by TAKEO "BABE" UTSUMI

During the last week it has been a period of exhilaration and pride for the performances of our athletes, locally and abroad. First was the amazing feat by Michael Phelps in winning eight gold medals in swimming at the Beijing Olympics. When Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the ’72 Munich Olympics, I thought that his feat would never be equaled, let alone beaten.

Phelps is only 23 years old and is looking forward to the next Olympics. He is a multi-millionaire already with all the offers of endorsements flooding in.

I thought that the offers would hardly come close to what Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan received for their respective athletic accomplishments. However, it seems that breakfast food companies, vitamin companies, etc. are dangling millions of dollars for Phelps’ endorsement. Looking back, I knew I should have never given up my water wings.

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Next was the victory by the San Francisco Forty-Niners football team over the Green Bay Packers by a score of 34-6. I felt sorry for quarterback Aaron Rodgers, formerly a star at Cal, and the replacement for the great Brett Favre, who was traded to the New York Jets.

Favre had been the kingpin at the quarterback position in Green Bay for 17 years. So you can see that Rodgers had a difficult time filling Favre’s shoes. He hardly had a chance from the oncoming defensive players of the Niners. He had a miserable game.

It’s good that this game was played at Green Bay. Of course one can say it was only an exhibition game. You must remember that Green Bay was in the playoffs just last season. To be truthful, this was the best game that I have seen the Niners play in the last three years. A lot of credit has to be given to their new quarterback, J.T. O’Sullivan.

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The next happy event was the shutout-game pitched by much-maligned hurler Barry Zito against the Atlanta Braves. The onus has been put on Zito because of the fact that he is the highest-paid player on the S.F. Giants team.

He has had to endure many bad games, including some where he pitched well, but the team didn’t produce any runs. His teammates all like him, and he is reputed to be a very nice guy.

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Still on baseball, I must report on a very memorable performance during the Little League World Series playoffs recently by a young Mexican kid. He pitched to 12 batters and struck them all out, plus he got three hits, including a grand slam.

The game was called at the end of the fourth inning because of the so-called “mercy rule,” where a lead of 10 runs or more into the fifth inning has to end the game. I think it’s a good rule.

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The other day I noticed that a candlelight vigil was held in Tennessee in memory of Elvis Presley, who died in 1977. Those young bobby-soxers who screamed and cheered for Elvis have a few grey hairs by now, but the memory lingers on.

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A doctor on the radio recently discussed the growth of acupuncture treatments for facial uplifts. The women go for treatments supposedly to take the wrinkles out of their face. However, the doctor said, it’s of no use and may even cause facial damage.

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An interesting situation came up in a church recently. A member of the parish held a wining lottery ticket and decided to donate part of his good fortune to the church. It was a $600,000 donation. As we all know, every church could use money of any kind. However, the pastor declined the offer, saying the money was tainted since it came from gambling.

The members of the parish were quite upset that the pastor refused the generous gift. Their rationale was, “What’s the difference about gambling when we sponsor bingo games and sell raffle tickets?”

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I like to recall a story that George Shimizu told me a few nights ago. I made a few changes, but the gist and point of the story remain. A baseball game was being played by a couple of high school teams in a small town. The ballpark was adjacent to some farming fields with no fences. A hitter came up and whacked a long fly ball between the outfielders, and the ball rolled into the field and disappeared.

There were some hogs running about looking for food. One of the hogs swallowed the ball, making it impossible for the outfielder to retrieve it.

Of course there was a lot of wrangling, and the two umpires had to make some kind of decision. They came out with the rule that it was an “inside the pork” home run. I thought I would like to ham it up at the end ...