Magazine Pulls No Punches on Films

Where would sports be without lists?

No clever graphic packages. No fervent barroom debates. No more arguments between Texas and USC football fans.

And Entertainment Weekly would be a few pages lighter. In this week’s issue, the magazine ranked its top 30 sports movies on DVD, and not surprisingly, three boxing movies were in the top six -- “Raging Bull” (No. 1), “Rocky” (No. 4) and “Million Dollar Baby” (No. 6).

The magazine’s final word on “Raging Bull”: “ ‘On the Waterfront’ plus ‘Rocky’ minus the schmaltz.”

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Add DVDs: Naturally, “Slap Shot” falls in the upper echelon, landing at No. 10. The magazine catches up with the ever-amusing Hanson brothers, and Steve Hanson, now 50, reveals his pitch for a possible “Slap Shot 3”: “We’re management now, and we go to the NHL draft and threaten all the owners.”

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Trivia time: What team was then-Philadelphia 76er Darryl Dawkins playing against the first time he shattered a backboard in 1979?

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Lists, Part III: The Sporting News compiled a list of the top 50 players in the NBA.

Tim Duncan, it said, was a “slam dunk” for No. 1. Shaquille O’Neal was No. 2 and Steve Nash No. 3.

Still among the elite, but not in the top five, was Kobe Bryant at No. 8: “Based on early returns, Phil-Kobe Act II is going to be good for Kobe. His talent and drive are unsurpassed, but to return to our top five, Kobe has to take the Lakers into late May.”

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Jerry’s world: Jerry Springer’s recent appearance in St. Louis had St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell wondering whether Springer should have had his show at Rams Park instead of at a casino.

“What more could Jerry want for his outrageous reality show than a few moments at Rams Park?” Burwell wrote. “This place is chock full of Springer-esque theater, with its daily medical crisis, weekly inflammatory anonymous quote, constant delicious political intrigue and contentious off-field relationships brewing every second of every minute.

“If we could throw in a paternity test or two, Springer just might come back to town and bring Ricki Lake with him.”

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Sleepy time: Roger Federer of Switzerland wins when he is playing a lot or after injury layoffs. Now, it seems he can prevail on little sleep.

Federer reached the semifinals of the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai (he later lost in the final), beating Guillermo Coria of Argentina despite staying up until 4:30 a.m. watching the soccer World Cup qualifier between Switzerland and Turkey.

“I couldn’t believe they were showing it,” Federer told reporters. “I thought I might as well take it while it’s here.”

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Trivia answer: The Kansas City Kings.

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And finally: New York Knick Coach Larry Brown, ambling down memory lane when his team practiced in Pauley Pavilion last week, told the New York Post that it hadn’t changed since he coached the Bruins: “I tried to get them to move the seats on both ends. Make it like a real college gym. The fire marshals wouldn’t allow it, and the sightlines were so bad.”