Kuhn never beat Miller before thisThe omission...

Kuhn never beat Miller before this

The omission of legendary baseball labor lawyer Marvin Miller from the group elected to the Hall of Fame drew the wrath of several columnists around the nation.

They were particularly irked that Miller’s nemesis, former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, was elected by the Hall’s veterans committee, along with former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, former managers Dick Williams and Billy Southworth and Barney Dreyfuss, one of the first owners of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“What?” wrote John Helyar of ESPN.com. “The late commissioner compiled a lifetime batting average of .000 against Miller in baseball’s pivotal labor battles of the 1970s and ‘80s.

“As the intrepid head of the players union, Miller reshaped the sport’s economics,” he added. “As the inept figurehead of the owners, Kuhn tried to preserve the status quo. And lost every time.”

Leaving Miller off the list “defies reasonable and logical explanation,” wrote Murray Chass of the New York Times, who is in the Hall’s writers’ wing. “The National Baseball Hall of Fame has become a national joke.”

And Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune called Miller’s omission “disgraceful” while saying of Kuhn: “His lasting legacy is night games in the World Series, which is only slightly better than being the guy who invented the traffic jam.”

Trivia time

Just guiding your men’s college basketball team to the NCAA Final Four is hard enough, but four active head coaches have won multiple championships. Can you name them?

Out at the plate

Last Friday’s Briefing had the story of UCLA booster Jim Carmack, who got “13 TO 9” license plates for his trailer after the Bruins’ upset over USC last year.

But USC avenged the loss with a 24-7 win, sending the Trojans to the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl game against Illinois.

UCLA, whose three fumbles contributed to its loss, will be going to the decidedly less-celebrated Las Vegas Bowl to play Brigham Young on Dec. 22. And the Bruins will play without coach Karl Dorrell, who was fired after the USC loss.

Carmack told us he could use help choosing a new seven-digit license plate, adding that his current favorite was FUMBLES.

Our suggestions included SEEUNLV and BYEKARL.

No doubt our readers from Trojan Nation also could offer a few ideas for a bruised Bruins fan.

Road test

California Speedway, looking for ways to sell all 92,000 seats at its two NASCAR Nextel Cup races a year, has lobbied hard to host some of the series’ preseason driving tests to help boost fan interest.

The speedway got its wish Tuesday.

NASCAR said reigning champ Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and the other drivers in its top series -- which becomes the Sprint Cup Series in 2008 -- will test Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the two-mile oval in Fontana.

The sessions are open to the public and admission is free.

Testing in Southern California will follow two days of tests at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The Western tests are especially important next year because the teams have yet to race NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow at California Speedway or Las Vegas.

The car, which was used on a limited basis this season, becomes mandatory at all tracks next year.

The Cup series’ 36-race season opens with the Daytona 500 in Florida on Feb. 17, followed by races at California Speedway on Feb. 24 and Las Vegas on March 2.

Trivia answer

Bobby Knight, three titles with Indiana (he now coaches Texas Tech); Mike Krzyzewski, three titles with Duke; Billy Donovan, won titles the last two seasons with Florida, and Jim Calhoun, two with Connecticut.

And finally

AARP, the advocacy group for people age 50 and up, signed tennis legend Martina Navratilova -- age 51 -- as its ambassador for health and fitness.

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