Games

The Sol blew an opportunity Wednesday to secure its bid to play host to the first Women's Professional Soccer championship game, losing to the St. Louis Athletica, 1-0, in front of an announced crowd of 4,841 at Home Depot Center. The Sol lost its first home game, meaning it will need a victory and a tie in its next three games -- all on the road -- to secure the only guaranteed spot in the Aug. 22 title game. St.

Every Friday night, a group of noisy youngsters shuffles through a side door at First Baptist Church of Glendale. They laugh, shove and talk over one another as they enter a large, brightly lighted room with three long tables. Inside, silver-haired Armen Ambartsoumian waits for them to settle down so the session can begin. Ambartsoumian, an international chess master who is determined to groom Glendale's next generation of elite players, demands their focus. This can be a chore when dealing with more than two dozen kids ages 5 to 18. Once the players unpack their black-and-white boards and chess pieces, Ambartsoumian instructs them to pair up and play.

O say can you se say can you se e . . . a rock god plucking away at "The Star-Spangled Banner" on electric guitar? Or, farther down the 5 Freeway, a 12-year-old girl belting out Francis Scott Key's greatest hit? The Major League Baseball championship series is underway, which means that for the Dodgers and Angels it's time to pack your starting rotation with aces. But we're not talking pitchers, we're talking national anthem performers. Taste in how the national anthem is performed, as in hot dogs, tends to vary from ballpark to ballpark.

The "choking game," a type of asphyxiation practiced by children and adolescents seeking a euphoric rush, has killed at least 82 children since 1995, according to the first U.S. government study to quantify the deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scoured news reports to tally deaths from the game -- also known as the "pass-out game" or "space monkey" -- because no official, nationwide records exist. The first report came in 1995, with three or fewer deaths annually until 2004.

Isaac Galloway, OF Los Osos Grizzlies Remaining regular-season games at Los Osos High, 6001 Milliken Ave., Rancho Cucamonga Thursday vs. Alta Loma, 3:15 p.m. April 22 vs. Upland, 3:15 p.m. April 29 vs. Rancho Cucamonga, 3:15 p.m. May 5 vs. Claremont, 3:15 p.m. Anthony Gose, OF/P Bellflower Buccaneers Remaining regular-season games at Bellflower High, 15301 McNab Ave., Bellflower. Friday vs. Artesia, 3 p.m. April 25 vs. La Mirada, 3 p.m. April 30 vs. Cerritos, 3 p.m. May 8 vs. Norwalk, 3 p.m. -- Aaron Hicks, OF Long Beach Wilson Bruins Remaining regular-season games at Blair Field, 4700 Deukmejian Dr., Long Beach Today vs. Lakewood, 3:30 p.m. Friday vs. L.B. Millikan, 6:30 p.m. April 23 vs. L.B. Jordan, 6:30 p.m. April 30 vs. L.B. Cabrillo, 3:30 p.m. May 7 vs. Lakewood, 6:30 p.m. -- Kyle Skipworth, C Patriot Warriors Remaining regular-season games at Patriot High, 4355 Camino Real, Riverside April 23 vs. Bloomington, 3:15 p.m. April 25 vs. Jurupa Valley, 3:15 p.m. May 2 vs. Kaiser, 3:15 p.m. May 7 vs. Norte Vista, 3:15 p.m. -- Gerrit Cole, P Orange Lutheran Lancers Remaining regular-season games at Hart Park, 701 S. Glassell St., Orange -- Today vs. Servite, 7 p.m. April 25 vs. Santa Margarita, 7 p.m. April 30 vs. Mater Dei, 7 p.m. May 7 vs. St. John Bosco, 7 p.m. -- Cutter Dykstra, OF/INF Westlake Warriors...

When Cody Alexander Morris returned from the war last fall, he carried home a burden -- a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder -- and a new way of playing with guns. The gun game was called "Do You Trust Me?" Morris, 19, learned it from his Kentucky National Guard buddies in Iraq. He taught the game to his roommates: best friend and fellow guardsman Casey Lee Hall, 18, and a 16-year-old cousin, Cory Adams.

So, how many of you die-hard basketball fans tuned in to the WNBA last Saturday when you couldn't find any actual playoff games being broadcast? How can there be no NBA game Saturday, with one Sunday and two scheduled for Monday? Easy. In its pathetic attempt to lure male fans, they now have deemed it necessary to preempt and schedule men's games around the struggling WNBA. That my wife won't even watch WNBA games is telling. David Ettinger Pasadena The coveted Stupidity Award for 2008 goes to C.L. Miller of Fullerton, who last week wrote: "You could put a team of high school boys in the WNBA and not only would they go undefeated but they could easily win every game by 50 points."

NEW YORK -- More and more, it's looking like the last important game at Yankee Stadium will be one that doesn't even count. The Yankees, sparked by a Jason Giambi grand slam and a nine-run seventh inning featuring a home run from the R-rated reality show known as A-Rod, beat the Texas Rangers, 18-7, Wednesday night. It was an eye-popping offensive display, a prompt and convincing response to that noted motivational speaker Hank Steinbrenner and the kind of game that could seduce you into believing that once more, they could overcome a sluggish start to roar into the playoffs.

Some 21-year-olds like to play "MLB '08: The Show," while others prefer "MLB 2K8." I play APBA Baseball. The first two are video games. APBA Baseball is played with dice. On a cardboard baseball diamond. It first became popular in the 1950s -- before PlayStation, before fantasy leagues -- and the company that created it is still in business, updating the game each year.

Hasbro Inc. made its move. The owner of Scrabble filed suit Thursday against the developers of Scrabulous, a word game played by millions of Facebook users each month. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro's general counsel. Hasbro also sent a letter to Facebook asking the social networking site to shut down Scrabulous. As of noon Pacific time Thursday, the game was still up. Filed in the Southern District of New York federal court, the suit against Rajat Agarwalla, Jayant Agarwalla and their company, RJ Softwares, claims copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This month Hasbro introduced a beta version of its official Scrabble game on Facebook.