PGA Tour stop heads list of luster losers

Last week, on the eve of the Kentucky Derby, RealClearSports.com posted a story about sports and sporting events that have lost some or much of their luster. Because you can't restore this kind of luster with Armor All, and even if you could, it would be difficult to find a rag the size of Churchill Downs, these are the 10 events that RealClearSports.com -- not to be confused with HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" -- claims ain't what they used to be.

1. World Series.

2. Kentucky Derby.

3. Indianapolis 500.

4. Heavyweight boxing.

5. National Invitation Tournament.

6. Cotton Bowl.

7. Pro Bowlers Association Tour.

8. Western Open.

9. Penn Relays.

10. America's Cup.

(Side note: "Battle of the Network Stars" probably would have made the list, were it not canceled in 1988. For those scoring at home/without cable, the captains for the final tug-of-war were John Davidson (ABC), Lorenzo Lamas (CBS) and Greg Evigan (NBC), who must have taken over when Daniel J. Travanti couldn't climb the wall in the obstacle course.)

I remain an enthusiastic supporter of Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the RealClearSports list, probably because I am now officially old or because I grew up in the Midwest. And heavyweight boxing could probably resurrect itself by A) having Leon Spinks quit his job at the car wash and clean up the division, or B) having the Klitschko brothers fight each other, as I'm sure they did as kids when Wladimir wanted to watch "Hogan's Heroes" reruns and Vitali wanted to watch cartoons.

No real beef with the others, other than I grew up in the Western Open's shadow and don't recall it being all that large to begin with. I recall it mostly as the place where Lee Trevino was struck by lightning.

But this list got me to thinking about Lindsey Nelson's sports jacket (No. 6), Mark Roth's perm (No. 7) and Bill Cosby's sweater (No. 9 -- or did you forget the episode during the second season of "The Cosby Show" where Cliff Huxtable was invited to run in the Penn Relays?); and if one put together a manifest of local sports that have lost some luster, which ones would be on it?

Here is one such list, ranked in reverse order of luster lost.

5. Pro bowling. OK, so I copied off RealClearSports.com. But remember when the PBA used to be the Big Lebowski at the Showboat, when Roth was throwing maximum-velocity strikes and everything in the place shook? Except his hair?

4. Pro hockey. Radek Bonk and Manon Rheaume and little Patrice Lefebvre were once more popular than the UNLV basketball team at the Thomas & Mack Center, before the novelty of high-sticking majors wore off and the Las Vegas Thunder folded. Now it's the Wranglers' turn to wield high sticks at Orleans Arena, where attendance has plummeted from an average of 5,071 in 2006-07 to 3,940 in the recently concluded season. Time to bring back Mini Kiss.

3. UNLV basketball. Home attendance remains solid, just not as solid as when Jerry Tarkanian was coach. UNLV ranked 23rd in the nation this season with an average attendance of 13,253; in 1991, when Las Vegas was a lot smaller and the Rebels' frontline a lot bigger, UNLV ranked fifth in the NCAA with an average attendance of 18,658.

2. 51s baseball: Maybe it's the affiliation or the weather or the lousy bullpen, but a 51s game still mostly seems like something to do when there's nothing to do. Perhaps that will change when the team moves into its new bazillion-dollar stadium, provided our pro soccer team is playing at Real Salt Lake and our NHL and NBA teams aren't hosting playoff games.

1. The latest incarnation of the Las Vegas Invitational golf tournament. The new tournament director tries really, really hard and Justin Timberlake sings and dances really, really well, but the golf outing that now bears his name -- and the name of the Shriners Hospital for Children, a wonderful charity -- no longer bears the names of Tiger and Phil atop the leaderboard. Instead, it bears the names of Jonathan Byrd and Martin Laird and Marc Turnesa, its last three champions.

Pass the luster.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.