Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers has canceled 25 U.S. concert performances, including a show Wednesday night at the Long Beach Arena, because of "routine" surgery scheduled for today in Beverly Hills, a spokeswoman for the singer said Monday. In a statement issued by his management firm, Kragen & Co., Rogers' physician, Dr. Robert Feder, said the operation is to remove a "small cyst that covers the membrane of his vocal cord."

Kenji Johjima hit a game-breaking grand slam off Kenny Rogers, and Miguel Batista held the highest scoring team in the major leagues to one run in six innings as the Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4, on Saturday night. Johjima's second career slam came in the sixth after he fouled off four of Rogers' pitches during an eight-pitch at-bat.

Kenny Rogers apparently likes to build almost as much as he likes to sing. He bought two of the 16 lots in the first phase of that private new enclave bordering Beverly Hills known as Beverly Park and is planning to build a home there with a sunken tennis court and cabana, swimming pool and pool house, guest house, 300-foot-long driveway, large porte-cochere with fountains, and a main house with about 20,000 square feet of space.

What a season debut for Kenny Rogers. Making his first start of the year after a blood clot was removed from his pitching shoulder, Rogers gave up two hits in six innings to lead the Detroit Tigers past the Atlanta Braves, 5-0, Friday night. The Braves were shut out for the third game in a row, their scoreless streak stretching to 28 innings. It was the first time since 1988 that Atlanta has been shut out in three straight games.

After four years away, Kenny Rogers returned to the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, signing a $22.5-million, three-year contract. "It's not a secret that I wanted to come back," said Rogers, who had his greatest success with the Rangers and played his first seven years with the team. "I want to try to go out and do the same thing I did the first time, and hope it will last longer than the three years."

Country music singer Kenny Rogers made an appearance last week at a benefit dinner that raised $5,500 for the Rio Hondo Temporary Home for homeless families in Norwalk, an official said. The Santa Fe Springs Sunrise Rotary Club sponsored the benefit last Thursday night at the Candlewood Country Club in Whittier. Rogers, a longtime advocate of the homeless, sang last week in concerts in Santa Fe Springs.

Kenny Rogers just keeps rolling along. Opening a five-concert run at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, he was the quintessential show-biz artist, masterfully in command of both the music and his audience. There wasn't much that was unfamiliar in the music, other than a couple of new originals, both of which effectively reconfirmed Rogers' ability to craft emotionally charged material.

How's this for irony? A decade ago, when Kenny Rogers was the hottest male recording star in pop and country, he tended to walk through his concerts, exerting little energy or commitment. But now that Rogers' recording career has turned cold, he seems much more involved on stage. The veteran's concert Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre--part of a three-night engagement--was fresh and consistently entertaining.

With help from the Grammy Awards and former Grammy winner Kenny Rogers, CBS rolled to its 11th win in the past 12 weeks in the prime-time ratings last week. Figures released Tuesday by the A. C. Nielsen Co. showed that CBS had five of the Top 10 shows, with the Grammys at No. 3 and Rogers' Sunday night movie, "Rio Diablo," at No. 8. CBS' "60 Minutes" was No. 1. CBS said the ratings for the Grammy telecast last Wednesday were the best since 1988, and 23% higher than last year.

The bad news is that there's another TV movie starring Kenny Rogers involving gambling. The good news is that it's not another "Gambler" sequel and he doesn't have any songs in it. The odds suddenly improve, slightly.

When historians recall the 2006 World Series, which mercifully ended Friday on another odd night of freezing winds and flocking birds, one word will come to mind. It will not be Cardinals, who, let's face it, won a world championship by virtue of possessing a pulse. It will not be Weaver, the Angels and Dodgers bust who blearily stumbled his way into postseason religion. It will not be Eckstein, the wonderful little Series MVP who will live longer as a Bill Stoneman nightmare.

Tony La Russa watched a movie. He signed some baseballs. He visited with friends, who sat shoulder to shoulder on a couch in his office. Then he went home through a light drizzle, the same annoyance under which he arrived at Busch Stadium eight hours before, without any baseball in between. Jim Leyland, by his account, killed "a carton" of Marlboros. World Series Game 4 was postponed because of rain Wednesday night, the St. Louis Cardinals' third deferment of the postseason.

By Tuesday, Kenny Rogers, St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa and the umpires had all offered their explanations as to how the yellowy-brown substance had stuck to the Detroit left-hander's thumb and how it was removed. The World Series was prepared to move on, at least until Rogers' next start, which is scheduled for Game 6, until Cardinals hitting coach Hal McRae jumped in with further indictment of the Tigers left-hander.

This city, these fans, struck a familiar October posture; bent at the waist, face set against the elements, leaning into another early winter that, for a change, disrupted their baseball season. Wrapped in scarves and huddled beneath blankets, they were warmed by eight more scoreless innings from Kenny Rogers, two early runs, and a ninth-inning escape by Todd Jones, their on-the-edge closer. The Detroit Tigers defeated the St.

Fans were buried in blankets. Managers were swallowed in mittens. Players were hidden in ski caps. But on a bone-chilling Sunday night at the World Series, nothing was seemingly covered up more than the bare left hand of Kenny Rogers. In the first inning of the Detroit Tigers' eventual 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, a national television audience saw a dark splotch at the base of Rogers' pitching hand. With a dark and sticky tint, it looked like illegal pine tar.

As a media throng closed in on Ivan Rodriguez on Wednesday night, the Detroit catcher, exhausted after an American League Championship Series Game 2 victory over Oakland, plopped down in his chair to conduct his post-game interviews. "Excuse me, excuse me," interrupted a teammate thrusting a large cup of icy Gatorade through the notepads and tape recorders to Rodriguez, who grabbed it as he would a life preserver. Owner of the helping hand? Kenny Rogers.

If he really knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, Kenny Rogers either would take "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" out of his deck of songs, pronto, or learn to sing it as if it meant something. The Mel Tillis composition detailing the emotional agony of a crippled Vietnam vet and his wife is a gem, a devastating account of the wages of war.

The chicken wrangler is whistling frantically for his charges, who are busy ignoring him and pecking at some overripe zucchini near the front door of Pepper's Perch saloon. Semi-retired country music star Naomi Judd materializes from her trailer. Surely, somewhere in there she has a Dorian Gray-like picture that's aging for her, because, at 47, her face in the afternoon sun appears unlined and porcelain perfect.

New York Yankees players sat and stared at one another Friday night in a clubhouse where the looseness and determination of the season were flushed out and replaced by tension and despair. What they saw, after their 6-0 loss to Kenny Rogers and the Tigers in Game 3 of their American League Division Series at Comerica Park, was the face of elimination.

Baseball plays itself to the end of its regular season, all but Manny Ramirez, the Colorado Rockies pitching staff and Ozzie's boys anyway, right to a final, manic, hurl-yourself-from-the-Gateway-Arch week.