Guess They Saw Cup Victory as Half Empty

It wasn’t quite “Dewey Defeats Truman,” as the Chicago Tribune declared in a banner headline the day after Harry Truman had defeated Tom Dewey in the 1948 presidential election, but it was embarrassing enough.

Tuesday morning, after the Tampa Bay Lightning had beaten the Calgary Flames, 2-1, and clinched the Stanley Cup, Tampa Tribune editorial page readers were greeted with an editorial that began:

“The Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t win the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup last night. But the team had a championship season nevertheless.”

The paper had prepared two editorials -- one for a victory, the other for a loss -- and, somehow, the wrong one found its way into print.

There were apologies, and red faces, at the Tribune offices.

Trivia time: Who holds the record for most turnovers in an NBA Finals game?

What’s needed: Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, regarding poor ticket sales for the Athens Olympics: “This wouldn’t have happened if the International Olympic Committee wasn’t so pig-headed about banning stock-car racing.”

Candid answer: Athletes usually shy away from ranking former teammates. Not Shannon Sharpe.

According to the Baltimore Sun, he was asked during his Las Vegas retirement party who was the better player, Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis or Denver quarterback John Elway.

“I’ll put it to you like this,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “I would take my 1997 [Bronco] team over that 2000 Raven team.... I’m going to have to take my homeboy, No. 7.”

Lewis wears No. 52.

No doubt about it: Former New York Giant quarterback Phil Simms was asked by James Brown on his Sporting News Radio show if Eli Manning would be the Giants’ starter in Week 1.

“To think a rookie quarterback will be ready to start Week 1, it’s just not going to happen,” Simms said. “People keep asking me, ‘Will Kurt Warner beat out Eli for the job?’ I guarantee it. It’s 100%.”

Sealing the deal: Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times might have figured out why Warner signed with the Giants: “Wife Brenda got her own hotline to all the local radio talk shows.”

Looking back: On this day in 1985, the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics, 111-100, to win the NBA championship in six games.

Trivia answer: Magic Johnson, who had 10 in the Lakers’ 108-103 victory over Philadelphia in Game 5 of the 1980 finals. Two nights later, the rookie point guard, starting at center, led the Lakers to a series-clinching victory.

And finally: From Bret Lewis of KFWB: “A survey in the Netherlands shows one in three Dutch men think watching their national team on television at the Euro2004 Games in Portugal is more important than celebrating their wife’s birthday. Can you imagine that kind of sensitivity? I mean, for a Laker game, sure. But soccer?”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].