Frank Deford

What: "The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine," by Michael MacCambridge. Price: $24.95 (hardcover), Hyperion. The boy, a few weeks shy of his 10th birthday, realized what he wanted most that year. He pulled the subscription card from the magazine, carefully filled in the blanks and took it to his father for permission before mailing it.

The Sacramento Kings' Christmas Day victory over the Lakers signaled an awakening and resultant power shift in the heated rivalry, according to Sacramento Bee columnist Ailene Voisin. "Indeed, the bragging rights move north," Voisin wrote. "The better team resides in Arco. Heck, the Lakers might not even be the best team in their own building. " 'They are not close to the team we played in the playoffs,' King center Vlade Divac said. It's much harder to play the Clippers.

Having already exported the sport of ice hockey to such strange environs as Phoenix, Nashville and Raleigh, N.C., the NHL will next take its game to a place that makes more sense: chilly, fog-swept London. The Ducks and the Kings will open their 2007-08 regular season by playing a two-game series in the new 23,000-seat O2 Arena on Sept. 29 and 30.

Random thoughts while waiting for the leaves to turn, the St. Louis Rams to win and Goldie Hawn to dress her age: * Beer always tastes better in a crowd. * Dusk always looks better in a stadium, during a pennant race. * Beach balls belong at the beach, not the ballpark. * "Enough is better than too much."--French proverb * "Icing the kicker" never works. * Tony Soprano should own a football team. * Or a network. * In a perfect world, it would always be autumn.

Deep Blue, the computer that defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, can sort through 200 million decisions in one second. Frank Deford of ESPN SportsZone thinks a computer should be named baseball commissioner, one who could make 200 million decisions a second. Deford said that here are the responses we can expect from such a computer: "It's a league matter. . . . Let's talk about it in the 21st century. . . . I feel very strongly about the designated hitter.

Less than a year after its launch, the nationwide sports newspaper called the National underwent a major management shake-up Thursday, sources at the paper said. Peter O. Price, the publisher and chief architect of the paper's business plan, has been ousted. He will be replaced by Jaime Davila, an aide to Emilio Azcarraga, the Mexican media magnate who is financing the paper. Davila is an executive in Los Angeles with Azcarraga's Univision Inc.

Joey Chestnut of San Jose -- the top-ranked American according to the International Federation of Competitive Eating -- will be among the contestants at a gyoza-eating event on Saturday at the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center in downtown Los Angeles. It's part of the nine-day Japanese Festival, which got underway this weekend.

The official NBA trading deadline has passed, but NBC has pulled the equivalent of a last-minute move to bolster its playoff position with the acquisition of Doug Collins for its No. 1 announce team. Collins, who was the best NBA analyst in the business for six years before leaving the booth to return to coaching with the Detroit Pistons, immediately gives NBC a needed shot of veteran leadership heading into the postseason.

CBS basketball commentator Billy Packer is a little behind the times in our technology-driven culture. On HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" tonight at 10, Packer tells correspondent Frank Deford that he has no cellphone, no car phone and no pager. Says Deford: "Do you use indoor plumbing, Billy?" Packer: "Yeah, we use indoor plumbing -- that we do. But if anything goes wrong, you can count on me not being the guy to fix it."