John Genzale: Inside Out

Chef Tom Colicchio served roasted lamb with swiss chard, spring garlic and a lemon confit cabernet sauvignon sauce to Sports Illustrated guests at the Masters. Sports Illustrated brought the New York chef, who co-owns restaurants Gramercy Tavern and Craft, to Augusta to wine and dine clients, executives and writers. SI calls Colicchio its “culinary MVP.” He also cooked for the magazine’s guests at the Super Bowl and will be in Athens for the magazine this summer at the Olympic Games. … Incidentally, you all probably knew that first-time Masters winner Phil Mickelson is right-handed in everything he does except golf.

“Money,” said O.B. Keeler, the character played by Malcolm McDowell

Jim Caviezel goes from King of Kings to the Masters with new role.

in the new movie about gentleman golfer Bobby Jones, “will ruin sports.” In Atlanta, that line got cheers from the first audience to screen the film, according to executive producer Rick Eldridge. “But when we screened it at the Masters, the audience just laughed.” Jim Caviezel, fresh from his role in “The Passion of the Christ,” plays the title role in “Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius,” a Film Foundry feature to be released April 30 on 1,200 screens around the country.


Pressing on: No American women have gone there before. The Shapiro sisters, Michele and Robyn, who call themselves the Speed Sisters (speedsisters.com), will race across the Moroccan desert in the women’s Rallye Aicha des Gazelles, an eight-day, 1,550-mile rally over the Sahara that in 14 years has drawn women from all over the world, but never before Americans. Robyn, the navigator who will have only a compass and map, is an account executive at Saatchi & Saatchi. Michele, the driver, is the research editor at Glamour. She got the magazine to sponsor their bid along with Nissan, Bell (helmets) and Puma. … Vogue, in its May issue (on stands Sunday), will have a feature story on Alex Rodriguez. Why would a women’s fashion magazine do a feature on a male baseball player? “It’s not about fashion,” said the magazine’s director of communications, Patrick O’Connell. “It’s because he’s the man of the moment. He’s hot.”


So is poker. Josh Alloy, a Proskauer Rose associate who works on labor issues for Major League Baseball,

Liza Brown and Matthew Levy are betting that the poker craze will cross into fashion.

hones his negotiating skills by playing in no-limit, hold ’em poker tournaments. He recently finished sixth in a 1,200-person online tournament, and he’ll play in a live, 80-person tournament later this month in Connecticut. “The skills lawyers have work well in poker,” he said. “You practice reading the other guy, just like in negotiations.” … Poker is so hot, it has spawned a new fashion craze. Two fashion vets, Liza Brown and Matthew Levy, founded All Pink to sell poker T-shirts and necklaces made from century-old poker chips.


Entertainment and Sports International opened its Family Fun Fest, a baseball-oriented traveling road show, at the home opener of the Savannah (Ga.) Sand Gnats. The brainchild of ESI’s Bert Gould and Joe Owens will visit 50 minor league ballparks this summer. The Principal Financial Group is the title sponsor of the free parking-lot midway. It features batting cages, a museum, and interactive events by Microsoft’s Xbox, Topps and Louisville Slugger and an inflatable movie screen, which will show baseball features after games.


Around the horn: Richard Motzkin, the president and CEO of SportsNet LLC, the L.A. and D.C. representation firm that specializes in soccer, missed his 14-year-old client Freddy Adu’s first MLS game a week after his wife, Randee, gave birth to twins March 24. Eli and Sam join Eden, nearly 3, as Motzkin children. Adu’s D.C. United played the San Jose Earthquakes, who boast another SportsNet client, Landon Donovan. Motzkin said, “Family comes first.” He said both Adu and Donovan understand that and called with congratulations. … Manhattan Hell’s Kitchen activists unveiled their version of New York City’s Olympic logo (left, bottom) on the same day that New York City 2012 introduced its logo. John Fisher, an organizer in the coalition opposed to a new West Side stadium that would be used for the Games, said, “Our neighborhoods will not go quietly.”


Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant was loaded with old-timers last Monday for the launch party of the Maury Allen-Bill Liederman book, “Our Mickey.” Among the speakers were David Halberstam, whose 70th birthday was April 10; Marvin Miller, whose 87th birthday was last Wednesday; Ralph Branca, 78, who in 1951 threw the pitch that Bobby Thomson turned into “the shot heard ’round the world,” and Sal Yvars, 80, who made the last out for the Giants in the World Series that year.

John Genzale (jgenzale@nyc.rr.com) is founding editor of SportsBusiness Journal.