Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Kimmel got invite to invest in Knights
WHEN Jimmy Kimmel pulled into the parking lot outside the “Real Time With Bill Maher” studio in L.A., he noticed the open slot next to him was reserved for “D. Strawberry.”
During the Friday’s broadcast of the HBO talk show, Kimmel told Maher he’d parked next to that slot.
“I thought, ‘Darryl Strawberry is here!’ Like an idiot I’m sitting in the dressing room thinking, ‘Boy, nobody has mentioned Darryl Strawberry,’ ” Kimmel said. “Then I thought, ‘Oh, Bill is Darryl Strawberry!’ ”
The parking bumper is a joke, referring to Maher’s investment in the New York Mets.
“That’s a fake name we’ve been using so people won’t know it’s me,” Maher said.
Maher then told Kimmel he’d been writing checks the entire last year, to cover debt from the Mets’ losses from 2019 and into 2020.
“We didn’t play baseball for 100 games,” Maher said. “And then when we did, we weren’t selling hot dogs.”
Kimmel then told Maher, “Your advice, when you told me about the situation with the Mets — I was offered a piece of the Las Vegas hockey team, the Golden Knights, the NHL team. They said, ‘We’d like to sell you 1 percent of the Golden Knights.’ It’s a great honor, and I thought about Bill, and I thought he didn’t seem that enthused about owning the Mets.”
“I did, until the pandemic came along,” Maher answered. “By the way, I still made out like a (expletive) bandit, even with all of that. I was right. It’s the best investment, not the Vegas hockey team.”
“They went to the Stanley Cup in their first season!” Kimmel, a big Golden Knights fan, called back.
“Who gives a (expletive)?” Maher countered. “It’s hockey.”
The audience (and Maher’s show does allow a socially distant live audience) laughed.
Kimmel later referred to his comedy haven at Linq Promenade in the present tense. “I have a comedy club there,” he reminded. That’s encouraging, as for several months we have been seeking a formal update on Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club’s plan to reopen (the latest word is, it will when public-gathering restrictions are closer to full capacity).
Maher and Kimmel also bantered about Kimmel’s upbringing in Vegas, and Maher’s sidelined residency in The Mirage’s “Aces of Comedy Series.”
“The thing I miss the most in 2020 is touring. I miss Vegas, The Mirage,” Maher said. “But I couldn’t live there. I love Vegas for the weekend. You grew up there. What was that like? How did that shape you?”
“It’s funny, when people ask you about growing up in Las Vegas, it’s as if you grew up in a pirate ship,” Kimmel said. “It’s like, ‘Was it scary? Were you drunk all the time? Did you lose an eye?’”
Kimmel recalled a pandemic RV road trip he and his family made to Idaho, where he has purchased a home. They were camping, residing inside tents in a campground in Utah. Kimmel said, “Let’s drive to Vegas!”
The family pulled up and trekked to the Strip.
“We drove to Caesars Palace,” Kimmel said. “You can park RVs at Caesars Palace, and that’s where we spent the last night.”
Goodman backs Brown
Oscar Goodman has tried to talk the Westgate SuperBook into moving the Super Bowl LV line from Kansas City minus-3 to 3½.
He didn’t have the clout. “I went to management and tried to lean on them a little bit, but they said, ‘You’re not the mayor anymore. Don’t bother us,’” Goodman said Friday during a visit to the SuperBook for his annual Super Bowl wager. “They wouldn’t give me the extra half-point unless I paid for it.”
There is an option for big-money bettors to pay for that half point. But Goodman would wasn’t buying it.
Goodman wants to make what he calls a “sentimental” bet on the seemingly ageless Tom Brady and Tampa Bay to cover a 3½-point spread. Of course, an extra half point would make him a winner if the Buccaneers could lose by a field goal or less (or, win the game).
The move from 3 to 3½ represents a big half-point for NFL bettors.
Instead, the former mayor of Las Vegas bet a different prop, the Bucs’ Antonio Brown to score a touchdown at 2-to-1 odds. He did not bet the 56-point total, but did offer that he felt the game would be high-scoring.
The oft-troubled Brown, who briefly was on the Raiders’ roster in 2019, is a classic underdog as he enters the Super Bowl. The 32-year-old Brown is listed as “questionable” because of a knee injury but did practice Thursday and Friday.
Goodman reasons the Buccaneers’ Brady will want to reward Brown for reviving his career in Tampa Bay.
”I think Brady will show that it was right for the team to take a chance with Brown,” Goodman said. “I think he’ll have a lot of motivation to get him a Super Bowl touchdown.”
Goodman wagered $100 on Brown.
“That’s all Carolyn would give me,” Goodman said, referring to Carolyn Goodman, his wife and the current mayor.