels’ leading hitter, striking out with the tying run on second base.

“You’re going through a little cycle now where a lot of your guys are trying to find their game,” Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Which is to say Abreu isn’t the only one struggling, a bad sign when you’re 100 games into the season and in the middle of a pennant race.

Maicer Izturis is hitting .120 in July. Torii Hunter, after going 0 for 3 on Saturday, is hitting .207 this month and Jeff Mathis is hitting .179. Add in Abreu, who has struck out in nearly a third of his at-bats this month, and the Angels have four regulars hitting below .210 this month.

And after going three for 18 with runners in scoring position in their two games in Baltimore, they rank 25th in the majors in that category.

“We need to get better. We’ve talked about that all along,” Scioscia said. “As you get more guys in your lineup swinging the bat well — seeing that good at-bat, moving runners — that’s kind of the lifeblood of an offense when you’re struggling in the batter’s box.”

That didn’t happen Saturday, just as it hasn’t for most of the month. And with Joel Pineiro struggling on the mound, matching a season high by giving up 11 hits, the Angels had little room for error.

For Pineiro, who lasted only 51/3 innings, it was his second poor outing in a row, after a disastrous performance in Oakland in which he gave up eight runs and recorded only one out.

“It’s just a matter of getting that arm slot back and getting the ball down, really,” said Pineiro, who is 3-5 since early May.

Now the Angels find themselves under .500 since the All-Star break, just as their race with the streaking Texas Rangers, who won again Saturday, is beginning to heat up.

“A couple of opportunities missed,” said Wells, who admitted he has his eye on Texas.

But then Wells sighed and added: “If we don’t take care of our own business there’s nothing for us to look at.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

The malaise that is this Dodgers season reached its 100th game Saturday night and appeared set to take further hold after only a half inning.

Dodgers starter Ted Lilly had given up two singles, two doubles and three runs to the Washington Nationals before many fans had found their seats at Dodger Stadium.

But on this night, the Dodgers and Lilly — who slugged a two-run double and had three runs batted in overall to help his cause — declined to go quietly and made a game of it.

Shortstop Rafael Furcal, who has struggled at the plate since returning from the disabled list July 3, hit a walk-off double against Washington reliever Ryan Mattheus to score Trent Oeltjen in the bottom of the ninth inning and give the Dodgers a 7-6 win.

That was “was a huge hit for him,” Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said. “He’s been down” about his slump “so it’s good to see that.”

Mattingly also praised his bullpen for keeping the Dodgers (44-56) in the game in the final four innings, adding that “It was a nice win from the standpoint that the guys came back.”

Dodgers closer Javy Guerra (2-0), who pitched a scoreless ninth inning, earned the victory.

The Dodgers’ seven runs and 14 hits were their most since they exploded for 15 runs and 25 hits against the Twins in Minnesota on June 27.

The Dodgers tied Saturday’s game, 6-6, in the seventh inning when pinch-runner Eugenio Velez scored from third base on a wild pitch by Nationals reliever Henry Rodriguez.

Velez had replaced catcher Dioner Navarro, who walked, and then he stole second base and moved to third base when Jamey Carroll grounded out.

Though the Dodgers’ sparse run production has been their main concern this season, Lilly’s uneven performance over the last two months also raises questions.

In five of his last seven starts, the left-hander has allowed four or more earned runs, and his earned-run average climbed to 5.08 in Saturday’s outing.

After Lilly spotted Washington the three runs in the first inning, the Dodgers came back with a run in the first inning when Furcal scored on Matt Kemp’s sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers scored again in the second inning when Lilly bunted and a sliding James Loney scored from third base as catcher Wilson Ramos bobbled the throw at home plate.

The Nationals then scored three more times against Lilly in the third inning on a two-run double by Rick Ankiel and a run-scoring infield single by Ian Desmond.

But in the Dodgers’ half of the third inning, Kemp doubled, Juan Rivera singled and Kemp tagged and scored on Loney’s sacrifice fly.

After Juan Uribe singled, Washington intentionally walked Dioner Navarro to load the bases and get to Lilly. But the pitcher lined his double to right-center field, cutting the Nationals’ lead to 6-5. It was only his third hit of the season.

“Fortunately, I was able to help” with the bat because “I put us in a big hole,” Lilly said. “We were able to come back, in large part due to the work the bullpen did. Then obviously we got some clutch hits as the game went on.”

james.peltz@latimes.com

On a spring evening in this Mississippi town, Jim Walker dug into a plate of roast beef, macaroni and cheese, and green beans at the Palmer Home for Children and tried to swallow his frustration.

The orphanage was hosting an awards dinner for 65 of its charges — some in high chairs, others in high school. The kids, who wore Easter dresses and secondhand ties, accepted prizes for spiritual growth and certificates for artistic excellence. A 22-year-old who arrived at Palmer Home at 8 months old and graduated from the University of Mississippi received a top honor.

As poignant as the evening was, Walker, an orphanage board member and its former development director, couldn’t help but be upset that the accomplishments of the privately funded, 116-year-old institution were unfolding in obscurity. Palmer Home was the sort of place, Walker believed, that would make a heartwarming movie, showing that orphanages weren’t Dickensian warrens of misery.

It was scarcely some Hollywood fantasy.

In fact, a year earlier, cameras were set to roll on “Miracle at Palmer Home.” David Mickey Evans, who directed “The Sandlot,” was preparing to shoot the fictionalized story of three kids who run away from the orphanage to make room for needier children. Walker, who cowrote the movie’s story, said the budget was initially $7 million. But the project collapsed days before filming was to begin, he said, and some of the movie’s investors wonder where their money — some $1 million — went.

A former colleague of the film’s producer, Bret Saxon, thinks he knows: Scott Barbour contends in a lawsuit that Saxon and his companies took the money to finance a “luxury lifestyle.” Saxon, the suit claims, followed the same pattern on other film projects: Create a “falsely exaggerated” budget for a film, then “attempt to produce the movie project for substantially less” and “pocket the difference.”

The Palmer Home movie is one of 10 independently financed film projects — including one starring Woody Harrelson, another with Luke Perry, and one about California con man Barry Minkow — that have sparked a spate of lawsuits in the last year and a half against Saxon. A veteran of the infomercial world, the 45-year-old Saxon has co-written books about how to meet famous people and schmooze the rich and powerful.

Investors have filed six lawsuits against Saxon, alleging that he misappropriated or failed to repay more than $7.8 million in investments, loans and fees. In the first case, filed in February 2010, a Tennessee arbitrator found Saxon liable for fraud and breach of contract and ordered him to pay investor Jon Yarbrough $2.25 million.

A lawyer for Saxon, Andrew Jablon, said, “Mr. Saxon agreed, at the advice of his counsel in Tennessee, to enter into a stipulated judgment as part of a business resolution.” In the other lawsuits, which are all in the early stages of litigation, Jablon said Saxon also did nothing wrong. Jablon argued that Barbour has tried to extort money from Saxon and that others have been motivated to sue him because of money woes not of Saxon’s making.

As for the money invested in “Miracle at Palmer Home,” it was spent on “pre-production and production costs,” Jablon said. “There was no theft of assets — nothing.” The movie, Jablon said, was postponed because a cast member became ill.

Outside the system

The saga of Bret Saxon and the question of whether he is simply an unlucky producer or, as alleged in the lawsuits, a fraud provides a window into film financing in modern Hollywood and the risks of such investments.

Independent producers like Saxon serve as both fundraisers and filmmakers, and the roles are linked more closely than ever. The major studios have cut the number of movies they make, concentrating on extravaganzas such as “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Of the 560 films released theatrically in the United States last year, only 104 came from the major studios, according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, down 6% from 111 major studio releases in 2009.

Independent producers are the engines behind the hundreds of other films. They comb the world for financing, pitching their projects at international movie markets, over Beverly Hills lunches, on the decks of yachts moored at the Cannes Film Festival. Many independently produced movies are made with no guarantee of distribution; the completed films are shopped around in the hopes of attracting a sale that will more than cover their budgets.

Cash has flooded into movies from international tax deals, government subsidies, foreign banks, hedge funds and wealthy individuals. Although the investments are highly speculative, they offer investors a chance to mingle with stars, see their names on the big screen, and, in rare cases such as the independent blockbusters “Little Miss Sunshine” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” collect a windfall.

