He’s going, going, gone from WBC

Chipper Jones wasn’t feeling very, well, chipper about his World Baseball Classic experience, cut short by an oblique muscle injury.

Team USA played its first three games in Toronto, a bustling, multicultural city of 2.48 million people, but Jones made it sound like a cow town.

“We stayed in Toronto for a week and played three games. I don’t know if you ever stayed in Toronto, but it’s not exactly Las Vegas,” the Braves star told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “To say that we were plucking our eyebrows out one at a time would be an understatement.”

Jones also criticized the tournament’s format, saying there are too many days off.

Suffice it to say, Jones said he wouldn’t participate in the WBC again. Somehow, the tournament soldiers on without him.

Trivia time

Toronto had a franchise in the old North American Soccer League. What was the team’s nickname?

Priorities, priorities

How big is high school basketball in Elkhart, Ind.?

Big enough for local police to drive the school’s basketball coach 45 miles to an important regional playoff game after arresting him for driving while intoxicated.

Elkhart police told the Associated Press that assistant chief Tim Balyeat authorized an officer to drive Elkhart Memorial Coach Mark Barnhizer to his team’s playoff game against Munster once the coach had bonded out of jail.

“We felt you shouldn’t penalize the 10 young adults for the mistakes of one person,” Balyeat said.

The police assist didn’t do Elkhart much good. Barnhizer arrived at the game with about six minutes left in the fourth quarter and Elkhart lost, 48-39.

Hot oven league

From David Letterman on Wednesday night’s “Late Show”:

“Happy Birthday to Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy. He’s 49 years old today. Are you aware of the controversy around Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy? They claim now that apparently from 2001 to 2003, Alex Rodriguez’s cousin injected him with yeast.”

Trivia answer

The Blizzard.

And finally

Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald, on Terrell Owens signing with Buffalo in part because he says he wants to win a Super Bowl: “That’s like moving to Maui so you can win the Iditarod.”

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