Cards' La Russa has list of grievances

Quite a Card, that Tony La Russa.

The Cardinals manager failed to list his reserve players on his lineup card for last Friday's game and Brewers coach Robin Yount called him on it, setting up a memorable card exchange before the next day's game. As Brewers manager Ned Yost told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "[La Russa's card] had all the extra guys listed — and it had their age, their height, their weight, their wives, names of the kids for each player."

Monk's the word

When it comes to getting cracked down upon, soccer hooligans have it easy compared to Cambodia's 40,000 Buddhist monks, who have been told they can watch the World Cup — and not make a peep.

"It is very difficult to ban them [from watching] because new technology means the games can be aired live and seen everywhere," Phnom Penh patriarch Non Nget told Reuters. "They may watch, but must be calm.

"But if they make noise or cheer as they watch, they will lose their monkhoods."

Drag-nyet

And in other zero-tolerance news, police in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don hauled in nearly 100 people because, as a police official told the RIA news agency, "We got a call to our control room saying there was a fight involving a lot of people on some waste ground just outside town."

All were questioned and released when police realized the melee was just a rugby game.

Just a gut feeling

Corpulent golfer John Daly can lose all the millions he wants in Las Vegas, but, for the sake of diners at the casino buffet, here's hoping he never loses his shirt.

Mulligan stewed

Three Times readers, Randy Shattuck, Rick Birinyi and Chuck West, correctly pointed out that the golf ruling cited in Tuesday's Sideline Chatter — that a hole-in-one was negated because the player had hit an ensuing provisional ball — was incorrect.

Since the ball was already in the hole, according to USGA rules 1 ½ and 1-1/3, the play of the hole was completed at that point.

Alas, Tom Kenney's ace in Batavia, N.Y., still didn't pass golf's exacting letter of the law: He hit the 370-yard shot with a borrowed driver.

Talking the talk

• Richard Oliver of the San Antonio Express-News, on the Seahawks' NFC title rings: "Each player's bauble features an image of Qwest Field on one side and a personalized taunt from Steelers linebacker Joey Porter on the other."

• Times reader Bill Littlejohn, on Britney Spears hiring Perry Taylor, a former Navy lacrosse player, as her baby's au pair: "Would that make him a nanny goat?"

• Elliott Harris of the Chicago Sun-Times, on baseball giving Jason Grimsley — who will likely never pitch again — a 50-game suspension: "Never let it be said that commissioner Bud Selig doesn't rule with an ironic fist."

Red-card district

An estimated 40,000 prostitutes, mostly from Eastern Europe, have invaded Germany to ply their trade during the World Cup.

Giddy historians are already calling it the mother of all naked aggression.

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