Saxon, who according to court records declared personal bankruptcy in 1991 and 1998, has been a producer or executive producer on a number of films, none a major success. The 2005 Costa Rican comedy “Blue Sombrero” and the 2009 thriller “Across the Hall” have no reported box-office receipts. His 2007 poker movie “The Grand” grossed just $115,879 in domestic theaters.

Saxon traveled by private jet, had a Mercedes and a Ferrari, and lived in a 10,900-square-foot Pacific Palisades estate with a movie theater, tennis court and swimming pool, according to interviews and court records. Saxon traveled with a personal trainer and carried an exclusive black American Express card, according to court filings and interviews with former colleagues and movie investors. Jablon said he doesn’t see “anything improper about these facts” and that the trainer accompanied Saxon as a personal friend.

Said Dennis Sonnenschein, a fledgling Tennessee screenwriter whose brother, Thomas, is suing Saxon over a movie Dennis Sonnenschein co-wrote: “He put on the dog when he wanted to put on the dog.”

Former colleagues of Saxon and those who invested with him describe him as a charismatic figure.

— Cadel Evans seized the Tour de France yellow jersey in the next-to-last stage Saturday, all but giving Australia its first victory in cycling’s showpiece event and capping one of the most dramatic races in years.

The two-time runner-up took the overall lead by overcoming a 57-second deficit to Andy Schleck of Luxembourg in the time trial.

A red-eyed Evans choked up on the victory podium, holding back tears before hurling the winner’s bouquet into the crowd.

“I really can’t quite believe it right now,” the 34-year-old Aussie said. “I have been concentrating on one event for so long.”

Although there is one more stage — Sunday’s ceremonial finish along the Champs-Elysees in Paris — the leader after the time trial is almost certain to be the winner. Launching a successful attack during that flat ride is virtually impossible.

This year’s edition of the 108-year-old race was tense all the way — a riveting finish and without a serious doping blight that marred past Tours.

The Schleck brothers, knowing they had lost, embraced after the finish line of the 26-mile time trial. Evans leads Andy Schleck by 1:34, and Frank Schleck by 2:30.

The 20th stage was won by Tony Martin of Germany. Evans finished second in the stage — seven seconds behind — and was 2:31 faster than Andy Schleck.

The riders set off Saturday in reverse order of the standings. Andy Schleck had the benefit of riding last, and said beforehand that he’d have the added inspiration of wearing yellow.

By the first intermediate time check at the 9.3-mile mark, Evans had already erased 36 seconds of his deficit to Andy Schleck and was 34 seconds faster than the elder Schleck.

At the second, at 17.1 miles, Andy Schleck’s lead had vanished — Evans was 1:32 faster. The Luxembourg rider wasn’t even among the 10 fastest riders who had crossed that point. Evans then kept gaining as the stage progressed to the finish.

The looming victory for Evans, the BMC team leader, culminated a stellar and methodical three weeks of riding. Unlike defending champion Alberto Contador and other main contenders, Evans was spared crashes. His only real problem was mechanical trouble Friday, but he recovered without any lost time.

Evans will have won the Tour without having won a stage. But his triumph attests to his diligent preparation as he eyed a title he has narrowly missed for years.

“Today, we went through the process, like we had the plan every day — and the plan every day was A, B, C, D,” he said.

Evans’ psychological toughness had been questioned, but he showed a veteran’s skill and savvy to take cycling’s greatest prize.

“This is the victory of a complete rider,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme said. “Is the consecration of a career.”

Evans had been regarded as a perennial underachiever until he became a world champion two years ago. And he enjoyed a solid buildup to the Tour, racing less than usual so he would peak at the right moment.

The parallels between Andy Schleck and Evans are considerable. Both are two-time runners-up, and both have been second to Contador — Evans once and Schleck twice. Both also know what it’s like to just miss out on victory. Evans was second to Contador by 23 seconds in 2007; Schleck was 39 seconds behind the Spaniard last year — two of the closest finishes in race history.

The Schlecks — whichever one — were vying to be the first from Luxembourg to capture the Tour since Charly Gaul became the country’s only winner in 1958.

As second and third overall, they will be the first brothers to share the Tour’s winners podium on the Champs-Elysees.

Football media days/daze staged annually by the Southeastern Conference compare to the frenzy of Super Bowl week, with a notable exception:

Super Bowl week ends with a game.

• Chris Dufresne

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“This has got to be the largest credentialed media contingent for a nonevent,” said Tony Barnhart, veteran multimedia sage of Southern football.

The SEC credentialed 1,050 people for last week’s gridiron fest at the Wynfrey Hotel.

They take their “nonevent” football seriously down here.

For three days, Wednesday through Friday, starting with Arkansas and ending with Louisiana State, fanatics of all shapes and allegiances jammed the lobby for the chance to glimpse their heroes.

Think of a “Star Trek” convention combined with a rodeo.

Upstairs, writers staked out stories as cameramen and beauty-contestant broadcasters tripped over each other’s re-takes.

Friday, Alabama fans, cordoned off by a barrier, actually booed a Birmingham sports writer as he descended the escalator.

Twenty-nine outlets set up shop, for 72 hours, in a first-floor corridor called “Radio Row,” to dispense vital and not-so-vital SEC football information.

Rarely have so many gathered, in one place, for so little in actual news value.

For SEC fans, media days are a sign the season is just around the very long corner.

“43 days until Football! Roll Tide!” boasted a sign in “Bama Fever,” an apparels shop adjacent to the hotel.

For journalists, the SEC interview adventure is as much a cultural happening as it is informational.

It was here, two years ago, that Florida quarterback Tim Tebow was asked if he was still a virgin.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

Former Tennessee Coach Phillip Fulmer once refused to cross the border to attend for fear of being served a subpoena in a legal case involving the NCAA and an Alabama booster.

“I am not attending because of the legal circus that’s been created,” Fulmer said.

Fulmer did show up in 2008 . . . and was served a subpoena.

But that was it for the Angels’ scoring — not that they didn’t have their chances.

They had runners thrown out trying to steal in each of the next two innings, left Alberto Callaspo at second after a two-out double in the fourth, then got runners on first and second to start the fifth only to leave both as well.

And in the ninth, they had the tying run at second with two outs and All-Star Howie Kendrick at the plate, but Kevin Gregg struck him out on a full-count pitch to end the game.

The Orioles, meanwhile, had Angel starter Joel Pineiro walking a tightrope before breaking through for a run in the fourth and two more in the fifth.

Adam Jones got Baltimore started by homering to lead off the fourth. Then a run-scoring single by Nick Markakis and Jones’ sacrifice fly an inning later put the Orioles ahead to stay.

ALSO:

Angels hit by heat wave in Baltimore

Jerry Crowe: Angels make one-day turnaround on season

– Kevin Baxter in Baltimore

Photo: Erick Aybar reacts after getting tagged out by Baltimore second baseman Robert Andino (not pictured) while trying to steal second base.Credit: Joe Giza / Reuters

An aging right-hander who has pitched only 40 innings for one of the worst teams in baseball could wind up determining which teams make the World Series this year.

Or maybe that honor will go to a gimpy 34-year-old outfielder with two surgically repaired knees whose current team would pay as much as $6 million to get rid of him.

Then again, maybe neither will get anywhere close to a pennant race. Such are the vagaries of the week before baseball’s July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline, perhaps the busiest and most important seven days of the season.

“It’s always fun,” says Angels General Manager Tony Reagins, who will spend the next week sleeping next to his cellphone. “I look forward to it.”

Last year, more than five dozen players — All-Stars Kerry Wood, Roy Oswalt, Dan Haren, Lance Berkman and Miguel Tejada among them — changed uniforms in the final week of July, several in the final hours.

The pace isn’t likely to be as withering this year since 17 teams entered the weekend within seven games of a postseason berth, making them less likely to trade away valuable pieces that might help another team.

For the other 13, though, it’s a sellers’ market — especially if they have pitching, the most valuable commodity this time of year. Which brings us to Heath Bell, a three-time All-Star with 28 saves who is languishing in the San Diego Padres’ bullpen.

