The Beat

ESPN baseball analyst and Hall of Fame scribe Peter Gammons, long known as a maestro of the keyboard, is now a wizard of the fretboard too: His debut album, Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old, will be released on July 4. Gammons, 61, sings and plays guitar on a collection of originals and covers that include The Clash's Death or Glory and Warren Zevon's Model Citizen. Gammons got help from rock and roll pros such as George Thorogood and Juliana Hatfield and musically inclined big leaguers like the Reds' Bronson Arroyo and Red Sox pitchers Tim Wakefield and Lenny DiNardo.... NASCAR fans will get to see Dale Earnhardt turn left all over again in 2007. Earnhardt, who died in a crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, is the subject of a documentary narrated by Paul Newman and scheduled for release at the start of the 2007 Nextel Cup season. Dale will include unseen home videos and interviews with the Intimidator's friends and family.

? When it comes to his birthday, celebrating is a marathon, not a sprint, for nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis. Lewis, who's trying to launch an acting career, turns 45 on July 1 and is marking the occasion with a party pentathlon: five themed fetes (Sexy Sports Night and Polynesian Paradise, for example) across the country. The first was in Los Angeles on June 14, where Vivica A. Fox (left) helped him celebrate at a Brazilian-themed bash. The rest of Lewis's schedule includes parties in Houston (June 21), Atlanta (June 23), Miami (June 25) and Atlantic City (June 30).

? The NFL is saying "Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!" to a beloved stadium anthem, Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll, Part 2. In March, Glitter, who recorded the song in 1972, was sentenced to three years in a Vietnamese prison for child molestation, and this month NFL officials decided it was best to distance themselves from the 62-year-old English rocker, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd. They requested that teams not play his tune during games. "We're not looking to play the role of Simon Cowell," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told USA Today. "But we do advise teams on a series of game-day practices."

? The line between art and life is beginning to blur for at least one member of the cast of Entourage, HBO's series about the cushy existence of a young Hollywood star and his posse of pals. Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle, one of the hangers-on, helped a friend build a backyard Wiffle ball diamond in Los Angeles and started a weekly game with members of his own real-life entourage. The Brooklyn native, who still calls New York sports radio stations to talk baseball, even shelled out $3,000 for a video camera and editing equipment for a Wiffle ball documentary he shot and screened for his pals. To hear Ferrara tell it, Turtle and his friends would feel right at home in the game: "That's when you know you're good friends; when you can curse each other out and not take it personal."