Matthews

There seems to be a misconception among some of Chris Matthews' guests. Because they have been invited on "Hardball" and put in front of a microphone, they think they will not only be asked questions, but also get a chance to answer them. If they had been paying much attention, they would know that MSNBC's fantastically frenetic host often uses questions like a tennis player uses a backboard. Once he gets the ball back in his own court, he spins it, slices it, pounds it, to his heart's content.

NEW YORK - Anyone out there heard of George and Ira Gershwin? Well, apparently, the brothers - long dead, if I'm not mistaken - have a "new" musical comedy, which opened Tuesday at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. The show, which stars Matthew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara, is called "Nice Work if You Can Get It," but please don't get the idea that the songwriting legends have been granted a second coming. The only miracle going on here is a marketing one. A treasure-trove of tunes by the Gershwin boys has been repurposed into a wobbly jukebox musical, with a hot-off-the-press book by Joe DiPietro ("Memphis")

The Angels will pay their highest salary this year to Torii Hunter. They will pay their second-highest salary to a guy who could be on the bench for the New York Mets, and so the Angels might not be done spending money to assemble this year's team. Gary Matthews Jr. asked out of Anaheim after the season, but the Angels could not find a taker until the Mets suddenly needed an outfielder because of Carlos Beltran's knee surgery. The Mets acquired Matthews on Friday for middle reliever Brian Stokes, but not before the Angels agreed to pay all but $2 million of the $23.5 million remaining on Matthews' contract.

UC Davis announced Thursday that it has appointed a new chief to head its campus police force for at least a year and to help guide it past the controversies stemming from last November's pepper-spraying of student demonstrators by its officers. Matthew Carmichael, who has been acting chief since November and a lieutenant on the campus force for a decade before that, was sworn in for a yearlong term, UC Davis officials said. The school said it would launch a national search later for a longer-term chief.

Three key Angels headed for free agency -- Chone Figgins, Bobby Abreu and Vladimir Guerrero -- have publicly expressed a desire to return to Anaheim, and center fielder Torii Hunter, after talking to free-agent pitcher John Lackey, is convinced the right-hander wants to remain an Angel. Gary Matthews Jr.? Not so much. The disgruntled outfielder with two years and $23 million left on his contract wants no part of the Angels in 2010, and he reiterated his request to be traded -- or released -- while cleaning out his Angel Stadium locker Tuesday.

Doesn't Gary Matthews Jr. know that nothing screams "I'm Guilty!" more than hiring Robert Shapiro as your lawyer? MOSHE MEIR Los Angeles

TEMPE, Ariz. -- His left shoulder, which was so damaged and weak last season he hit .175 from the right side, felt strong, and his left knee, which "wasn't feeling real great a couple weeks ago," was beginning to come around. Gary Matthews Jr. was having a great spring, getting a single in his first at-bat Monday to raise his Cactus League average to .449 and stealing second, his fourth stolen base. Then, on a play so innocuous most in Tempe Diablo Stadium probably didn't see it, Matthews twisted his right ankle as he pulled up before third base on Garret Anderson's inning-ending strikeout, fell to the ground in pain and had to be helped off the field.

Howie Kendrick drove in five runs with a home run and a triple, and Gary Matthews Jr. drove in three runs with a single and a home run to power the Angels to a 10-5 victory over the Texas Rangers today. By winning two of three games at the Ballpark in Arlington, the Angels pushed their American League West lead over the Rangers to 7 ½ games and reduced their magic number for clinching the division title to seven. John Lackey survived a three-run first inning to gain the win, allowing five runs -- four earned -- and seven hits in six innings while improving to 11-8, and relievers Jason Bulger, Matt Palmer and Kevin Jepsen blanked the Rangers over the final three innings.

DETROIT -- You remember Gary Matthews Jr. Switch-hitter. Pretty good center fielder. Used to play for the Angels. OK, that last part is an exaggeration, but not much of one. Matthews has virtually disappeared in the second half, his playing time drastically curtailed by a knee injury, a bruised batting average and the summer emergence of Juan Rivera. But there was Matthews in Comerica Park on Thursday afternoon, doubling to left field to open the game and scoring the Angels' first run. Then he singled and scored in the third inning, doubled in the fourth and reached on an infield single in the seventh.

Forgotten but not gone. That's been the status of Gary Matthews Jr. since early July, when a knee injury and poor performance reduced the outfielder to such a bit role he had all of 30 at-bats in 33 games from the All-Star break through Saturday. But Sunday in Angel Stadium, the afterthought moved to the forefront. Playing only because Garret Anderson left in the second inning because of a knee injury, Matthews hit a run-scoring triple to key a three-run eighth that gave the Angels a 5-3 come-from-behind victory over the Minnesota Twins.

