Pete

Moose Skowron Five-time World Series champion Moose Skowron, 81, a five-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees and the Dodgers and one of only two players to hit three home runs in the seventh games of World Series, died Friday of congestive heart failureat a hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill. He also had lung cancer. Skowron became a star as a first baseman for the Yankees and went on to appear in eight All-Star games. After his playing career ended, he returned to his native Chicago and had worked for the White Sox since 1999 in the team's community relations department.

Bert Weedon was a legendary British guitar player who influenced a generation of budding rock stars with his popular "Play in a Day" instructional book. Eric Clapton, Brian May, Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison are among those who received help in learning to play the guitar from Weedon's book, which was first published in 1957 and has sold more than 2 million copies. "I wouldn't have felt the urge to press on without the tips and encouragement Bert's book gives you," Clapton once said.

Former USC football Coach Pete Carroll said he expects NFL owners to sit up and take notice of the sale of the Dodgers for $2 billion, noting that it should tell them something about the value of the Los Angeles market. "Oh, man, they've got to love that," said Carroll, now coach of the Seattle Seahawks, during the NFC coaches' breakfast at the annual league meetings. "That's a new day. That's a big marker. That's not just something-point-something, it's $2 billion. That's a big number.

During the compressed free-agency period last summer, it looked as if Matt Leinart would be reunited in Seattle with Pete Carroll, his coach from USC. Houston made an eleventh-hour pitch to the quarterback, though, and convinced Leinart to stay with the Texans. The Seahawks felt burned (although their signing of Tarvaris Jackson sent a discouraging message to Leinart), and the situation didn't work out as planned for the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, either. Leinart appeared in two games in 2011 after Matt Schaub suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

Pete Carroll has been gone from USC for two seasons, but he still doesn't miss a chance to criticize the NCAA -- even in its own backyard. Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is in Indianapolis, home of NCAA headquarters, for the NFL scouting combine. Mike Sando of ESPN.com writes that Carroll had the quote of the day from the combine. "A reporter from New York noted that players pointed to Carroll and the Jets' Rex Ryan as the coaches they most enjoyed playing under," Sando wrote.

USC receiver Marqise Lee and running back D.J. Morgan are accustomed to catching passes. Trojans defensive backs Nickell Robey and Tony Burnett have been trained to knock them down. On Saturday, the quartet will make passes — by handing off a baton — when they compete together in the 400-meter relay in the USC track team's season-opening outdoor competition at the Claremont Relays. It's the first time since the early 2000s that USC football players have migrated en masse to the track, restoring a tradition that once helped the Trojans win multiple conference championships in the spring sport.

Back when he was USC's coach, Pete Carroll had high hopes of recruiting Tim Tebow. Tebow and his father visited Los Angeles and went to the 2004 UCLA-USC game at the Rose Bowl, where Reggie Bush punctuated a 66-yard touchdown run with a flip into the end zone. "They were phenomenal," recalled Tebow, who was hosted by Mark Sanchez, Patrick Turner and Jeff Byers on his visit. "It was exciting. It was a good trip. " That's what Carroll thought. So he was optimistic when he made a trip to the Tebow family farm outside Jacksonville, Fla., bringing assistants Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian with him. "Everything was going great, and we were real excited about the home visit," Carroll said.

Unbuckling the mailbag: Question: Is Mike Sherman now a candidate for the UCLA job? Jared Gibson Answer: Yes, have him get in line behind Pee-wee Herman. If UCLA tried to hire Mike Sherman, recently fired by Texas A&M, Bruins Athletic Director Dan Guerrero would have to make the announcement in a Sherman tank. Q: Why are you looking so far away? U-DUB Husky Coach Steve Sarkisian is perfect. He was born just five minutes away from UCLA. He coached at USC and will be a natural rival to Kiffin.

Writer-director Alexandre Rockwell, maker of humane comedies like Sundance prize-winner "In the Soup," was one of the early leading lights of the American independent filmmaking scene, but he has long struggled to maintain his footing as a filmmaker. With "Pete Smalls Is Dead," he is still stumbling. A former screenwriter (Peter Dinklage) has his dog taken by loan sharks, and he returns to Los Angeles for the promise of quick money to help an old friend (Mark Boone Jr.) bury someone they both once knew.

As White House Chief of Staff William Daley adjourned a recent morning meeting, a senior staff member whispered a question to another as they left the office: "Is that what it's like in a boardroom?" It's both a compliment and a criticism White House staffers have offered about Daley's detached management style — he prefers to operate at "30,000 feet," as one senior administration official put it — since he left the corporate world and returned to Washington to run President Obama's team 10 months ago. This week, President Obama appeared to acknowledge that method wasn't working.