Sportsfrog.com

• Reggie Bush failed to show up for a scheduled deposition on Monday, the latest twist in the civil lawsuit against the former Heisman Trophy winner who allegedly accepted cash and gifts from sports marketers during his sophomore and junior seasons at Southern California.

“He literally ran from his deposition,” said Brian Watkins, the attorney for sports marketer Lloyd Lake, who is suing Bush. And he ran 23 yards, but most of it sideways, gaining only 6 yards total.

• Peter King: ” I actually saw the scouting combine Sunday afternoon for the first time in my life” now that’s coverage. To write about football for years and never attend a combine. You can just sit at home, in your mother’s basement and watch games and then write about it. But you make things up and have no sources. (Channeling my inner Tony Kornheiser)

• As if they don’t get paid enough already. All players who travel to Tokyo for the season-opening series between Oakland and Boston will receive $40,000, according to Major League Baseball officials, and that figure could rise depending on how much revenue the event creates. Because the two big-league games have sold out, it’s likely that the players each will get at least an additional $5,000.

There had been rumblings that the Red Sox players had held out for more, and there was some concern in the Oakland clubhouse that Boston’s participants might wind up with a bigger payout than the A’s.

• The Hardball Times, always a solid read, with shit loads of graphs and stats that will provide masterbation material for a few of you (you know who you are) has an article up on the best pitch in baseball.

“Is it Johan Santana’s changeup or Jon Papelbon’s four-seamer? Maybe Fausto Carmona’s wicked sinker or Mariano Rivera’s mythical cutter? Smoltz’s slider is right there and Josh Beckett’s curveball has to be in the discussion, right? So, who has the very best pitch in the game?”

• Larry Walker talks about the steriod era. He does make some excellent points, but he seems to forget he played in Coors BH. (Before Humidor)

“Gee, I might go into the Hall of Fame now,” Walker said he joked. “There’s nobody left from when I retired. I’m the only one that year who didn’t get busted.”

• Sam Cassell acknowledged Monday that he is seeking a buyout of his contract with the Los Angeles Clippers, “My ship is arriving soon to take me back to my home planet. I need to get the hell out of here.”

• Your latest NFL arrrest? Let’s say its a lineman not known for mental stability. Of course it happened in South Beach.

Bryant McKinnie was charged with aggravated battery and disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence after a street brawl outside Club Space early Sunday morning.

Miami police found McKinnie “in the middle of a large crowd, throwing punches and again yelling obscenities,” according to the police report.

Sounds like normal lineman behavior actually.

• The neck beard still lives. Figuring that Rex Grossman wasn’t quite enough to lose the Bears have extended Kyle Orton. The Chicago Bears and quarterback Kyle Orton agreed Monday on a one-year contract extension that runs through the 2009 season, setting up a competition between him and Rex Grossman.