No fewer than eight contending teams figure to make a play for Bell or teammate Mike Adams, with Texas, Philadelphia and St. Louis at the top of that list.

For teams looking to add a bat to the outfield — Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and the New York Yankees — the top target is weak-kneed Carlos Beltran, with the New York Mets reportedly willing to pay off his contract for the right deal.

After that, it all becomes a big poker game, says Tampa Bay executive Gerry Hunsicker, who spun major trade-deadline deals during his nine years as general manager of the Houston Astros.

“Sometimes teams want to aggressively move a player and they don’t have a lot of leverage,” Hunsicker says. “Or teams value a player differently. We may have a player we place a certain value on and our trading partner may not agree with that.”

Then again, maybe everybody’s just bluffing.

“A lot of the Internet information … is complete speculation. Some is completely false,” says Reagins, who is clearly a buyer at the trade deadline. “If I have interest in a player, I’m calling the GM and finding out the availability and what the … demand is to get that player.

“You just don’t assume a player is not available.”

Dodgers GM Ned Colletti will be a seller at the trade deadline for the first time in his six years in Los Angeles.

“It’s probably the first time I’ve been with a club that’s been in this position since 1996,” says Colletti, who has been an active buyer in recent summers. “If we can get a prospect or two for someone who’s going to be a free agent, we’d like to do that. What do you call that? Are you a buyer or a seller?”

Colletti says he could be both. He’d like to make a trade that would give him the assets to spin a second deal for a player or players “that would help us the rest of this season and going forward.”

That requires homework and diligence. Colletti relates one deal he was about to make before a scout raised questions after an awkward fielding play the night before. Colletti checked further and found out the player had broken a finger.

“A lot of it is buyer beware,” he says.

Be aware, too, that the trade market doesn’t close when the nonwaiver deadline passes at 1 p.m. PDT on July 31. Teams can still deal players who have cleared waivers — and Hunsicker says most teams dump the majority of their roster on waivers this time of year, hoping to sneak through the ones they’d like to trade.

Which means Reagins will be sleeping with his cellphone for at least a few more weeks.

“We’re looking to improve our club,” he says. “[If] we don’t acquire a player at the trade deadline, there’s still another deadline. If you think you’re forced to make a deal, it probably doesn’t end up very good for you.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

It is the sturdiest room in a sagging stadium, filled with the calmest voice in a storm of a season.

Don Mattingly’s office is part Dodgers museum, part principal’s office, all hardball.

• Bill Plaschke

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The walls are filled with black and white Brooklyn Dodgers photos, his personal photos, hung at his insistence, the lifetime New York Yankee intentionally surrounded by Jackie and Campy and Duke.

“This office is not about any individual, it’s about this organization, I don’t want anybody to ever forget that,” Mattingly said.

His desk is filled with motivational books and two large plastic bottles. One is marked “James Loney Fly To Left Fund.” The other is marked “James Loney Line Drive Fund.”

Every time Loney hits a fly ball to left field — usually a sure out for the left-handed hitter — he owes Mattingly five bucks. Every time he hits a line drive, Mattingly drops five bucks in the other bottle.

“Just like my players, I’m trying everything,” Mattingly said with a smile.

I didn’t think I would like Mattingly as a manager, but I do.

His debut record stinks, his long-term future under new ownership is uncertain, he has made rookie decisions and protected questionable players.

But I like Mattingly as a manager because, in a season of emptiness, he brings presence.

His team can’t win, but he has yet to let them quit. His owner acts like a fool, but the players do not. The entire operation has been dragged through a sewer, yet Mattingly has somehow kept the team above it all.

I like Mattingly not because of what has happened, but because of what has not happened. There has been no selfish player rebellion, no distracting player fights, no clubhouse turmoil amid perhaps the most tumultuous summer in Dodgers history.

“We’re teetering,” Mattingly said. “But I’m proud that guys continue to get ready to play and give us their best effort.”

The games are hard to watch. The results are hard to take. Mattingly wakes up in the middle of some nights at his South Bay home and walks the floor. The lineup is filled with injuries, the bullpen is filled with oddities, the team can’t hit, there’s no money to acquire anybody decent, and on nights when Clayton Kershaw doesn’t pitch, there’s not much chance for a win.

Yet, you rarely see the sort of fundamental breakdowns that were evident under Joe Torre. You never hear of veterans belittling kids like they did under Grady Little. It might be the worst year ever to be a Dodger, yet Mattingly is still selling this crazy view of what it means to be a Dodger.

“We stress only one thing — there’s one way to play the game and that’s the right way, all the time, 10 games back or 10 ahead,” Mattingly said. “We want to set a standard, and, even though right now it’s not good enough to get wins, one day it will be.”

Of course, when the Dodgers roster finally gets good enough, will Mattingly be good enough? That will be the question eventually faced by the team’s future owners after next season. Is he holding this smoking wreckage together just long enough to get dragged out of the driver’s seat when the new engine finally arrives?

Right now, it would be a difficult call, because, while I love the way Mattingly has managed this crisis, I still have no idea whether he can manage championship baseball, and neither does anybody else.

“Donnie hasn’t even had one easy week, so it’s really tough to judge,” said Ned Colletti, Dodgers general manager. “But if the effort has been there, and I attribute that to him and his staff.”

If Mattingly were being graded, that grade would be an incomplete. He still struggles with the fast pace of a National League game. He still has nights like Friday, when he pulled reliever Kenley Jansen at the start of the ninth inning after Jansen had struck out four consecutive batters, only to watch the next three pitchers combine to set up Jerry Hairston Jr.’s grand slam.

“You do what you think is right, but sometimes you beat yourself up over it,” Mattingly said. “There’s things I’ve done this year where I’ve later been like, ‘What am I doing? I can’t do that.”

One of those things happened July 4 in the sixth inning against the New York Mets, when Mattingly allowed right-hander Rubby De La Rosa to pitch to left-hander Daniel Murphy with right-handed Jason Bay on deck. Murphy’s double gave the Mets a lead they never lost.

Mattingly was so upset with that decision, he called Colletti later that night to talk about it. He’s not only unafraid to admit mistakes, but he’s also willing to discuss them with his boss, and how can you fault a rookie for that?

“I’ve been embarrassed sometimes, but I’ve been embarrassed on the field as a player,” Mattingly said. “You learn quick and you move on.”

He is learning quickly, painfully, enduring what is surely one of the most doomed managerial debuts in recent history. Yet, he is doing it with the sort of grace and dignity that the Dodgers will need moving forward.

“I love what I’m doing. I love the challenge of what I’m doing,” he said. “I don’t like the losing, but I have to be the guy that sees where we’re going.”

Where he goes every morning is on an hour-long walk on the beach, down by the water, barefoot and anonymous, his feet covered in sticky sand yet, as always, his mind on the gorgeous blue.

“Sometimes I’ll just jump in the water, and it’s been really, really cold,” he said . “But I’m telling you, it’s warming up a bit. I can just feel it.”

bill.plaschke@latimes.com twitter.com/billplaschke

An El Segundo company aims to help the nation’s busiest seaport complex advance its green technology efforts by providing zero-emission trucks for heavy-duty hauling.

Executives from Vision Motor Corp. delivered a heavy-duty hauling truck Friday to one of the port complex’s most important cargo haulers, Total Transportation Services Inc. of Rancho Dominguez.

The Tyrano class 8 rig looks like any other big rig, but a hydrogen fuel cell powers an electric drive, emitting only water from the tailpipe. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are billing it as the world’s first zero-emission heavy-duty hydrogen rig. If it performs to expectations during an 18-month test, Total Transportation plans to order at least 100 more.

Experts said the venture could set the stage for a new era in green cargo movement.

Fleets of zero-emission trucks with the range to deliver cargo to the Inland Empire’s warehouses and distribution centers would “eliminate one of the principal objections neighbors and governments have when freight and logistics are a major part of the local economy — that’s the problem of diesel emissions,” said economist John Husing, whose firm, Economics Politics Inc., tracks international trade.

The Tyrano uses a combination of technologies to operate with an expected range of 200 miles, said Rudy Tapia, vice president for business development for Vision Motor. The power flows through electric batteries, which are kept charged by a hydrogen fuel cell. No fossil fuels are used in the truck.

