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Insufficient relief

In taking two of the first three games from the Wingnuts at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium this week, Sioux Falls showed its superior offense and starting pitching. Despite Kevin Cheppenko's best efforts to match the Canaries' relief pitching in the series finale on Thursday, Sioux Falls proved its bullpen is more balanced.

Canaries relievers combined for 4 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing Sioux Falls to hold on for a 6-5 win.

Sioux Falls is sending three starting pitchers to the All-Star game later this month, but on Thursday the American Association North Division first-half champions showed their bullpen can be dominant, too.

"I'd say I fear their bullpen a little more than their starters," Wichita third baseman Michael Thompson said. "I felt really comfortable against every starter in the series, but once they get into that bullpen, they've got some guys who can throw."

Former Wichita State baseball player Phil Stephenson and former Yankees Ralph Terry and Mike Torrez highlight the 10-person induction class announced by the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday.

The induction ceremony will be held Oct. 5.

For Stephenson, it will be the fourth hall of fame honor in Wichita, joining the Shocker Sports Hall, Kansas Baseball Hall and Wichita Sports Hall.

GARY BENDER

Ulysses

Practices for the Houston Rockets' summer-league team officially begin today, but Russell Robinson has been in town since Monday working out with the coaches.

Does that surprise anyone?

Guys who win without creating a big stir for themselves are usually the ones quietly giving the extra effort.

So as the only starter on KU's 2008 national championship team who was not selected in last month's NBA Draft, Robinson has been hard at work trying to prove himself as a rookie free agent.

"It doesn't matter how I get there," Robinson said after a Thursday's three-hour workout. "Just so I get there."

There's much to love about MacDonald Golf Course's picturesque, par-3 17th hole.

The elevated tee offers a panoramic view. A narrow green nestles between two bunkers and is framed by a pond in front and trees and stream to the right.

But for John Loomis, the real eye candy on Thursday afternoon was a narrow concrete slab that controls water flow into the pond.

Loomis' off-target tee shot got a fortunate bounce off the dam and landed safely near the green. The Heights High math teacher parlayed the break into a late rally that lifted him past Jack Courington 1 up in the Wichita Golf Association match play tournament semifinals.

Loomis will face 2007 runnerup Cameron Bishop at 7:50 a.m. today for the championship flight title. Bishop, a former Wichita State golfer, edged Courington's Missouri State teammate, Scott Glenn, 3 and 2 in the other semifinal.

Tony Stewart knows he's taking a gamble by leaving NASCAR's elite Joe Gibbs Racing team to join one that usually runs in the middle of the pack.

But Stewart also can imagine what it might feel like to be in victory lane at the Daytona 500 both as a driver and a car owner, so it's a risk he's willing to take.

Having recently negotiated a release from his Gibbs contract at the end of this season, the two-time Cup series champion announced Thursday that he will join the team currently known as Haas-CNC as an owner-driver in 2009.

"There's no guarantees that this is going to be successful," Stewart said. "But after sitting down and evaluating what the potential of this team is, I wouldn't have made this decision if I didn't think it would be successful and if I didn't think it had the potential to be great."

Stewart will be given a 50 percent ownership stake in the team, which will be renamed Stewart-Haas Racing. The two-car team currently fields the No. 66 car for Scott Riggs and the No. 70 car for Jason Leffler, and both cars are outside the top 35 in owners points going into Saturday's race at Chicagoland Speedway.

Paula Creamer knew she was playing well. She was surprised just how well.

Creamer birdied nine of the last 11 holes, including the final three, for a course-record 60 on the par-71 Highland Meadows layout Thursday. She held a five-stroke lead after the opening round of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic in Sylvania, Ohio.

Only after she finished did she realize how close she came to golf's magic number of 59.

"I didn't know it was a par 71," Creamer said with a laugh. "I thought it was a par 72. If I would have known that, who knows?"

Creamer couldn't have done much better. She would have had to hole out a 137-yard, 7-iron from the fairway to shoot 59. She rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt for her 60 -- her best round on tour by four strokes.

Wichita State pitcher Aaron Shafer signed with the Chicago Cubs on Thursday. Shafer, the Cubs' second-round pick, was 11-4 with a 3.26 ERA as a junior with the Shockers. Terms of the deal were not annouced; a report earlier in the week at Scout.com indicated he would receive a $625,000 signing bonus.

MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

A scheduled 10-bout mixed martial arts card will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at First Council Casino in Newkirk, Okla. Tickets are $25. Call 405-364-3700 for information.

SOCCER

Jimmy Conrad matched a career high with his fourth goal of the season, leading the Kansas City Wizards to a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Thursday in Kansas City, Kan.

SUPER-BESSE, France -- Kim Kirchen pulled on the yellow jersey at the Tour de France on Thursday, the first Luxembourg rider in 50 years to lead cycling's showcase race.

He finished fifth in the sixth stage, which was won by Italy's Riccardo Ricco. Kirchen was seventh in the Tour last year and is simply happy to have the jersey for now.