A brutal killing last year brought back ugly memories for the people of Jackson, Miss. Hundreds of people marched in August -- an event reminiscent of the civil rights movement -- after a security camera recording showed that James C. Anderson was beaten and run over by white young adults in June. "There is a lot of general appall over what took place here," Ronnie C. Crudup Sr. told The Times during the march. "We wanted to get well-minded people, both black and white, together to do something to support this family and this country.

"Lost" star Matthew Fox has listed a house in Manhattan Beach for sale at $1.995 million. The Spanish-style home, built in 1927, features coved ceilings, arched doorways, two corner fireplaces, decorative tile stair risers and a wooden stairway with carved railings. The nearly 2,500-square-foot house includes a large family room, four bedrooms and two bathrooms. There are ocean views from the upper-level rooms and balcony. Fox, 45, played Jack Shephard on "Lost" (2004-10)

The new Matthew Marks Gallery in West Hollywood isn't just the first ground-up building by the 42-year-old Los Angeles architect Peter Zellner. A clean-lined, windowless stucco box on Orange Grove Avenue just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, it is also almost entirely free-standing. Attached on one of its four sides to a mortuary, it is otherwise visible in the round, making it one of the most conspicuous architectural debuts to appear in Southern California in a number of years. At the same time, Zellner's design operates in large part as the straightforward and accommodating backdrop for an artwork by the 88-year-old artist Ellsworth Kelly.

It's weird, watching a major movie about someone you worked for before the world discovered her, someone whose political party you then joined as a member of Parliament with her as prime minister, and someone who now appears on the cinema screen like an apparition from the past, with liveliness and youth breathed back into her. It's even more uncanny when this woman is played by an actor with such a genius for impersonation that you cannot help...

In June 2008, major news organizations that cover the U.S. intelligence community, including the Los Angeles Times, reported on a secret trip to Pakistan by the CIA's then-deputy director, Stephen Kappes. Kappes, the stories said, confronted Pakistani officials about ties between their country's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, and tribal militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda, including a notorious group called the Haqqani network that had attacked American troops.

Matthew Slater bulked up in a big way the moment he entered the NFL. The New England Patriots handed the former UCLA player not just one Yellow Pages-sized binder but two — one for offense, the other for defense. "The first day in this building they gave me two playbooks," Slater said in a phone interview Thursday. "There was no, 'We'll give you one, then we'll give you the other.' It was, 'Here's both.' I felt like I was in a graduate studies program, making flash cards and everything.

Gary Matthews Jr. puts together one quality season in his seven-year, eight-team, journeyman career and the Angels lock him up for five seasons? Matthews had never hit higher than .275 -- until last year (.313). Matthews had never hit more than 17 homers in a season, until last year (19). Matthews had never driven in more than 55 runs in a season, until last year (78). Doesn't anyone see a pattern here? Let's hope there's more to come from this off-season for the Angels.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Mike Butcher wasn't only the best man at Joe Saunders' wedding. Butcher, the Angels' pitching coach, was the only man there. Saunders didn't plan it that way. He and his fiancee, Shanel, envisioned a dream wedding in Thailand last fall. But Shanel is a Canadian citizen, and an immigration lawyer warned she might not be allowed back into the United States unless the couple first got married last summer. "We had to get married at that time," Saunders said, "so we could get married in Thailand."

They are the six shooters of the NFL, the half-dozen hot-handed quarterbacks who have already thrown for more than 4,000 yards this season. They are from all over the country — New Orleans' Drew Brees, New England's Tom Brady, the New York Giants' Eli Manning, Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, Detroit's Matthew Stafford, and San Diego's Philip Rivers — and they're throwing the football all over the map. With two games to go, their numbers could shoot...

Clay Matthews' star power has captured the attention of both the NFL fan base and offensive coordinators, who've spent this season seeking to double-team the third-year Green Bay Packers linebacker from USC. Matthews' sack and tackle numbers are down from last season, when he contributed 13.5 sacks and nearly four tackles a game for the Super Bowl champions. After Sunday's 46-16 victory over the Oakland Raiders, Matthews has six sacks and 38 tackles. As the calendar turned to December in a big game last week, Matthews began asserting himself at critical times, intercepting a pass by New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and returning it for a touchdown, recording a sack and forcing a fumble.