Home Team

"The Home Team" (by Michele Kort, Sept. 4) featured 16 Southern California Olympic athletes. Six of these young people are white, 10 are black, none are Oriental nor Latino. Obviously, an affirmative action program is needed to attain racial balance among our athletes. ROBERT S. ELLYN Calabasas

The Clippers have put themselves in this predicament, on the verge of making NBA history -- and not in a good way. They suffered a 90-88 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night at Staples Center in Game 6, leaving their best-of-seven first-round playoff series tied at 3-3. The Clippers have lost two straight games and now must play a seventh game on the road, with Blake Griffin (sprained left knee) and Chris Paul (strained right hip flexor) still not close to 100% healthy.

Chris Webber took a look at the Lakers and the minutes they could offer. He even spoke to Phil Jackson about it during a Saturday night cellphone conversation. But he decided to sign with the Detroit Pistons, with whom he is expected to get plenty of playing time and a chance to repair a strained relationship with his home state.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- About midway through Chris Paul's interview after the Clippers' Game 6 loss at Staples Center on Friday night, he asked what time Game 7 would be Sunday against the Memphis Grizzlies. Paul was told that the game starts at noon, Memphis time. "Cool," Paul said. "That way we can get in and get out. " But to go where? Will the Clippers be going home for the summer after blowing a 3-1 lead in the series that's now tied at 3-3? Or will the Clippers be heading to San Antonio to meet the Spurs on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals?

Not that there's a bad guy in the case of Fullerton versus Elsie Thompson, but I find it easy to root for Thompson. Thompson's house, hit by fire six years ago, is a stark neighborhood eyesore. Many of its windows remain covered with plywood. Touch the charred wood of its exterior and it comes off in your hand in black flakes. Inside, the place is frightening squalor, which she shares with four beloved dogs: Bunny, Blackie, Mandy and Silvie. But home is home.

Buoyed by an adoring home crowd, Fani Halkia of Greece breezed to victory here Wednesday in the women's 400-meter hurdles. Flamboyant in pink-tinted sunglasses, a Greek flag tattooed on her shoulder, Halkia finished in 52.82 seconds, Olympic Stadium awash in noise and fluttering blue and white Greek flags. "I could feel the stadium rocking," she said. Ionela Manolache of Romania took silver in 53.38, Tetyana Tereshchuk-Antipova of Ukraine bronze in 53.44. UCLA's Sheena Johnson, the U.S.

Fans who came to Veterans Stadium to boo turncoat Ricky Watters--it being a bit early in the year to disparage Santa Claus--quickly found it wasn't worth the trouble. Besides, there was a better target at hand. Watters, returning to Philadelphia with the Seattle Seahawks, rushed 16 times for 63 yards, but didn't score. His teammates scored plenty in a 38-0 win. It was the worst home loss on opening day in Eagle history and the team's worst loss in any game since 1975.

The Oakland Athletics will be the home team, but the Seattle Mariners and outfielder Ichiro Suzuki will be the crowd favorites as Major League Baseball opens its 2012 season Wednesday with a game that starts at 3 a.m. PDT. Seattle is the only MLB team with a Japanese owner, retired Nintendo Chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi, who has had a majority stake in the Mariners since 1992 yet has never seen his team play in person — a streak that will be extended...

What a wild scene it was Friday night in the gym at West Hills Chaminade. "The Cage," as Chaminade students call it, was loud, energetic and relentless in support of its home team in a Southern Section Division 4AA second-round playoff game. That made what Westlake Village Oaks Christian pulled off even more impressive. With Jason Ghilarducci and Michael Roletti contributing 18 points apiece, the Lions (22-5) defeated Chaminade, 63-57, leaving the Eagles stunned. "Of course, it was fun," Ghilarducci said.

Chris Paul has been working out, doing a lot of drills, testing his strained left hamstring to see whether it is ready to cooperate. But Paul wasn't ready to play Sunday, sitting out his fifth consecutive game, this time against the Toronto Raptors. Coach Vinny Del Negro said Paul worked out Saturday at practice and that the All-Star guard "feels great. " But Del Negro said the "smart, prudent thing to do" was to not rush Paul back. "There's a protocol that guys have to go through, in terms of injuries and things," Del Negro said.

Lob City became Mob City. The Clippers hugged, their fans bounced, the rafters roared, the entire Staples Center danced as one late Wednesday in a coming-out party for the city's hottest new star. Lordy, what a show. In what could mark their first official step toward their promise of greatness, the Clippers grunted and ground and eventually soared atop their expectations in a 95-89 victory over a Miami Heat team that is considered the NBA's best. "Very intense," said Blake Griffin afterward with a very relieved, very sweaty grin.

At one point, the only sound is the tap of sneakers hitting pavement as 131 Japanese students march across the parking lot at Angel Stadium. The trombones, trumpets and saxophones are raised and then the jingle of the Super Mario theme song fills the air. Performers multi-task by dancing: Those with free hands gesture like robots, mimicking the famed Mario, and others jump to the sound of a bell, much like the video game's chime when characters collect...

When is it OK for you, at a college game, to boo your home team's starting quarterback for the simple act of entering a game? The correct answer is "never," but that didn't stop UCLA's unfaithful Saturday night at the Rose Bowl. Kevin Prince was forced into the thick of the Washington State plot only because starter Richard Brehaut broke his leg. Prince, last ridiculed after three first-quarter interceptions against Texas, was greeted with derision before even being allowed the chance to throw another pick — which he quickly did. The song, remember, says be true to "your" school.

Just when you thought the soap opera that is the Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't get more ridiculous, reports came Thursday that embattled owner Frank McCourt had received a $1.2-billion offer for the club from L.A. businessman Bill Burke, with some unspecified share of that $1.2 billion to come from "certain state-owned investment institutions of the People's Republic of China," according to the letter from Burke's group to McCourt. The purported parties to the deal aren't talking about it. But if such a deal were to go through — and it would first have to pass muster with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig as well the bankruptcy court — the Dodgers would become the very symbol of the decline of American capitalism.

When the National League defeated the American League, 5-1, in baseball's All-Star game last week, the NL won home-field advantage for its representative in the World Series. But is home-field advantage actually worth anything? Commissioner Bud Selig insisted that the All-Star game determine home-field advantage in the World Series after the game ended in a tie in 2002. The AL won seven All-Star games in a row beginning in 2003 but won the World Series only four times. Players value the comforts of home in October, but they don't see the logic in awarding home-field advantage to the winner of an exhibition game.