"I've been a bit surprised by my shape," he said. "Now I want to take the race day by day. I want to see what happens in the Pyrenees. And if it goes well in the Pyrenees, we'll see in the Alps, and in Paris. Everything is possible."

The last Luxembourg rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour was Charly Gaul. He went on to win the 1958 race.

Ricco finished ahead of two top riders -- Spain's Alejandro Valverde, who was heavily bandaged after a fall Wednesday, and Australia's Cadel Evans.

Calendar

Space precludes us from running all listings. To see all listings, go to Kansas.com/sports and click on "Other Sports."

Basketball

• July 29: Heart of America Womens Nike All-American Showcase, junior and senior high school girls, July 29 at Shawnee Mission South High School, Overland Park. Call Sam Ward, 913-207-5515 or email kansasdreamteam@yahoo.com.

• July 29-31: Heart of America Womens Nike NCAA Showcase, girls 8th-12th grade, at SM South High, Overland Park. Call Sam Ward, 913-207-5515 or e-mail kansasdreamteam@yahoo.com.

CityArts is having its annual garage sale on Saturday. Here are the details you need to know:

1) Sellers are local residents who are hoping to make a few dollars for artworks they no longer want. Paintings, sculptures, glass, jewelry and more will be available.

2) Some of the works have been created by the sellers themselves. Besides art, shoppers can buy unused art supplies and books, too.

3) This is the 10th year that CityArts has sponsored the garage sale. Admission to the garage sale is free.

The Art Garage Sale is open to the public and will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at CityArts, 334 N. Mead, in Old Town. For more information, call 316-462-2787.

Like its title character, "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is funny, childish, undisciplined, ill-mannered and really something to look at.

Guillermo del Toro's sequel to his hero-from-Hades movie is imaginative beyond belief, even as it borrows freely from "X-Men," "Lord of the Rings" and the Marx brothers. If weird-powered people have got to save the world, del Toro reckons, they may as well do it as peculiarly as possible.

I'm not really sure what Hellboy is -- the result of some Satanic/Nazi hybridization gone wrong, I think. The red-skinned giant with the pointy tail and battering-ram hand is a good guy, though a particularly sarcastic and surly one. But it's easy to have empathy for the freak, particularly the way Ron Perlman plays him under acres of crimson appliances, especially now that Hellboy is beginning to see that the people he protects mostly despise him.

This realization dawns as a thousands-of-years-old, white-faced elf prince, Nuada (Luke Goss), decides it's time for all the ogres and fairies and other magical folk who've been laying low for centuries to reclaim Earth from the humans who are destroying it. To do this, he plans to call the dormant, mechanical Golden Army back into action. But for it to work, Nuada needs part of a crown his twin sister, Nuala (Anna Walton), holds, and she's not about to give it up so Nuada can wreak havoc.

Call in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. That's Hellboy and his girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who bursts into flames whenever she's upset; their erudite fish-man pal Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, on both voice and rubber-suit duty this time -- David Hyde Pierce did the talking in the first "Hellboy"); and a new odd thing: Krauss, a by-the-book Prussian type who's really just an ectoplasmic mist contained in a retro diving-bell-type suit ("Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane does the vocal honors). They try to keep Nuala and her crown piece out of Nuada's hands while fighting off his many minions, which range in size from insects to a blocklong eco-creature.

Grab a picnic basket, some lawn chairs and your dancing shoes. It's time to boogie. For free.

Strictly Blues of Kansas, an organization founded by local musician Kent Overaker, is hosting a free summer concert series called Blues in the Park.

Jimmy Lewin & the King Tones and the RKO Blues band will be featured in the next concert, from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Concerts will be in Central Riverside Park, next to the Riverside Tennis Center at 551 Nims.

"We are promoting blues roots music," Overaker said. "It's a festival atmosphere. There are families and kids and even some dancing."

Food and art vendors will be selling everything from homemade ice cream to T-shirts as local and regional musicians pay tribute to the blues.

Brendan Fraser has a theory on why he does so well with kids.

"Cause I've got permanent Great Dane puppy-syndrome," he says, erupting into a loud giggle and pawing at the arm of a couch. "You know -- when you don't know how big you are."

And certainly that seems to help, as do the giant gumball-size eyes and rubber-band jaw muscles.

But we have another theory: reverence for his young audience.

"Look at the questions that were asked tonight," Fraser continues, after a Q&A session that followed a screening of his new adventure flick, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." "The most precise details came from the mouths of babes....You can't kid a kid."

A Wichita family is using its wide-ranging enthusiasms -- for music, drink, food and art -- to bring nighttime fun to a corner of College Hill.

"My dream was to give people an alternative to Old Town," said Becca Thomas, owner of the Bay Leaf Cafe, 3700 E. Douglas.

Thomas, 26, opened her place in October, in the quaint cottage-like building that had housed Everyday Gourmet. Tucked into Clifton Square shopping center, its patio has been buzzing "every time we have live music," she said.