“Up and above the benefit of zero emissions, we at TTSI feel that this fuel format is the only true way to break our dependence on imported fuel. Hydrogen is the most abundant resource on the planet,” said Vic La Rosa, president of Total Transportation , a hauling and logistics company that moves freight and provides warehousing and rail service and handles shipments through seaports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, Seattle, Tacoma, Wash., and Norfolk, Va.

Getting Total Transportation onboard for the test was a big boost, said Martin Schuermann, chief executive of Vision Motor.

“It underlines our assumptions that there are multiple commercial applications for our hydrogen powered zero-emission big rigs in today’s trucking industry,” Schuermann said.

Officials at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have a lot riding on the outcome. The nation’s largest and second largest cargo container ports, respectively, put up $425,000 in seed money for the development of the Vision Motor truck through their joint Technology Assistance Program, which has an annual budget of $1.5 million. The program has funded several projects, including a hybrid diesel tugboat from Seattle-based Foss Maritime Co.

“We really want to see the truck put through the paces to see how durable the fuel cell system is,” said Heather Tomley, director of environmental planning for the Port of Long Beach. “We’re hoping that it works as well as they think it will.”

In addition to the on-road Tyrano, Total Transportation will test a Vision Motor truck more like the common terminal tractor, designed to move containers inside the ports.

Kevin Maggay, air quality supervisor for the Port of Los Angeles, said its green technology efforts so far, including the introduction of fuels that pollute less than earlier versions, were just the beginning.

“We have made great strides in reducing emissions, but we need to go further and we have to find new technologies to get us there,” Maggay said. “Clean diesel does not get us there.”

Vision Motor’s business plan may have tapped into a way to avoid the problem all small start-ups face — the inability to rapidly scale up to major factory production levels. It’s not building the trucks. It’s using Freightliner to provide the chassis and cab. It’s not building the electric motor, which is made by Siemens. The fuel cell is made by Hydrogenics Canada. Vision Motor will deliver the proprietary software to make the systems work together, Tapia said.

“We go with best of breed for the components for the best performance and durability and for the lowest costs,” Tapia said. “It’s the most capital efficient way to go.”

ron.white@latimes.com

California employers are hiring again, swelling payrolls by nearly 29,000 positions in June and allowing the state to outpace the nation in job growth as its start-and-stop recovery appears to have gotten back on track.

The state has added 110,000 jobs in the first half of the year, compared with just 83,000 positions for all of 2010.

Still, it’s an uneven recovery, with growth concentrated in affluent areas such as Silicon Valley and in high-paying fields such as professional services. Blue-collar trades such as construction and trucking continued to shed workers.

The divide suggests that as the recovery progresses, two economies are developing within California: one for more highly educated workers living on the coast, and one for inland workers with less schooling.

“Silicon Valley is not far from the San Joaquin Valley, but in economic terms, it may as well be on the other side of the ocean,” said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. “The tech industry just does not spill over here.”

California added a total of 28,800 net jobs in June, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday, compared with a loss of a revised 21,100 jobs in May. The unemployment rate rose slightly, to 11.8%, from an adjusted 11.7% in May, as more formerly self-employed workers declared themselves out of work.

The San Francisco statistical area, which includes Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, added 4,800 jobs in June.

Silicon Valley did even better, with Santa Clara and San Benito counties adding a combined 8,300 jobs. A tech boom is lighting up the area, where venture capitalists are pouring money into start-ups, office rents are rising and more new cars are popping up in employee parking lots.

In stark contrast, the Inland Empire, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties, lost 3,000 jobs in June. Fresno County alone shed 2,000. The signs are evident in the half-finished housing developments that dot the inland areas, and in the stores and businesses that are continuing to close, even as the recovery continues.

“I’m going out of business. It’s the economy. I don’t even break even,” said Jim Larson, who recently closed his collectibles store in Northern California’s Lake County, where the unemployment rate is a woeful 17.3%.

Pain is spread through inland areas up and down the state: Fresno’s St. Agnes Medical Center announced in June that it would cut 150 of about 2,800 positions, citing “a weakened economy and declining reimbursement.” Salinas-based Ramco Enterprises, which does staffing for food processing companies, said it plans to eliminate 357 jobs, according to a WARN Act notice, which requires businesses to give notice of large-scale layoffs.

But few places are harder hit than Southern California’s Inland Empire, which can’t seem to catch a break. The region encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties has jettisoned 11,400 jobs since June 2010; the state has added 156,800 over the same time period. Unemployment rates in many of its cities top 20%.

The region suffers from a falloff in construction, from sporadic trade activity and from cuts in the government sector, which is a big employer there.

Some Riverside County communities, including Beaumont and Murrieta, have seen the number of vacant units double from 2000 to 2010, according to census data.

Depressed housing values and tepid demand means that many of those homes could remain vacant for years, said Jerry Nickelsburg, a senior economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

“It’s going to take awhile for the population to grow, to fill up all those homes and boost home prices to the point where it pays to build again,” he said. “The building that you’re seeing is multifamily housing in coastal communities.”

Nickelsburg released a forecast last month suggesting that rising fuel prices will encourage people to live in multifamily homes on the coast, abandoning exurbs further inland. Construction employment won’t return to pre-recession levels until 2021, he predicted.

In San Bernardino County, the volume of home sales dropped 18.3% from last June, and in Riverside the volume of sales fell 14.7%, according to DataQuick.

Job losses cut across almost all sectors in the Inland Empire. Leisure and hospitality shed 3,200 jobs in June, and educational and health services declined by 1,300 positions. Financial activities accounted for 1,000 job losses.

The region has shed 3,900 construction jobs over the year and has lost 75,100 construction jobs from peak employment in June 2006.

You may not be able to taste it, but that taco you’re about to devour may have a little less salt than it used to.

Whether serving fast food or cooking up gourmet meals, restaurants are cutting back on salt. It’s partly for your health, but it’s also to head off regulators who have already ordered them to post calorie counts on their menus and stop frying with trans fats.

Carl’s Jr. has cut 20% of the sodium from its hamburger buns. El Torito has whacked up to 30% of the sodium from its sauces and marinades. Taco Bell said last week that it had cut 20% of the sodium from its menu across the board.

“Everybody in the industry is looking at sodium reduction,” said Brad Haley, marketing chief for CKE Restaurants, which owns the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains. “Because we think this is the next legislative requirement that is going to come down.”

With federal officials preparing to release new rules requiring restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, restaurant owners say they are convinced that salt is next. Throughout the industry, companies are rushing to cut back now, so they’re not caught by surprise if officials act quickly.

But here’s the rub: They hope you won’t notice. Tell customers they’re being served a low-sodium dish, the reasoning goes, and they’ll declare it bland even before they taste it.

“This is one of those reverse PR deals,” said Greg Drescher, executive director of strategic initiatives for the Culinary Institute of America. “You don’t want people to notice what you’re doing.”

Campbell Soup Co. may have learned the hard way. Reducing salt in its products too publicly — and by too much — is widely believed to have contributed to slumping sales in recent years. Just last week, the company announced it was adding back salt into many of its products.

But so far, restaurateurs say, there seems to be little public reaction to the changes they’re making.

At the Yard House restaurant at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles, customer Mark Maren said he had no clue that the Irvine-based chain recently switched to low-sodium soy sauce and quietly cut salt in several dishes.

Maren said he never thinks about salt when ordering his food — and definitely would not have been drawn to an item if it had been labeled low-sodium. “It’s not a big concern,” he said. “I don’t add salt, but what’s in there is in there.”

Socorro Leano, who was eating a plate of penne with chicken, is slim and fit. But she avoids dishes with too much salt. The pasta, she said, hit the right mix: “Not too salty, but not too bland.”

Americans love salt. Despite 40 years of public health warnings that too much sodium causes high blood pressure, leading to strokes and heart attacks, U.S. consumption has remained constant. And at an average of 3,400 milligrams a day, we’re eating way more than the recommended 1,500 to 2,300.

In fact, we’re in the middle of a gourmet salt boom. Boutique shops sell pink Himalayan rock salt and black salt flavored with truffles, as well as varieties with touches of lime, chile or espresso.

