Not-OK corral: Bull shows who's in charge at cowboy's naked photo shoot

A nude cowboy posing with a cranky bull: What could possibly go wrong?

Professional bull rider Shane Proctor discovered the answer when he was asked to share a corral with beefy Huckleberry Thorn as part of ESPN the Magazine's photo spread featuring naked athletes. Proctor was wearing only his boots and a strategically placed cowboy hat when Huckleberry suddenly charged.

"I dropped hat and ran up on the fence," Proctor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "He was about to horn up on my business."

Added the R-J's Ed Graney: "And I thought being hit with an errant throw the day I forgot to wear a cup in Little League was terrifying."

Ticket to trouble

A Philadelphia woman has been charged with offering sex for World Series tickets after an undercover police officer responded to her ad on Craigslist.

Which certainly gives a whole new meaning to "scoring a ticket to the big game."

Don't pass it

"First the swine flu's a big threat, then it's not, then it is. Make up your mind," complained NBC's Jimmy Fallon. "This thing's like the Brett Favre of infectious diseases."

Headlines

• At Fark.com: "Bob Griese suspended by ESPN, learns foot in mouth tastes a lot like a taco."

• At SportsPickle.com: "Financially-strapped NASCAR team down to its last 743 sponsors."

Bronx jeer

Aretha Franklin spelled it R-E-S-P-E-C-T, but fans at Yankee Stadium do it a different way.

"I have all the respect in the world for the way they enjoy being fans," Phillies pitcher Pedro Martinez told The Washington Post. "Sometimes they might be giving you the middle finger, just like they will be cursing you and telling you what color underwear you're wearing. I don't have any problem with that."

Quote marks

• Gary Loewen of the Toronto Sun, on the Idaho Junior Steelheads hockey team getting a four-day ban from a Boise rink for playing "strip hockey" in practice: "Just call it a bawdy check."

• Vancouver (B.C.) comic Torben Rolfsen, on an even bigger threat to U.S. worker productivity than swine flu: "March Madness."

• Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, on Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee's deadpan persona in Game 1 against the Yankees: "The countenance of a man who looked like his wife was making him watch 'The Bridges of Madison County.' "

Hawks and doves

Seattle tied for fourth in Yahoo! Real Estate's ranking of America's safest cities, pointing out our city's relatively low rate of violence.

Apparently they've seen our football teams try to tackle somebody, too.

Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com