Gib Shanley died over the weekend. A really terrific radio broadcaster for the Browns. He had that knack of telling you how far the receivers were from the interior line. As in, "Collins out 12 wide to the left, Warfield split 4 to the right." Carried Browns fans from the Jim Brown era through the Kardiac Kids. Also, in the era of no cable sports or sports talk radio, he hosted "The Quarterback Club" on Wednesday nights, where they would show a recap of the Browns game. With home TV blackouts, you had to watch these shows to see the games you missed.

And, as I've repeated millions of times, my favorite Gib line was one that was unintentionally funny. Steve Cox was a punter with the Browns, and he was sidelined a lot during the 1983 season, because of some sort of brain injury. So, each week, Gib would utter this line (imagine us playing the Bengals): "The Bengals have 49 players, the Browns have 48 without Cox." OK, when you're immature, that's funny.

Meal of Links

Turner comes up with a 15-hour marathon for Charlton Heston. Wow, outside of "Ben Hur", pretty crappy. Speaking of cable, HBO seems to have gotten the short end of the writers strike, as their series won't be on this summer. Good opportunity for "Weeds" on Showtime, back June 16.

Bob Dylan wins a Pulitzer. He joins George Gershwin and Duke Ellington, amongst others, who have won a special citation. OK, some other citation winners for the arts: Rodgers & Hammerstein for "Oklahoma!"; Scott Joplin; Thelonious Monk; Ray Bradbury: John Coltrane. Dylan makes it three years in a row (Monk in 2006 and Bradbury/Coltrane last year), so, maybe it's an annual prize these days.

Lollapalooza lineup is here. Looks pretty cool. What Made Milwaukee Famous and The Gutter Twins are two of the lesser-known acts I like. Austin City lineup comes out next week. And very disappointed that Radiohead is coming to Blossom, of all places.

That Olympic Torch relay is proving not to be welcome in Paris and London. It's actually getting extinguished along the way. On to San Francisco. Uh-oh.















Exercise Yard

Eric Snow has looked more like a coach than a player the last few weeks. The future is still in doubt, however.

Visitor

17 Across: "The Twilight Zone" host (10 letters) Answer: Rod Serling