But if restaurants had to print sodium content on their menus, the numbers could be eye-opening.

A restaurant meal can have as many as 5,000 milligrams of sodium in it, experts say. An Angus bacon and cheeseburger from McDonald’s, for example, has about 2,000 milligrams — about a teaspoon’s worth. A single serving of salsa at Chipotle has 510 milligrams.

“Sodium should be on the menu next to calories,” said Laguna Beach resident Ann Weisbrod, 70, who has been on a low-sodium diet since developing high blood pressure during pregnancy. “It would shock people.”

Last year, a report by the National Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences that studies health and healthcare, called on regulators to require reductions in the salt content of packaged and restaurant food, saying that the industry had failed to police itself.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not acted on the recommendation. But soon after, the city of New York asked companies to voluntarily reduce sodium in food, and most restaurant owners are convinced that regulations will soon follow.

Colin Farrell and Anton Yelchin in a scene from “Fright Night.” (DreamWorks)

Lest any “Twilight” fans were still lurking about in Hall H of the San Diego Convention Center on Friday afternoon, Shawn Phillips of Yahoo Movies had some words of caution.

“This is not the sparkly vampire movie panel,”  he began,  introducing the panel discussion for the upcoming DreamWorks film “Fright Night 3D.” No, this, he said,  was the ”bad-ass, bloodthirsty vampire panel.” A cheer went up from the audience, indicating maybe the “Twilight” fans had, indeed, scattered after the Thursday event for their movie.

Colin Farrell, who plays vampire Jerry, was greeted with lots of love, especially when director Craig Gillespie asked him to go off stage when he called him out too early. Farrell retreated off the stage, walking backward. “He’s good. He’s better in reverse,” quipped Gillespie.

Fellow cast member Anton Yelchin (Chekov in 2009′s “Star Trek”) was met with huge applause and some cheers of “I love you!”  and Chris Sarandon, the vampire from the 1985 original, was on hand to moderate the discussion.

Gillespie, who shot the film in 3-D, said he was interested in directing as soon as he read the script by Marti Noxon. “It was so clearly written for me,” he said. ”I could visualize it instantly.”

Farrell was self-deprecating and, for a Comic-Con event, rather honest.

For instance, after a clip aired of vampire Jerry asking to borrow a six-pack of beer, Farrell quipped, “Some reps you just can’t shake. Of course Marti’s vampire has to drink.” (Farrell has in the last year given interviews discussing his struggles with alcohol and his decision to give up drinking.) He went on during the question-and-answer session to say that his time on Michael Mann’s  2006 movie “Miami Vice” was “a six-month blackout.”

He also commented:  “I thought I was playing a superhero in [Oliver Stone's] ‘Alexander’ and that didn’t work out. No more swords-and-sandals epics for me.”

He said that in the last five years, he’s become more selective in his work and had much more fun.

“Success came really quickly for me. It was insane,” said Farrell, 35. “Recently I reconnected to that Colin who went to his first acting class in Dublin at 17.”

Part of that, he said, involved signing on to play Jerry, a role he was at first reluctant to take because he loved the original and Sarandon’s performance so much.

Writer Noxon was thrilled he did, as she wanted to bring more “viciousness and sexuality” to the vampire genre.  “I didn’t want a vampire who played piano,” quipped Noxon, who used to write for the TV show ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

The film opens Aug. 19.

– Nicole Sperling

All it takes to sell “The Black Version,” the consistently overbooked comedy show now running at the Groundlings Theatre, is to state the concept: Audience members shout out titles of iconic movies, the director picks her favorite, and a cast of veteran black comics improvises, with scant regard for political correctness, the “black version” of it.

People start laughing in anticipation alone — “like we’re winning before we even started,” says cast member Keegan-Michael Key.

Consider their most recent show, a parody of “Grease.” Don’t expect the adolescent crooning and swooning of Danny and Sandy as they negotiate the all-American halls of Rydell High.

In the much cruder “black version,” retitled “Sulfur-8″ after a hair care product, Darrell and Shantell are Compton High students who share a meal of fried chicken and biscuits at a Popeyes and, over the course of their fraught courtship, encounter trigger-happy gang members, evil baby mommas and gun-toting golf caddies. All this while singing their own versions of the well-known songs. The title number becomes an RB ode to Sulfur-8 — “only one thing make your hair taste so great,” one cast member improvises, remarkably in tune as part of a respectable four-part harmony.

From the first show a year ago, “The Black Version” has been a winner for the Groundlings Theatre, drawing crowds creator Jordan Black says he never encountered during his seven years at the company (he left in 2007).

Part of the reason for its success might be the novelty of seeing seven black improvisers on the stage at one time. There isn’t as much improv talent in the black comedy world, Black says, because most of the role models are stand-up comics like Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock.

Wayne Brady, who appeared on the old improv TV show “Whose Line Is it Anyway?,” has been a special guest on two of the last 15 or so performances of “The Black Version,” including “Grease.”

“It’s been one of my favorite live improv shows that I’ve been involved in a long time,” Brady says, and he plans to do more.

The brainchild of Black — a running joke is that the show was named after him — the show began in 2007 as a series of Web shorts. Back then, Black and his friends, many of whom are now part of the show’s regular cast, including Gary Anthony Williams (“Boston Legal”), Daniele Gaither (“Mad TV”) and Phil LaMarr (“The Pee Wee Herman Show”), only parodied specific scenes, such as Meg Ryan’s famous fake orgasm in “When Harry Met Sally.”

When the opportunity presented itself, Black and director Karen Maruyama brought the show to the Groundlings, where it’s been playing two or three times a month for the last year. Past movies have included “Back to Future,” inevitably retitled “Black to the Future,” and “Silence of the Lambs,” better known as “Why You Eating People?” — and others such as “Star Wars,” “Forrest Gump,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” “Top Gun” and “E.T.,” their first.

Once a movie is chosen, there’s no time for brainstorming — Maruyama summons the comics to the stage, sets the scene, sometimes asks the audience for a suggestion or two, and then they begin.

To some, “The Black Version” might seem an endorsement of stereotypes — the ghetto-talking pimp, for instance — but Black sees it as, in some sense, freeing.

“There’s no room for political correctness in art,” he says. “These things exist, people talk about these things, but they talk about them behind closed doors. What we’re doing is bringing them all out into the open, which is, I think, a big part of why the show is successful. It gives people a chance to relax about race for a second, because we don’t talk about race, particularly in Los Angeles.”

Black, who also teaches at Groundlings, has noticed that some of his black students “get onstage and don’t want to be black.” The fear, he says, might be rooted in a notion that playing to stereotypes unfairly represents black people.

“Instantly, you have people in the audience going, ‘That’s not us.’ No, that’s not you, but there are some people who behave that way and act that way, and that’s the truth. It’s OK to comment on that,” Black says. “Not every white person acts like Jim Carrey, but he doesn’t have to worry about representing his whole race. I refuse to worry about that.”

Black and his cast take particular joy in luring audiences into certain racially familiar situations and then, in a flash, flipping them on their head, especially in the more open-ended second half of the show, in which the cast presents the would-be DVD extras of the black version they’ve just improvised, featuring Shakespeare, Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey, among others.

Maruyama, the cast’s Japanese American director who the cast has declared an “honorary” black, agrees that “The Black Version’s” kind of comedy gives ethnic comics a certain freedom denied them in more traditional venues. She knows where to draw the line — sometimes an audience suggestion will border on racism — but she’s normally too busy having fun to worry about offending people. A comic herself — like Black, she got her start at Groundlings, and also worked alongside Brady as a featured guest on “Whose Line?” — Maruyama has an ear for the funniest crowd suggestions. Don’t shout out “Weekend at Bernie’s” or “Kindergarten Cop,” or you will be publicly shamed.

Everybody in the cast emphasizes the fun of putting on the show, saying that improvisation, though it might sound difficult, is no real work for trained professionals. Williams mourned the day he had to miss a performance for another job; Key calls it “one of the joys of my life.”

Black is hoping to take “The Black Version” on tour, possibly to Las Vegas or New York, but is only “in talks” at the moment.