A former waitress and bartender, Thomas is quick to credit her parents -- clinical psychologist Steve Amos and artist Paula Plott Amos -- for helping her.

They've provided more than a down payment. Steve Amos, a musician and songwriter, helps host open-mike sessions for songwriters the first three Saturday nights of each month, choosing three or four to return for a "showcase" on the fourth Saturday.

In recent years, Cabaret Oldtown has become known for its original musical revues featuring 40 to 60 well-known songs melded together under a theme, like the 1960s, 1970s or the recent "Cabaret Goes Country!"

But Christi Moore, co-owner the past three years, thought it was time for a change of pace. Today, the theater is opening a new full-book musical, "Married Alive," which celebrates couple relationships through the eyes of two couples: one newly wed and one celebrating their 25th anniversary.

It's in the vein of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" and "I Do, I Do" as it tackles all the impediments to happily ever after, from work to debt to misbehaving kids and bedroom boredom. Each comes with its own musical moment encompassing doo-wop, gospel, old-fashioned show-tune stylings and even a bit of rap.

"It's a little bit different from what we usually offer," joked Moore, who will direct. "What I like is that it is a very funny show but with some poignant moments that make you think. It's a comedy about marriage, but it hits a lot of truth. The part about how men and women take different approaches to fighting fair could have been taken from a transcript of me and my husband, Mark (Leslie)."

There are 14 original songs. Among catchy titles are "Stupid in Love," which pits the dewy-eyed and nai(uml)ve younger couple against the wiser, been-there-done-that older couple; "Fly to Me," about conflicts between career and home; "We Owe Money," about couples adjusting to each other's spending habits; and "Oh, Knocked Up," about preparing for a bundle of joy.

"Journey to the Center of the Earth" would be a forgettable summer kiddie action movie except for the novel visual effects that make it a sight to see.

"Journey" is the first fiction feature shot with new-generation digital 3-D cameras. There would be no reason to see the film if it weren't stereoscopic; but in 3-D capable theaters, it's a through-the-looking-glass experience.

A modern reworking of the classic Jules Verne adventure, the film stars Brendan Fraser as Trevor, a genial geology professor whose volcano lab is about to be shut down by the penny-pinching dean. That's a personal outrage to Trevor, who is carrying on research started by his brother Max, who disappeared 10 years earlier hunting "volcanic tubes" that he believed would lead directly to the planet's core. During a visit from Max's bored, bratty adolescent son Sean (Josh Hutcherson), Trevor finds data in Verne's novel of subterranean exploration that parallel his findings. With Josh in tow, he embarks for Iceland to explore Max's expedition site.

There are no significant female characters in Verne's book, but that was 19th-century France, and this is Hollywood 2008. So we have the brave, adventurous and capable mountain guide Hannah (Icelandic actress Anita Briem) along for the ride. After a cave-in traps them in a mine, the trio find themselves in a world of jewel-encrusted caverns, dinosaurs, carnivorous plants and saber-toothed flying fish.

The film has about as much plot as a log flume ride. The story is in the tour of the underground wonderland, with Trevor and Sean playing baseball with the leaping prehistoric piranhas, a T-rex chase and a runaway minecart sequence. What little character development arises between potholes and pitfalls comes from a silly cross-generational rivalry by Trevor and Sean for Hannah's affections.

He's been called "one of America's greatest voices" by Dave Marsh, one of America's greatest music chroniclers.

You can hear Jimmy LaFave for yourself Sunday, when the Austin troubadour performs at the Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine.

LaFave, also known for his rootsy songwriting, is bringing his band with him from the Woody Guthrie festival he helped start in Okemah, Okla.

LaFave said he hasn't played this area since a hazily remembered bar gig in the '70s, but he used to drive a truck around western Kansas oil fields, saving melodies and lyrics on a cassette recorder.

"I'm not really good at making up things," he said. "I like writing from things I observed or things that happened."

Automobilia's 14th Moonlight Car Show and Street Party on Saturday will have close to a thousand cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles on display in downtown Wichita, each with its own story.

Larry Hanafin's 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air will be one of them. His story won't include a five-figure restoration or rare collector car status.

Instead, it involves tender care and a cup.

Hanafin's white four-door reads only a little more than 67,000 miles on the odometer, and he's convinced that the bulk of the pristine paint, interior and drivetrain are as they were when the car rolled off the assembly line 48 years ago.

Which leads to the most intriguing part of the car: A small piece of General Motors history was left inside the trunk when the car left the plant.

Automobilia's 14th Moonlight Car Show and Street Party on Saturday will have close to a thousand cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles on display in downtown Wichita, each with its own story.

Larry Hanafin's 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air will be one of them. His story won't include a five-figure restoration or rare collector car status.

Instead, it involves tender care and a cup.

Hanafin's white four-door reads only a little more than 67,000 miles on the odometer, and he's convinced that the bulk of the pristine paint, interior and drivetrain are as they were when the car rolled off the assembly line 48 years ago.

Which leads to the most intriguing part of the car: A small piece of General Motors history was left inside the trunk when the car left the plant.