Area softball districts at a glance

He's got sixth sense about that sort of thing

Geores Buttner-Clevenger, who is so hung up on sixes that he wanted to celebrate the final days of his 66th year by jogging 6 miles twice a day for six months and six days on Route 66, might soon start referring to it as Route 666.

The Berkeley, Calif., resident has been chased by dogs on his 2,448-mile trek from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., been bitten by ticks, nearly hit by cars, harassed by police, bruised by muggers, stricken with arthritis, and lost a camera and backpack to thieves. He plans to finish at 6:06 p.m. on Sunday.

"Every step I take I'm hurting," he told the Los Angeles Times. "My adrenaline is keeping me going now." As a result, one of his other scripted sixes -- 66 minutes per 6-mile run -- has fallen by the wayside. Credit the state in which he was mugged once and robbed twice.

"Oklahoma," he said, "made me a faster runner." Even better, Buttner-Clevenger turned 67 in June.

Who ate the batting donut?

If Krispy Kreme stock takes a dive, blame Kansas City Royals fans for eating into the profits.

The company is bracing itself for the bottom line on its season promotion, in which it promised a dozen doughnuts to K.C. fans any time the Royals amassed 12 hits in a home game. The Royals did it 27 times, meaning Krispy Kreme could be on the hook for 6.8 million freebies.

Fans have 23 more days to exchange their ticket stubs for calories, and as of Friday only 150,000 -- barely one-fourth of the possible total -- had taken advantage.

"We just thought it was a really catchy idea: a dozen for a dozen," said spokesman Kelly Lehman, not fathoming that the Royals, 100-game losers in 2002, would improve by 17 games this year. "What a season to have something like this happen."

Icing the voters

"Did you know that more than 500,000 Canadians have registered to play minor hockey this fall?" wrote Bill Lankhof of the Toronto Sun. "Did you know that over 30,000 Canadians are hockey officials? "Did you know that that nearly 5 million Canadians are involved in minor hockey at some level? "Did you know that this explains where everyone was Thursday when Ontario held an election and nobody showed up?"

Lip service

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, on onetime Yankees owner Col. Jacob Ruppert designing the team's classic pinstripes to help hide Babe Ruth's burgeoning boiler: "One alternative, of course, would have been the Corset of the Bambino."

Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com, on the possibility of the Chicago Bears, with 13 retired jerseys, someday running out of available uniform numbers: "Fortunately, in order to keep the situation from getting worse, the Bears have adopted a strict team policy of not developing any more great players."

Wimbledon, Class of 2021

It's no surprise, really, that Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi now have a baby girl -- Jaz Elle, born Friday in Las Vegas -- to go along with 23-month-old son Jaden Gil.

What, you expected two singles champs to combine for something besides mixed doubles?

-- Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times