Author: fartheroffthewall

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage.  Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 4:

= Rob Blake: Los Angeles Kings
= Byron Scott: Los Angeles Lakers
= Duke Snider: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Bobby Grich: California Angels

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 4:

= Rodney Anderson: Cal State Fullerton
= Joe McKnight: USC football
= Kevin Pillar: Cal State Dominguez Hills baseball

The most interesting story for No. 4:
Zenyatta: Thoroughbred racehorse (2007 to 2010)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Arcadia (Santa Anita); Inglewood (Hollywood Park)

My moments of Zenyatta came in blindsiding waves.

Driven to tears, on occasion.

Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records, pinned this name on a filly born in 2004 as a tribute to one his clients, the Police. The lads from England with the ultra-hot modern reggae/pop rock sound came out in 1980 with the album, Zenyatta Mondatta. Turns out, who knew both Zenyatta and Mondatta weree apparently invented portmanteau words by band member Stewart Copeland.

“It’s not an attempt to be mysterious, just syllables that sound good together, like the sound of a melody that has no words at all has a meaning,” he explained.

To the Moss family, it was interpreted as a zen-giving experience.

(My one and only attendance at a concert to see the Police during their Synchronicity Tour, when the bill included Berlin, The Fixx and The Thompson Twins, was at the non-concert-friendly Hollywood Park race track in 1983. A year later, the place that gave Inglewood much city pride when it opened in the summer of 1938 hosted the first Breeder’s Cup).

Not a super-keen follower of horse racing, baffled by its wagering mindset that just didn’t compute well with my thinking process, I still enjoyed being assigned to help cover big events. The 2009 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park was one of them, yet my focus was far more on those who showed up and were involved with all the money passing hands around me.

As the sun was setting on the majestic Santa Anita Park, a thoroughbred in pink and turquoise silks named Zenyatta, ridden by the master Mike Smith, would stick with me decades later as the most blindsiding, exhilarating, most Southern-California sports moment I ever witnessed.

A horse that appropriately ran away with the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic a year earlier dared to be entered in a field against the world’s most worthy males, of any age, size and nationality. This was a true world championship.

Reluctantly, flashing the No. 4, it became a forgone conclusion in her mind. Maybe. We’ll never be able to ask her.

Such a Garbo move.

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage.  Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 31:

= Mike Piazza: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Cheryl Miller: Riverside Poly High basketball, USC women’s basketball
= Ed O’Bannon: UCLA basketball
= Reggie Miller: UCLA basketball
= Kurt Rambis: Los Angeles Lakers
= Dean Chance: Los Angeles/California Angels

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 31:

= Carnell Lake, UCLA football
= Karch Kiraly: UCLA volleyball
= Spencer Hayward: Los Angeles Lakers
= Guy Hebert: Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
= Swen Nater: UCLA basketball
= Chuck Finley: California/Anaheim Angels
= Jason Collins: Harvard-Westlake High School basketball
= Joe Grahovac: Fullerton College basketball

The most interesting story for No. 31:
Cheryl Miller: USC women’s basketball (1981-82 to 1985-86) via Riverside Poly High
Reggie Miller: UCLA basketball (1983-84 to 1986-87) via Riverside Poly High
Southern California map pinpoints:
Riverside; Westwood (UCLA); downtown L.A. (USC)

During the 2005 season, rumors percolated that Reggie Miller was ready to retire from the NBA after a hot-shot, 18-year run, all of them with the Indiana Pacers. He was coming up on 40 years old. It made sense.

TNT reporter Cheryl Miller denied the story was true.

She was even a bit adamant about it as she told her broadcasting partner on air to cease and desist with reporting such inaccurate information. Besides, if anyone should know, would be her.

Two weeks later, during a Lakers-Pistons telecast, Cheryl Miller reported on TNT that Reggie Miller would, in fact, be retiring. Reggie had told his coach, Rick Carlisle, first. Then he gave the scoop to Cheryl.

Proving again: Older sisters protect younger brothers, no matter what their age or their eventual Basketball Hall of Fame status.

For both of them.

Reggie Miller – aka Uncle Reg, The Knick Killer, Killa, Funk and Mighty Mouth, as they are listed on his BaseballReference.org biography – was born 19 months after his sister Cheryl. They were the last two of the five kids from Saul and Carrie Miller at their Riverside home. Included in that was oldest son, Darrel, a catcher for the California Angels (who wore No. 32, 1984 to 1988).

As basketball players, Cheryl was the bigger deal even if, at 6-foot-2, she was at least five inches shorter than pencil-thin Reggie in their adult lives.

It was Cheryl who once scored 105 points in a 32-minute game in 1982 for Riverside Poly High – the same night Reggie scored 40 in a game for the boy’s varsity team. Guess who got the bigger headlines?

In leading Poly to a 132-4 record, averaging 37.5 points a game, Cheryl was also said to be the first female player to dunk in a game. She was the national High School Player of the Year. As a junior and senior.