Williams has taken on the role of de facto publicist, and he has a marketing approach to new audiences. “If all of Los Angeles does not see this show,” he says, “I will declare the entire place racist.”

calendar@latimes.com

With excitement akin to the sighting of a  bald eagle, the Ministry has stumbled upon rare video of power couple Jay-Z and Beyonce. At the same table. Sitting very close. Just like mortals do.

B and Jay are notoriously private when it comes to their marriage, quality time and, above all else, PDA. But the moguls aren’t sly enough to escape the magic found in a leaked 10-minute documentary about the making of Jay and Kanye West’s joint album “Watch the Throne.”

The clip below shows a heartfelt moment at a luxurious private estate in Australia, where West is presenting Jay with luxurious birthday gifts: framed artwork from their single “Monster” and a major ring that Kanye hunted for in Paris that allows Jay to dip the bauble in hot wax and leave an insignia.

The gift giving is a fantastic look behind the curtain, but we’re taken with the sight of man and wife, nestled at a dinner table smiling over taper candles and an haute cuisine spread.

Start at 1:10 to see Beyonce coach her hubby on how to stamp his ring after it’s dipped in hot wax, and for sweet man-hugging between Jay and Kanye. 

RELATED:

Beyonce’s ‘Girls (Who Run the World)’ leaks online

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Met Gala 2011: Madonna, Kristen Stewart, Kanye West work the red carpet [Pictures]

— Matt Donnelly
twitter.com/MattDonnelly

Photo: Beyonce and Jay-Z in 2006, at the release party for her second studio album “B’Day.” Credit: Frank Micelotta / Getty Images.

The sensational result in the O.J. Simpson murder case notwithstanding, it’s an article of faith among criminal defense attorneys that sequestered jurors are more prone to convict than those who go home when the trial recesses for the day.

That’s why more notice should have been paid this week when J. Michael Flanagan, who is defending Conrad Murray — the physician charged with causing the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson — asked Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor to sequester the jurors when the trial gets underway in September. Pastor said he didn’t think isolation was necessary and that, given its current funding, the court couldn’t afford to house and supervise a jury for the many weeks the trial probably will take.

• Tim Rutten

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What was equally remarkable about Flanagan’s request was that he never argued that his client’s right to a fair trial was threatened by a media frenzy. Rather, he argued, Murray’s 6th Amendment rights were jeopardized by the attention of a single news media personality: Nancy Grace.

Grace is the former Georgia prosecutor who became a television legal commentator, first on Court TV and, more recently, on Turner Broadcasting’s HLN cable channel. She’s a snarling, angry presence whose habitual sneer is an epic chasm of contempt. Her view of the criminal justice system is flawlessly Manichean. There are good people — police officers and prosecutors — and evil people — defendants and their lawyers. Grace appears to have never met someone arrested who she believed should not be charged, nor anyone charged who should not be convicted.

This cartoon version of the criminal courts is justified by a damp-eyed concern for crime victims that a practiced Grace attributes — at the slightest provocation — to the death of her fiance during a robbery. Her own zealousness as an Atlanta prosecutor was such that the appellate courts three times cited her for failing to meet her ethical responsibilities. In 2005, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that it agreed with a lower-court magistrate that Grace had ” ‘played fast and loose’ with her ethical duties” as a prosecutor.

Precisely the same can be said of her conduct as a television journalist.

Anyone who had occasion to watch her relentless coverage of the recently completed Casey Anthony murder trial witnessed something quite new to the American news media: a mainstream news organization giving one of its commentators a nightly forum from which to campaign for the conviction of a criminal defendant. It was a campaign that continued after Anthony’s acquittal with virtually nonstop on-air abuse of the jurors and defense attorneys. The impact of that torrent of contempt on jurors in future cases that come under Grace’s gaze is yours to gauge.

In his argument to Pastor this week, Flanagan quite correctly said Grace’s nightly commentary during the Anthony trial was “like a final argument by the prosecution.” He went on to wonder: “How many final arguments do we have to face in this case? Are we going to face the one in the courtroom and the one when [the jurors] go home?”

On her show that night, Grace fired back: “The doctor charged in the death of music superstar Michael Jackson, killing him allegedly with a powerful propofol anesthesia, wants the jury sequestered, from me! From us! Claiming watching ‘Nancy Grace’ will prevent a fair trial; that the jury will be biased. So I guess that makes us, umm … the good guys!”

An attorney might be tempted to reply, “I rest my case.”

Why does HLN, a sister channel of CNN, give Grace this sort of abusive license? The answer is simple: Ever since it abandoned its straightforward news cycle some years ago, the one-time Headline News has struggled to find an audience — and, of course, revenue. An unremitting focus on sensational criminal cases — most of them involving missing or dead white women or children — with Grace’s snarl at the center of the coverage has provided that audience. HLN’s saturation coverage of the Anthony trial doubled its daytime ratings and nearly tripled its share of the lucrative prime-time audience.

Scot Safon, who runs the channel, told the New York Times: “I want to replicate this when the Conrad Murray trial starts.”

Here’s a question to consider: Is Turner Broadcasting’s abuse of its power as a news organization through the biased coverage of criminal trials really any less a betrayal of public trust than the Murdoch tabloid scandal now underway in Britain?

timothy.rutten@latimes.com

The last time there was nobody by the name of Hahn in L.A. politics, there was a man by the name of Truman in the White House. Now Janice Hahn moves her political game from the Los Angeles City Council to a place down the road from the executive mansion: Congress. Daughter of legendary county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, sister of former Mayor James Hahn, the Democrat won the special election to replace Jane Harman in the coastal/South Bay 36th Congressional District. I talked to her en route from the airport into Washington, less than 48 hours before her swearing-in. She’s been to Washington before, but she was seeing it with different eyes: “Mr. Smith” eyes. At one point, she exclaimed, “I’m looking at the Washington Monument right this second; oh, there’s the White House! Oh very cool!” Can she keep her cool in the overheated climate of Capitol Hill — and keep her seat next year?

What an emotional roller-coaster for you: In eight days’ time, your mother dies, you’re elected to Congress, you resign from the City Council and get sworn in by House Speaker John Boehner.

• Patt Morrison

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It was a rough, rough week. She passed away totally unexpectedly Monday morning, and Tuesday, on election day, my brother and I were in the mortuary. For our dear, sweet mother.

They wanted to fly me [to Washington] last Wednesday [the day after the election] and get sworn in on Thursday. I said I had to lay my mother to rest. Emotionally, I could not even focus on what this meant, to go to Congress. Now it feels like a reality, and I’m ready.

President Obama’s grandmother died two days before he was elected president; did he call you?

He has not called me, although to be honest, I’ve given everybody a pass because my voice mail kept filling up every hour. I hope he wasn’t one of those who got “voice mail full.”

The City Council is nonpartisan; Congress is a two-party knife fight you’re getting into.

That’s true. On the City Council, it was not partisan, but I certainly was able to develop my style of governing, which is trying to find common ground with very competing interests. [At times] you had the Chamber of Commerce on one side, sometimes the environmentalists on another side, the unions and labor, community activists. I liked sitting everybody at the same table and saying, “Let’s see what we can find in common to solve this.” Hopefully, some of that will work this time as well.

There’s an 18-point Democratic-registration advantage in the 36th Congressional District, but you only won by nine points. What does this tell you?

First, that 18-point margin only works in a presidential, large-turnout election. That really shrank once you got to a special election.

It told me people are divided and this country’s divided. On one hand, many people were very concerned about Social Security and Medicare and wanted me to protect them, but I’ve got a lot of people who felt spending was out of control and we needed to get a handle on it and on the deficit. Clearly there are people who have competing interests, even in the 36th district.

Why did “tea party”-backed Republican Craig Huey do as well against you as he did?

Certainly his message of spending cuts resonated with people.

So will you be parting company with liberal Democrats and aligning more with Blue Dog Democrats? Have you mapped yourself out?

I haven’t really mapped myself out, but I was pretty clear in the campaign that one of my focuses is bringing our troops home and reinvesting that money in our local communities and helping [create] green energy technology jobs. I also talked about veterans and how they’ve been treated so poorly. Those are issues that I can stand firm on.

What about Medicare or Social Security — changing, even cutting those programs?

