THREE UP, THREE DOWN: Ex-51s at big league prices

It was announced last week the Cincinnati Reds will play the Los Angeles Dodgers in an exhibition game March 31 at Cashman Field.

What this means is fans who wouldn't pay $4 to watch guys such as Russell Martin, James Loney, Andre Either, Matt Kemp and Chad Billingsley play for the 51s will pay a lot more to watch them play with the Dodgers.

This is one more variation of the rule that says you can't judge a book by its cover.

Unless, of course, the book is a romance novel and the cover shows a cheesy painting of some broad-chested lothario with a mane of flowing blond hair who looks a lot like that Fabio dude.

You can almost always judge those books by their covers.

THREE UP

• SAVE THE RHINO: Two of the four finalists at today's Professional Bowlers Association Tournament of Champions at Red Rock Lanes are a woman named Kelly Kulick and a guy named Rhino Page. Next to Jeffrey Lebowski or Earl Anthony, you would be hard-pressed to come up with a better name for a bowler than Rhino Page. But I still will be cheering for the lady.

• EAST MEETS WEST AGAIN: UNLV's Jason Beauchamp and Martin Tevaseu played in the East-West Shrine Game on Saturday in Orlando, Fla., the granddaddy of all the college football all-star games. Or at least it should be, considering this was the 85th annual one and the Blue-Gray Football Classic no longer exists. Sometimes when I can't sleep, I lie in bed and think about the East-West Shrine Game and try to guess which side the guys from Kansas and Nebraska will play for. Next thing you know, it's morning.

• YOU'RE NEXT, GWEN STEFANI: The Rebel Girls dance team finished fourth at the Universal Dance Association College National Championship at Disneyworld in Orlando, behind Louisiana State, Memphis and the June Taylor Dancers. Actually it was a team from the University of Cincinnati that finished third. It's just that I haven't been able to get the June Taylor Dancers out of my mind since my old man made me watch "The Jackie Gleason Show" when I was 6.

THREE DOWN

• 7-IRON MALFUNCTION: The Bob Hope Classic probably would be doing better if the man were still alive. But Hope died in 2003 and Phil Mickelson won't play his golf tournament anymore and George Lopez was dropped as host and 84-year-old Yogi Berra was brought in to replace him. So a lot of people who follow golf, such as the guys who write columns for the Golf Channel Web site, are wondering if the Hope should pin its hopes on somebody younger -- such as Justin Timberlake, for instance -- or continue losing ground to the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, which doesn't let amateurs muck up the fairways unless they are big-hitting sheikhs who make Al Czervik from "Caddyshack" look like a light tipper. Oh, yeah, that would be Justin Timberlake, as in Mr. SexyBack (Nine), who already hosts a tournament in Las Vegas that has problems of its own. Uh-oh.

• (BODY) CHECK PLEASE: The American Conference beat the National Conference 10-9 in the ECHL All-Star Game. 10-9 is not hockey. 10-9 is a pitchers duel in the Pacific Coast League or police code for "on location of incident." The game ended in an overtime shootout, when Dorothy Hamill slid the puck under the pads of Katarina Witt.

• COMING IN SECOND: It has been said sports teaches you lessons about life and other things. So what the Sandy Valley girls basketball team probably learned about life and other things in a 61-1 defeat to Lake Mead last week in which it shot 0-for-52 from the field is to keep your chin up, even when your husband stays out all night, the kids have the flu, you bounce a mortgage check and the IRS calls. Then when the "60 Minutes" crew is unloading equipment in the driveway, it won't seem that bad.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.