You know, the one where he made a bunch of shit up. Memo:

Larry King Newsmaker
Date: 9/23/2009
Location: Bristol - Building 4, 1st Fl., Content Conference Rooms A, B & C
Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Please RSVP by 9/22/2009.

From John A.Walsh

Our next Newsmaker guest is Larry King, the Emmy Award winning host of
Larry King Live on CNN, and author of My Remarkable Journey, his
best-selling memoir.

Barnes & Noble in Canton, CT will extend an in-store 20% discount on
Larry King's My Remarkable Journey to any ESPN employee prior to
September 23, 2009. Please present your ESPN I.D. There will be a book
signing immediately following the Newsmaker.

Please plan to arrive by 11:45am. Lunch will be provided.

RSVP by Tuesday, September 22, 2009

In addition to his book promotion, Mr. King's been keeping busy doddering around his sons' baseball games and (thankfully) still hunting-and-pecking his way through Twitter. Some recent choice "Kingsthings"

• Sept. 14th: "The world is unfair to left handed people."

• Sept. 13th "Beyonce is a class act. We had her on in April. I liked her then and I like her even more now."

• Sept. 11th (never forget): "I don't know why but I don't like short sleeve shirts."

What is the deal with you guys not sending in anymore usable morning photos? It's getting downright pathetic. I should just deputize The Sports Hernia to fill this space every morning since they seem to be the only people willing to watch television for 12 straight hours with their DVR ready. Unless, you want more sheep?

Speaking of old, round-backed creatures: Long-time muse Larry King has started to annoy CNN with his TMI Twitters. Something about his lunch date with Ryan Seacrest irked the cable news channel and now King's taking his nonsensical musings elsewhere.

****

And good morning. It's Thursday. Whoop that trick.

In his forthcoming My Remarkable Journey, ol' Larry writes of a day spent at Calder back in 1971, when he was a spry 156 years old. Down at the heels and with $42 to his name, Larry bet his last dollar on a 70-1 filly, Lady Forli, wheeling her at the top of a trifecta that, miraculously, came through.

There was no question about it. The 11 won by five lengths. The 1 was three lengths ahead of the 9. I had every winning ticket. I had it to win. I had the exacta. I had the trifecta. I collected nearly eight thousand dollars. Eight thousand dollars!

Alas, it seems Larry has embroidered his history just a touch. According to Equibase, a Lady Forli was foaled in 1972, a chestnut. She ran three times in 1975 and never finished in the money. Larry might've won $8,000 off a horse in 1971, but it certainly wasn't off Lady Forli.

Now, the man has obviously lived a long, fascinating life, full of adventure and Teri Garr interviews, so maybe we should all give him the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe he just misremembers. Or maybe he really is fucking insane.

Excerpt: Betting my last dollar on a horse [CNN]

From My Remarkable Journey:

Things got bleaker and bleaker. I became a recluse. By late May, I was down to forty-two dollars. My rent was paid only until the end of the month. I locked myself in my apartment wondering how bad things could possibly get. Pretty soon I wouldn't even be able to afford cigarettes. I remembered a night when I was a young man in New York, alone, cold, and without cigarettes or the money to buy them — I had smashed open a vending machine to get a pack.

A friend called up and told me to start living like a human being again. He invited me to the track. I had nothing better to do, and I figured it would be good therapy to get out and have lunch with a friend and watch the horses come down the stretch.

I'll never forget that day. I put on a Pierre Cardin jeans outfit that had no pockets and drove to Calder Race Course. I can still see the horses warming up before the third race. There was a horse called Lady Forli — a filly running against males.

Normally, female horses don't beat males. We're talking cheap horses. I scanned the board and saw that she was 70-1. But my eyes really opened when I looked at the racing form. Racetrack people talk to each other. So I turned to the guy next to me and said, "You know, this horse, three races back, won in more or less the same company. Why is she 70-1?"

...

My birthday is November 19. Lady Forli was number 11. So I bet 11 to win, 1 to place, and 9 to show.

...

They broke out of the gate. The 1 broke on top, the 9 ran second, and the 11 came out third. The 11 passed the 9, passed the 1, and they ran in a straight line all around the track. There was no question about it. The 11 won by five lengths. The 1 was three lengths ahead of the 9. I had every winning ticket. I had it to win. I had the exacta. I had the trifecta. I collected nearly eight thousand dollars. Eight thousand dollars!

...

I paid my child support for the next year. I paid my rent for a year. I bought twenty cartons of cigarettes and stacked them up in my apartment, and I filled the refrigerator.

He's basically Charles Bukowski, if Charles Bukowski looked like a gargoyle in suspenders.

Also, no joke: Larry King really does have a Twitter: "What ever happened to galoshes?"; "in baseball... why 4 balls and 3 strikes??"; "why do some baseball players leave the brims of their hats flat?" He's back!

Excerpt: Betting my last dollar on a horse [CNN]
what ever happened to galoshes? [Twitter]
I Am Fucking Insane [The Onion]

The New York Observer is reporting that the 74-year-old King , who serves as a volunteer coach of his son's Beverly Hills Little League team, got into a shouting match with an ump on March 10th and was asked to spend the rest of the game watching it from the outfield.

One witness disagress with that re-telling, saying that the talk show Muppet was merely contesting the call, but wasn't at any point "banished."

At this time, King is still a volunteer coach, and only had this to say in response:

"That Teri Garr's one great little actress."

(Okay, he hasn't responded at all.)

Larry King Pitches Fit At Son's Little League Game [NY Observer]

Selections from the most recent Monday Morning Quarterback column:

• Carolina. Weird, unusual. But dominating.
• The CBS in-game football music. It's awful. You guys have to change it. I'll beg if I need to.
• I'm so odd I'm asking for bobbleheads for Christmas, and my kids look at me like I'm a very strange man.
• Charlotte's a nice, growing, comfortable downtown. Very nice. Good walking city too.
• House withdrawal. Missed it last week. Feel my pain?

Honestly, would a single one of those lines be out of place in a Larry King column? We're full expecting a "Look up a picture of 'class' in the dictionary, and you'll see a picture of Kurt Schottenheimer" sentence any day now.

Peter King Archive [SI.com]
I Am Fucking Insane [The Onion]

Just for fun, here's the classic Onion spoof on Larry King: I Am Fucking Insane. We're turning our radio dials to 11.

Go Ahead, Brooklyn [JS Online] (third item)
Sports a la King [SI.com]