There are so many other places that we can cut spending before we have to go after Social Security or Medicare. These programs could last until 2036 with absolutely no change. They’re not on life support by any means.

You have to run again in a primary less than a year from now — in a district that probably won’t have the same boundaries, once the lines are redrawn. At least one draft map cut out the more Democratic Venice and included the more Republican Palos Verdes peninsula.

There’ve been about nine [draft] maps that I’ve seen, and each one changes pretty significantly from the one before.

When Kenley Jansen went on the disabled list in late May, the reliever also drew a reprimand from Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly.

On Friday, though, Mattingly was singing Jansen’s praises because the right-handed pitcher has sparkled since returning from the DL on June 18.

“He’s been doing the job,” Mattingly said. “His ball’s got some jump to it … and his slider is getting better, and he’s willing to use it more, which makes him a lot tougher at-bat.”

Before Friday’s game against the Washington Nationals, Jansen had held opposing batters to a .079 average (three for 38) and was averaging 14.33 strikeouts per nine innings. He also had an 112/3 -innings scoreless streak.

“I’m making better adjustments [against batters] now than I was last year,” Jansen said. “Last year when I’d get into trouble out there, all I’d do is keep throwing my fastballs. Now I have some pitches to work on, and I’ve learned how to slow the game down better.”

Jansen, a 23-year-old native of Curacao, was put on the DL because of inflammation in his throwing shoulder. But he hadn’t immediately told the Dodgers he was hurting, which annoyed Mattingly.

The 6-foot-5 pitcher said he learned his lesson.

“All this stuff is new for me,” Jansen said. “I just tried to stay out there and keep competing. But then a little injury becomes big.

“Now I know when something bothers me just let them know right away,” he said. “I really don’t want to be on the disabled list; it’s not fun at all.”

Mattingly said: “We’re using [Jansen] in a lot of different spots. Sometimes we’ll use him when we think we can get two innings out of him. Other times we’ll use him a little bit later in a one-inning situation.”

“He’s doing a lot better job of holding runners,” Mattingly added. “He’s been really good about changing his tempo.”

Jansen said he is less concerned about his recent statistics than about his health. “The important thing is my arm feels better; it’s not bothering me,” he said.

A return to the Ravine

The last time the Nationals’ Davey Johnson managed at Dodger Stadium was 11 years ago when he was managing the Dodgers.

Johnson, 68, was chosen last month to replace Jim Riggleman, who abruptly resigned. Before Friday’s game, the Nationals were 8-12 since Johnson took over.

The Nationals job is Johnson’s fifth stint as a manager, and his first since managing the Dodgers in 1999 and 2000. The Dodgers were 163-161 in his two years, and Johnson was fired after the 2000 season.

“I thought I was making progress, but it didn’t last long enough to make a difference,” Johnson recalled of his Dodgers tenure. Even so, “it’s always nice to come here,” he said. “You can’t beat the weather; love the ballpark.”

james.peltz@latimes.com

There’s speculation that Dodgers starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda is a leading candidate to be traded before baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline July 31.

Kuroda began Friday’s game against the Washington Nationals with a 6-11 record. But he still is seen as an asset for a pennant contender because the Japanese right-hander generally has pitched well this season while getting little run support.

So it was yet again Friday night, when Kuroda gave up three runs in the first two innings to Washington — including a two-run home run to Nationals starting pitcher John Lannan — that would prove too much for the Dodgers’ punchless offense.

Jerry Hairston’s grand slam in the ninth inning off Dodgers reliever Matt Guerrier blew the game open and the Dodgers fell to Washington, 7-2, for their fifth loss in six games.

The left-handed Lannan held the Dodgers to two runs (one earned) and three hits in 61/3 innings of work at Dodger Stadium in the opener of a nine-game homestand, and even those two runs came across on an error by Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond.

At one point, Lannan struck out the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp and Juan Rivera in order.

Kuroda’s early mistakes, meanwhile, proved well beyond the Dodgers’ slim margin for error even though he held the Nationals scoreless for the next 41/3 innings.

Kuroda, 36, now has only one victory in his last 11 starts. In those 11 games, the Dodgers scored four or more runs only twice.

Kuroda “was a little rough early but as the game went on he got better and better,” Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said. “Obviously we’ve got to put some runs on the board.”

The Nationals scored their first run in the opening inning when Ryan Zimmerman hit a two-out double, stole second base and scored on Michael Morse’s double in front of an announced paid attendance of 39,839.

Kuroda had two out again in the second inning when Desmond singled and Lannan hit his first career home run, a line drive over the right-field fence that gave Washington a 3-0 lead.

Kuroda, speaking through an interpreter, said the pitch to Lannan “was a slider that did not break that much.”

Giving up a homer to the opposing pitcher “obviously is really disappointing,” Kuroda said, “but you just have to concentrate on the next hitter.”

The Dodgers came back to within one run in the fourth inning when Kemp walked, Rivera doubled and Juan Uribe hit a sharp grounder that got past Desmond for an error, enabling Kemp and Rivera to score.

Lannan had a second hit, a single, that gave Washington runners at first base and second base with one out in the seventh inning. That ended Kuroda’s night. But Dodgers relievers Scott Elbert and Kenley Jansen retired the next two batters to quash the threat.

Jansen also struck out the side in the eighth inning.

The Dodgers threatened in their half of the seventh inning when Aaron Miles stroked a one-out double and moved to third base when Tony Gwynn Jr. grounded out. But shortstop Rafael Furcal struck out looking. He was 0 for 4 and is batting .165.

james.peltz@latimes.com

The two new suspects in the beating of a baseball fan at Dodger Stadium live six doors apart on a quiet cul-de-sac in Rialto. Neighbors say the men played catch with their kids and welcomed newcomers to the street. They seemed like regular, friendly fathers.

But authorities now believe Louie Sanchez, 29, and Marvin Norwood, 30, were responsible for the March 31 attack that left Bryan Stow, a 42-year-old paramedic and San Francisco Giants fan, with brain damage. They were charged with assault and mayhem Friday afternoon and remained in custody in lieu of $500,000 bail. Both have violent criminal histories, according to court records.

A third person connected to the case, Dorene Sanchez, also was arrested Thursday on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact to a felony, police records show. A neighbor and a relative of Norwood’s said Sanchez, 31, is the sister of Louie Sanchez and either the wife or longtime partner of Norwood. She was taken into custody but later released on bail.

On Friday afternoon, she was seen by a Times reporter entering the grand jury room on the 13th floor of the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown criminal courthouse. Two law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the grand jury had been probing the Stow case.

The fast-moving developments came as Los Angeles police officials faced tough questions over the handling of the case, particularly their continued insistence that an alleged gang member, Giovanni Ramirez, was the assailant.

At a news conference Friday afternoon, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Ramirez, who was arrested in May, had nothing to do with the beating. “In policing, it is just as important to exonerate the innocent as it is to implicate the guilty,” he said.

Residents on the street where Norwood and Dorene Sanchez live in a brown stucco two-story home said heavily armed LAPD officers swarmed the neighborhood Thursday morning. Police searched the suspects’ homes and vehicles, and towed a truck that neighbors said belonged to Norwood.

Detectives then went door-to-door asking neighbors whether the suspects had ever displayed Dodgers banners or other paraphernalia at their homes or on their cars, and whether they had bragged about the stadium attack. Marie Love, 43, said police asked her: “Did you hear any bragging? Did anyone hear any bragging, anything like that?”

She said she had not heard any such talk and was shocked that Norwood and Sanchez would be arrested. They were known as family men who often played baseball with their children on a small patch of grass in front of Love’s home.

Love said that Norwood and Dorene Sanchez live with three children: a toddler and two older children, between 9 and 11 years old. Louie Sanchez’s son, she said, is about 9 or 10, and visits his father on weekends.

Witnesses to the beating reported seeing a child about 10 years old in the car in which the two assailants fled after the attack. A law enforcement source with knowledge of the case, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said a child has provided authorities with information about the attack.

Love described Louie Sanchez as laid-back and friendly, saying he organized events for single parents in the neighborhood to get their children together and enjoyed putting on Fourth of July fireworks shows for the youngsters. “I really hate this because he’s a great guy,” she said. “I’ve known them for a real long time. That’s a good family there. For this to happen is a shock….I’m willing to believe that they arrested the wrong guy a second time.”

