National briefs
By The Associated Press - 01/29/07
A quick look at the national sports scene ...
Shaq chases down alleged hit-and-run driver
MIAMI (AP) — Shaquille O’Neal put his police skills to use early Sunday.
O’Neal, the Miami Heat’s All-Star center and a reserve officer with the Miami Beach Police Department, followed a driver who allegedly crashed into his Cadillac Escalade and tried to flee the scene, the team said.
O’Neal and bodyguard Jerome Crawford followed the driver for about five minutes. When the driver, identified by The Miami Herald as 18-year-old Emmnueo Cibrin of Tampa, stopped near a gas station, O’Neal approached the car and summoned a nearby police officer.
Police did not release an incident report Sunday night. Miami-Dade Corrections officials said they had no record of anyone by Cibrin’s name being booked on a criminal charge, and it was unclear if he was ticketed for any moving violations. The incident happened around 4 a.m., shortly after the Heat got home from a Saturday game in Chicago. O’Neal was helping Crawford, a team security official, unload luggage outside Crawford’s home in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood when the accident occurred.
O’Neal, through the team, said Sunday night that he followed proper police protocol during the chase, including pursuing at a safe distance and speed. He contacted police officers along the way, he said.
O’Neal was sworn in as a reserve officer in 2005. He has long said he intends to pursue a career in law enforcement when he retires from basketball.
Bush fined $5,000 for taunting
MIAMI (AP) — Reggie Bush was fined $5,000 by the NFL for taunting during his 88-yard touchdown reception in New Orleans’ NFC championship game loss at Chicago last week.
Although the rookie running was not penalized for pointing back at Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher or for somersaulting into the end zone, he subsequently received the league’s standard punishment for taunting.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the fine Sunday.
Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner and second pick in last year’s draft, caught a short pass from Drew Brees on the left sideline. He sped downfield, cut back near midfield and was several steps ahead of Urlacher when Bush turned and pointed at the Bears star. He then did his front flip into the end zone, making the score 16-14.
The Bears won 39-14 to reach the Super Bowl.
NHL All-Star TV rating plunges 76 percent
NEW YORK (AP) — TV watchers didn’t exactly warm up to the NHL’s midweek All-Star game, which experienced a 76 percent drop in household viewership from the previous All-Star game in 2004.
Wednesday night’s game in Dallas drew a 0.7 Nielsen rating on Versus, the cable channel formerly known as OLN. The game was viewed in an estimated 474,298 households and by 672,948 viewers, down from the 1,985,000 households that saw the 2004 All-Star game on a Sunday afternoon on ABC.
Wednesday’s most-watched show, American Idol on Fox, drew an estimated 37 million viewers in the 9 p.m. hour.
The NHL ratings drop-off was even greater when compared to the 2000 game in Toronto, which was watched in approximately 2,681,000 households on a Sunday afternoon — or more than five times as many homes as were tuned in Wednesday.
While Wednesday’s game was the most-watched cable show that night in Buffalo and Pittsburgh, it did not place among the top 20 cable shows in NHL markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington and Miami. The 7.1 rating in Buffalo was by far the largest in any U.S. market.
In host city Dallas, the game was only the 18th most-watched cable program with a 0.5 rating. The national rating is the percentage of U.S. television households tuned to a program, and each point represents about 1.1 million homes.
In Canada, the estimated audience on CBC was 1.238 million, up about 6 percent from 2004.
The All-Star game wasn’t held in 2005 because of the season-long labor dispute or in 2006 because of the Olympics.
Taiwan Olympian and former UCLA star dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) — C.K. Yang, the 1960 Olympic decathlon silver medalist for Taiwan who became a UCLA track and field star, has died. He was 74.
Yang died Saturday in Los Angeles of complications from a massive stroke, UCLA spokesman Marc Dellins said Sunday.
Yang (Yang Chuan-kwang) took the silver medal in the Rome Olympics, with Bruins teammate Rafer Johnson winning the gold.
Yang’s Olympic medal was the first for Taiwan. He also won two gold medals for his country in the Asian Games in the 1950s.
