A Fleeting Thought for the Name of New Team

The Long Beach Armada of the Golden Baseball League had a ceremony Thursday in which the team’s nickname and logo -- a conquistador at the helm of a ship -- were announced as the winners from a pool of more than 1,000 entries.

The independent league, which opens its inaugural season May 20 and features eight teams from California, Arizona and Mexico, is supported by such celebrity investors as Pat Sajak. The Armada will play at Blair Field in Long Beach.

“It’s a great feeling to finally have an identity that the community can get behind,” General Manager Mike Malinas said.

What, the Los Angeles Armada of Long Beach wasn’t catchy enough?

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Trivia time: How many Southern Section football titles did Santa Ana Mater Dei High win with Matt Leinart as its starting quarterback?

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Speak to me: A new venture called Incidental Contact is offering the women of Los Angeles the chance to talk sports with the opposite sex by conducting women-guided seminars that teach the basics of football, basketball and baseball.

“Many women would love to know how to watch games and understand what they are seeing,” a company spokesperson said. “Many men would like to share their favorite sports with women they know or women they may meet.”

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Heady profession: Factory workers are typically thought of as poor souls stuck with mindless tasks, but that’s apparently not the case at the Wilson football factory in Ada, Ohio, where more than 700,000 footballs are produced a year.

In a release to promote the specially formulated game balls that will be used in Super Bowl XXXIX, the sporting goods company said its workers were busy “cutting cowhide, stitching panels, pounding seams and inserting bladders.”

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Snow fooling: With frigid temperatures expected for NFL playoff games this weekend in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Foxboro, Mass., Hank Bauer, a former San Diego Charger special teams standout, recalled the conditions he faced during the “Freezer Bowl” AFC championship game in January 1982 between the Chargers and host Cincinnati Bengals.

The temperature of minus-nine was relatively balmy compared with the wind chill of minus-59.

“The ball is frozen, the laces are razor-sharp -- the passes are cutting the receivers’ hands, but they’re not bleeding because it’s so cold,” Bauer, a Charger broadcaster, told Associated Press. “It was just too cold to play football.”

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Trivia answer: One. Mater Dei tied Long Beach Poly, 21-21, in the 1999 Division I title game, and the teams were crowned co-champions. Leinart completed 15 of 30 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns. In two seasons as a starter at USC, Leinart has led the Trojans to two national championships.

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And finally: Shaquille O’Neal is busy these days trying to protect his sore ribs, according to Bill Scheft of Sports Illustrated. “I believe the last time Shaq had to wear a flak jacket,” Scheft wrote, “was when the reviews came out for ‘Kazaam.’ ”