The Beat

Adam Duerson

May 28, 2007

IS THERE anywhere a coach won't go to check out potential players? Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr spent last week Down Under as a guest of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby team and their owner, Russell Crowe. After Crowe (below) found out that Carr had shown his team Cinderella Man last year, he called Carr and asked him to pay a visit. Carr gave a talk to the Rabbitohs' players despite knowing, he says, "less than zero" about rugby. "One of my goals is to get an Australian kid to Michigan," Carr joked. "But Russell might get mad at me."... Not all minor league stories are as rosy as Bull Durham. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who wrote the acclaimed—and dark—Half Nelson, are working on Sugar, a drama about a baseball player from the Dominican Republic struggling to adapt to life in the minors in the Midwest.... Are the Brewers for real? Hollywood thinks so. This week when they were in town to play the Dodgers, Chris Capuano, Bill Hall, J.J. Hardy and Jeff Suppan filmed a cameo in The Young and the Restless. The quartet didn't have to act too hard to nail their roles: They played themselves. The episode will air on June 20.