He finished fifth in the decathlon in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Shaq chases down alleged hit-and-run driver
MIAMI (AP) — Shaquille O’Neal put his police skills to use early Sunday.
O’Neal, the Miami Heat’s All-Star center and a reserve officer with the Miami Beach Police Department, followed a driver who allegedly crashed into his Cadillac Escalade and tried to flee the scene, the team said.
O’Neal and bodyguard Jerome Crawford followed the driver for about five minutes. When the driver, identified by The Miami Herald as 18-year-old Emmnueo Cibrin of Tampa, stopped near a gas station, O’Neal approached the car and summoned a nearby police officer.
Police did not release an incident report Sunday night. Miami-Dade Corrections officials said they had no record of anyone by Cibrin’s name being booked on a criminal charge, and it was unclear if he was ticketed for any moving violations. The incident happened around 4 a.m., shortly after the Heat got home from a Saturday game in Chicago. O’Neal was helping Crawford, a team security official, unload luggage outside Crawford’s home in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood when the accident occurred.
O’Neal, through the team, said Sunday night that he followed proper police protocol during the chase, including pursuing at a safe distance and speed. He contacted police officers along the way, he said.
O’Neal was sworn in as a reserve officer in 2005. He has long said he intends to pursue a career in law enforcement when he retires from basketball.
Bush fined $5,000 for taunting
MIAMI (AP) — Reggie Bush was fined $5,000 by the NFL for taunting during his 88-yard touchdown reception in New Orleans’ NFC championship game loss at Chicago last week.
Although the rookie running was not penalized for pointing back at Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher or for somersaulting into the end zone, he subsequently received the league’s standard punishment for taunting.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the fine Sunday.
Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner and second pick in last year’s draft, caught a short pass from Drew Brees on the left sideline. He sped downfield, cut back near midfield and was several steps ahead of Urlacher when Bush turned and pointed at the Bears star. He then did his front flip into the end zone, making the score 16-14.
The Bears won 39-14 to reach the Super Bowl.
NHL All-Star TV rating plunges 76 percent
NEW YORK (AP) — TV watchers didn’t exactly warm up to the NHL’s midweek All-Star game, which experienced a 76 percent drop in household viewership from the previous All-Star game in 2004.
Wednesday night’s game in Dallas drew a 0.7 Nielsen rating on Versus, the cable channel formerly known as OLN. The game was viewed in an estimated 474,298 households and by 672,948 viewers, down from the 1,985,000 households that saw the 2004 All-Star game on a Sunday afternoon on ABC.
Wednesday’s most-watched show, American Idol on Fox, drew an estimated 37 million viewers in the 9 p.m. hour.
The NHL ratings drop-off was even greater when compared to the 2000 game in Toronto, which was watched in approximately 2,681,000 households on a Sunday afternoon — or more than five times as many homes as were tuned in Wednesday.
While Wednesday’s game was the most-watched cable show that night in Buffalo and Pittsburgh, it did not place among the top 20 cable shows in NHL markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington and Miami. The 7.1 rating in Buffalo was by far the largest in any U.S. market.
In host city Dallas, the game was only the 18th most-watched cable program with a 0.5 rating. The national rating is the percentage of U.S. television households tuned to a program, and each point represents about 1.1 million homes.
In Canada, the estimated audience on CBC was 1.238 million, up about 6 percent from 2004.
The All-Star game wasn’t held in 2005 because of the season-long labor dispute or in 2006 because of the Olympics.
Taiwan Olympian and former UCLA star dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) — C.K. Yang, the 1960 Olympic decathlon silver medalist for Taiwan who became a UCLA track and field star, has died. He was 74.
Yang died Saturday in Los Angeles of complications from a massive stroke, UCLA spokesman Marc Dellins said Sunday.
Yang (Yang Chuan-kwang) took the silver medal in the Rome Olympics, with Bruins teammate Rafer Johnson winning the gold.
Yang’s Olympic medal was the first for Taiwan. He also won two gold medals for his country in the Asian Games in the 1950s.
He finished fifth in the decathlon in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
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