Both men have violent pasts, according to court records. In March 2006, Norwood was convicted of inflicting bodily injury on a spouse or partner, court records show. Three years earlier, Sanchez was found guilty of the same crime and sentenced to 30 days in jail, according to court records. In 2004, Sanchez was convicted of carrying a loaded firearm, and in 2000 Norwood was found guilty of disturbing the peace, the records show.

Fontana police noted Sanchez’s neck tattoos when he was arrested for drunk driving in 2005, according to court records. The LAPD has described one of the assailants in the Stow attack as possibly having tattoos on his neck.

In July 2006, a girlfriend, Tanya Felix, sought a temporary restraining order against Sanchez, saying they had been living together and he had beaten her repeatedly over the previous year. In the request, she said that he had recently broken down her front door looking for another man. Felix never appeared at a scheduled court hearing to determine whether to grant her request, and the request was denied.

A woman briefly opened the door at Louie Sanchez’s home on Friday morning. “He doesn’t live here,” she told a Times reporter before closing the door. No one answered the door at Norwood’s home.

Norwood, according to arrest records, stands 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds, roughly matching witnesses’ description of one of the attackers. And records show Louie Sanchez is 5 feet 11 and weighs 175 pounds, figures that also are close to the description witnesses gave of the second assailant.

Norwood’s mother, Diana Page, said in a brief interview Thursday evening that she did not know why her son was in custody but had learned about his arrest from a friend of her son’s. Norwood, a construction worker, is a Dodgers baseball fan but his mother said she did not know whether he was involved in the assault on Stow.

“I don’t know the last time he was at a game,” she said.

The abrupt change in the investigation’s course has left many LAPD observers wondering why investigators first focused so intently on Ramirez. The 31-year-old was taken into custody May 22 after his parole agent expressed suspicion that he might fit the description of one of the attackers, and two witnesses picked Ramirez out of photo lineups.

But the case against Ramirez stalled almost immediately as detectives scoured mobile phone records, thousands of images from surveillance camera footage, financial records and hundreds of other possible links and tips, but failed to link him to the beating.

Without any hard evidence, prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Ramirez. Instead, police held him in custody for allegedly violating the terms of his parole from a previous conviction. Last month, Ramirez was sentenced to 10 months in prison for the violation.

At a news conference Friday, Ramirez’s family expressed anger and frustration at the LAPD for what they consider a rush to judgment.

“If they didn’t have any proof, why did they … say he’s the suspect?” said Soledad Gonzalez, Ramirez’s mother.

One of Ramirez’s attorneys, Jose Romero, said there are lessons to be learned from the case. “We do have a system of justice in place by which suspects are proven innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have just the opposite here.”

phil.willon@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Times staff writers Rick Rojas in Riverside County and Andrew Blankstein, Abby Sewell and Richard Winton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Reporting from Baltimore — No team in baseball has been better over the last 5½ weeks than the Angels. But on the mound, at least, it’s been pretty much a two-man show, with the team winning 80% of the games started by Jered Weaver and Dan Haren but struggling to keep its head above water when anyone else is pitching.

On Friday, in 104-degree heat and sweltering humidity, Ervin Santana made a bid to narrow that gap, holding the Baltimore Orioles hitless into the sixth inning in a 6-1 Angels win that was a lot closer than the score would suggest.

“We try to do the same thing they do,” Santana said of his two teammates. “They’ve been pitching very good. And we’re trying to follow that.

“It’s good for us. That way we learn more so we can bring it to [our] game.”

Apparently those lessons weren’t lost on Santana (5-8), who before Friday had one only once since late May. Against the Orioles, though, he was brilliant if not overpowering, allowing just two men to reach base through seven innings as the Angels built a 2-0 lead.

Then the weather appeared to get the best of him, with Baltimore turning a walk and two singles into an eighth-inning run.

“I wasn’t worried about how hot it was,” said Santana, who struck out only one batter. “But I knew it was hot.”

The same could not be said of the Angels’ offense, which is hitting .198 since the All-Star break. And though they scored six times Friday, only two of those runs were earned; the final four came in the ninth when Vernon Wells followed an error and an intentional walk with a two-out grand slam.

“We have to win games. That’s all that matters,” said Wells, who never played in a pennant race during his nine full seasons in Toronto. “That’s what’s fun about being over here. We’re playing meaningful baseball after the All-Star break.”

And if Santana keeps closing the gap between himself and the top of the rotation, the Angels just might keep playing meaningful games into October.

“Ervin’s been pitching much better than his won-lost record indicates,” said Scioscia, pointing to Santana’s 2-4 record and 2.89 ERA the last two months. “A lot of his losses were kind of close to tonight’s game. There wasn’t much support . . . and maybe there was a hit here that they got that swung the game maybe against us.”

Santana and Wells weren’t the only ones who put on a show Friday. Teenage rookie Mike Trout rewarded more than 200 friends and family members who made the two-hour drive from his hometown of Millville, N.J., by collecting his first two-hit game in the majors. He also scored twice and stole his first base.

“It was very special to me,” Trout said. “It’s one of the [few] opportunities I had to shine in front of my family. They don’t get to see me play as much as I would like.

“It was just an awesome day. A dream come true.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

NFL owners were hoping a new collective bargaining agreement would swoop in for a landing this week.

Instead, it’s locked in a frustrating holding pattern, endlessly circling the airport.

There was no vote from the players Friday on a proposed CBA they got from owners the night before, and no guarantee there would be one before the Tuesday deadline set by owners for the players to re-form as a union and ratify the deal.

Kevin Mawae, president of the NFL Players Assn., said Friday that the players are “discussing” the latest offer — one that assumes a global settlement of all unresolved litigation — but there would be no further statements for the day out of respect for the mourning Kraft family. Myra Kraft, wife of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, died of cancer-related complications this week.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and several owners attended Kraft’s funeral Friday in Newton, Mass.

For the players, approving a deal is a multistep process. There’s the issue of reconstituting as a union, which owners say can be done almost instantaneously but players say could take up to two weeks. There’s resolving the Tom Brady antitrust lawsuit (10 players are named plaintiffs) and the so-called lockout-insurance case regarding TV revenues, and whether those should be folded into the CBA. Then, there’s voting on whether to accept the other terms of the labor agreement.

The NFL thinks there is ample time for the players to do those things before Tuesday’s deadline and the scheduled beginning of free agency Wednesday.

“That process is within their control and the timing is largely within their control,” said Jeff Pash, the league’s top lawyer, “but we believe that they could do so.”

Incidentally, one of those deal terms could have a direct influence on the Los Angeles market.

In the proposal, the league has specific language that refers to the stadium situations in California as a whole, and L.A. in particular, that shows a willingness by owners to grease the skids for a deal.

The incentive has to do with stadium “investment credits,” revenue that can be set aside to help build a venue rather than factoring into the salary cap. Under the proposed agreement, those credits are higher in California than for stadiums in other states, and have the potential to be higher still for an L.A. stadium solution.

According to Pash, the special provisions recognize “both the unique costs of building in California, and the relatively greater difficulty and the experience of getting support other than from the private sector.”

As for L.A., Pash said, “We can either work within that structure, or we can do a separate almost side-type arrangement with the players association, and really that will depend on where we are, what the prospects for getting a team will be in Los Angeles, and how that whole process will come together.”

Goodell said the proposed deal “works for the growth of our game going forward and encouraging investment in our game.” He has long pointed to the fact there haven’t been any new stadium starts since 2006, when the last CBA was put in place, and argued that agreement wasn’t conducive to owners making that type of investment.

So what does this new California/L.A. language mean?

Well, first of all, it means Goodell Co. were thinking about the state and L.A. during these high-pressure negotiations, another indication they’re serious about getting something done.

Specifically, it means the NFL wants to encourage and incentivize investment in California stadium projects.

What would happen is the league would lend the L.A. team owner money. . That money would be deducted off the top of the total revenue pool before it is divided between the owners (53%) and the players (47%). Therefore, both the owners and the players would be making a sacrifice to help grow the league.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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