She picked USC to continue her play, a place making a name for itself with the McGee twins on the front line. USC won a national title her freshman year — the Trojans were 31-2. And in her sophomore year — the Trojans were 29-4. She took a detour to win a gold medal for US basketball in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and won the Naismith Player of the Year Award three times.

There’s little argument, even today, she is among the most dominant players in women’s basketball history. In October of 2025, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the women’s basketball poll, The Associated Press assembled a list of the greatest players since the first poll in 1976. Without ranking them, Miller was included on the AP first team with Caitlin Clark, Diana Taurasi, Brenna Stewart and Candace Parker.

“I grew up watching Cheryl Miller play,” said Chicago native Parker, who ended up a star with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. “She’d be No. 1. My dad was like ‘This is who we wanted you to be.’ I’m honored to be on this list with her.”

In March of 2020, HBO Sports created a documentary celebrating Miller, and it included NBA analyst Doris Burke exclaiming: “She was a bad … mother … fucker.” (Even if our story in the L.A. Times misconstrued that quote).

That nickname is not on any of Cheryl Miller’s internet biography stats pages. It should be.

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage.  Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 26:

=Jon Arnett: USC football; Los Angeles Rams
= DeShaun Foster: UCLA football
= Chase Utley: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Slava Voynov: Los Angeles Kings

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 26:

= Kirk Altenberg: UCLA football
= JoJo Townsell: UCLA football, Los Angeles Express
= Willie Brown: USC football; Los Angeles Rams
= Wendell Tyler: Los Angeles Rams
= Eric Karros: UCLA baseball

The most interesting story for No. 26:
Gene Autry: Los Angeles Angels inaugural owner (1961 to 1998)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Anaheim, Palm Springs, Hollywood

How does the No. 26 become decommissioned from Los Angeles/California/Anaheim/rebranded Los Angeles Angels wardrobe department and truly honor the founding owner of the sometimes-treated second-class Major League Baseball team in the city’s history?

In simple terms: Rosters (for a long time, until somewhat recently) were limited to 25 players.

Autry was considered, by this gesture, the “26th man.”

Who, then, in 1982, decided this needed to happen?

“The players,” as a group, is pretty much the answer if anyone asks. More specifically, the gaggle of handsomely overcompensated employees receiving a generous Autry-signed pay check felt some guilt pangs as they too often rambled toward another an AL West title only to get trip up miserably en route to a World Series.

Among that Class of ’82 bamboozlers was Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew, Bobby Grich, Fred Lynn, Don Baylor, Ken Forsch, Bruce Kison, Doug DeCinces, Bob Boone and, for some reason, 41-year-old Luis Tiant. They were beneficiaries of Gene-Gene the ATM Machine on the Anaheim “Gong Show.”

Autry may have given them all seven-digit incomes, but some felt a need to throw him back some gratitude with their loose change. In the end, did we really need to see the then-75 year old Autry wear the pull-over jersey and sansabelt slacks to prove his ownership of No. 26? More appropriate might have been giving him No. 61 — the year the team was created? Or No. 00, for all the titles they re-reimbursed him for during his lifetime?

By this point, Autry was already a Hollywood success story, all dressed up as a cowboy, with real stirrups. Not the nylon baseball type. That’s the visual we wanted to keep.

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage.  Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 10:

= Ron Cey: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Landon Donovan: Los Angeles Galaxy
= Carlos Vela: LAFC
= Norm Nixon: Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers
= Gus Williams: USC basketball
= Justin Herbert: Los Angeles Chargers
= Pat Haden: USC football
= Rick Neuheisel: UCLA football
= Corey Perry: Anaheim Ducks
= Brian Cushing: USC football

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 10:

= Willie O’Ree: Los Angeles Blades hockey
= Mauricio Cienfuegos: Los Angeles Galaxy
= Giovani dos Santos: Los Angeles Galaxy
= Marta: Los Angeles Sol
= Cooper Kupp: Los Angeles Rams
= Lyman Bostock: California Angels
= Justin Turner: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Don Klosterman: Loyola University and Los Angeles Rams

The most interesting story for No. 10:
Landon Donovan: Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder (2005 to 2014, 2016)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Ontario; Redlands; Rancho Cucamonga; Carson (Galaxy Home Depot Stadium)

In 2024, Landon Donovan lamented about the status of the Los Angeles Galaxy, once the brightest star in the Major League Soccer universe but a franchise that had logged more losses than wins over the last eight seasons and had been lapped by the expansion LAFC team across the city.

“It feels to me,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “like the Galaxy has lost its soul. … The last three-quarters of a decade has been unacceptable. Everyone realizes that. And those of us who care about the club deeply want to see it better.”

Donovan had led the Galaxy to the MLS Cup five times. To the playoffs eight times. He established the league’s scoring record, the league MVP Award is now named after him, and there’s a statue of him outside the Galaxy’s home field.

Perhaps his words carry a lot of weight. Just as Donovan carried the weight of the team, and the league, on his back when he assumed custody of the number 10 from 2005 to 2014 in Galaxy lore.