Sports Beat

She took a gamble when she picked pretty boy Jason Peoples over nice guy Adam Mesh in the first season of Average Joe, but now Melana Scantlin (below) is covering risky wagers from the sidelines. The former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader is the roving reporter for the Game Show Network's new show The World Series of Blackjack. Hoping to capitalize on the success of The World Series of Poker, the blackjack show was shot at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut and pits players against each other as well as the house for a $100,000 purse. After the series premiere last week, The Chicago Tribune wrote that Scantlin "does not sparkle in her role. Her diction is sloppy, questioning of the losing player perfunctory. But maybe she just wasn't interested in him because he was mediocre looking."

?Designer Joseph Abboud ran a two-page ad in last week's New York Times Sunday Magazine that featured Petr Nedved, Alex Kovalev and Anson Carter showing off Abboud's gear. The ad, which described the trio as New York Rangers, read, "No matter where we're from, New York is home. We're all working toward the same goal." Uh, small problem: All three players have been traded away by the Blue-shirts in the past two months as part of the organization's rebuilding effort.

?It was a walk to remember when Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open last year and made his way through the stands to plant one on his girlfriend, actress-singer Mandy Moore. But now it looks as if the game's over for Andy and Mandy. Friends of the tennis star reportedly said he got "sick of the Hollywood thing" and wanted to concentrate on his game instead of his long-distance relationship. Almost two years ago Moore, 19, saw a picture of Roddick, 21, in a magazine and sent her mother to meet him at a Toronto tournament and bring him back to the set for her film How to Deal. Now she's dealing with the breakup. Though her agent denies the split, Moore told YM magazine in its March issue, "He doesn't like L.A. very much" and "[he] doesn't care about the industry. I don't think he 100 percent understands it and nor does he want to."...

Newport Beach, Calif., may be the safest place in the country to have a heart attack, thanks to Lakers forward Karl Malone and his agent, Dwight Manley. The two split $81,000 of the $91,000 cost for 45 defibrillators to be placed in each of the city's police cars. (The community raised the last $10,000.) Malone became interested in the cause when his mother, Shirley, died last August at the age of 64 from a massive heart attack. "Karl always wondered if his mother would still be alive if there was a defibrillator in the police car that came to her house," Manley said. "He wanted to do whatever he could to help prevent people from asking the same question in the future."...

Give Tonya Harding this: What she lacks in grammar skills, she makes up for with principles. When Dan Patrick offered the skater turned pugilist the chance to box Phil the Showkiller, a regular on his ESPN radio show, Harding declined. She said, "I'm not going to make a skeptical [sic] out of my boxing career."