MANU GINOBILI

Ya all know I’m not a San Longoria Spurs fan, but I gotta give a little love to Manu Ginobili for his off-season work. Gino held a sports clinic for mentally handicapped children in Buenos Aires yesterday, and while there’s no mention of any other Spurs at the event, it certainly looks like a few were there. Funny thing is, while searching for more info on Manu’s good deed, I wasn’t able to find anything related to it. There may be more follow up info available on his foundations website, but its in Spanish and I only speak English, Italian and Mandarin…thanks for giving some love back Manu, you’ve earned a few hot points from D&D.

WE NEED MORE DIKEMBE’S IN THE WORLD

One of my favorite humanitarians, as you know, is Dikembe Mutombo. Aside from playing center for the Rockets, this mighty fine beast was educated at Georgetown University, speaks seven languages and has opened his hospital in the Congo. Mutombo spoke with Condé Nast Traveler’s Dorinda Elliott about why he gave $15 million to build a 300-bed hospital in his hometown, Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what he learned from Nelson Mandela. CNT: Why do you do all this good work? Mutombo: Since I was a child, I wanted to make a difference. I decided that when I became rich, I would use some of my profits to do good, to be part of change, maybe inspire people. CNT: What were some of the most moving moments in your humanitarian work? Mutombo: I took a trip with CARE from Nairobi to the border of Kenya. We were in the middle of nowhere, and you could see refugees coming across the border from Somalia. We watched children die after walking for days and days. We were distributing food, and we thought we were doing some good. But in a situation like that, you just don’t know if what you are doing is enough. CNT: What do you think of the celebrity do-gooder thing? Angelina, Brad—everybody is out saving the world. Mutombo: I think it’s so good. I hope we can use our fame and a little bit of our fortune to touch the lives of others. We’ve been blessed. We should now bless others. (Concierge.com) And now you know why Dikembe can do no wrong in my book.

MATT LEINART NOT A GOOD DADDY?
According to Brynn Cameron, Matt Leinart’s infamous baby-mama, the NFL hottie “comes and goes whenever he wants”. And big surprise, Brynn wants a large monthly stipend for all her hard work. TMZ has learned that the NFL pretty boy is locked in a raging legal fight with his ex-girlfriend, Brynn Cameron, over the couple’s 9-month-old son Cole. According to sources close to the case, Brynn wants Matt to hand over more than $30,000 per month, and Leinart’s pissed — having already bought her a car, as well as voluntarily giving her around six grand a month. The two are scheduled to hammer it out in court on August 13. (TMZ)

But Matt Leinart’s not the only one who pissed, Brynn opened up to the Ventura County Star last weekend and had these biting words about Mr. Leinart: “It’s kind of hard for me as the mom — I’m with Cole probably 99.9 percent of the time — to open a magazine or read a newspaper article with Matt saying, Oh, I love being a dad. I love changing diapers. I love doing this. I’m like, Wait, what?” said Cameron, who added, “I don’t know how to word how he is about this, but it’s been hard when I’m doing all the work, but he gets all the credit for it.” Cameron says she and Leinart have Cole’s best intentions in mind, but co-parenting is a challenge with two unique individuals. “I don’t want to sit here and bad-mouth his lifestyle, but it is hard because we are different people. He likes that Hollywood stuff and I don’t like that and raising a kid together, you have to work together as parents, but we’re so different,” Cameron said. “It’s hard, but I have to raise Cole to be a strong, secure kid so he knows what’s right and wrong, what’s good and bad and what really matters in life, which isn’t what’s going on in Hollywood or who’s dating who. That’s not what it’s all about, and I think he’ll know that being raised by me.”

PHIL LAAK VS COMPUTER

Phil Laak can now preen his feathers like a peacock and strut his poker skills hard. (Where was my Antonio Esfandiari for this event?) Last week, researchers pitted two of the finest poker playas against the first man-made Poker ‘robot’. “This robot is going to do just fine,” Laak predicted. The robot, considered the best of its kind in the world, had already been beaten by Laak several years ago, and the beast was so impressed that he estimated his edge at a mere 5 percent. Laak played with a partner, fellow pro Ali Eslami. The two were in separate rooms, and their games were mirror images of one another, with Eslami getting the cards that the computer received in its hands against Laak, and vice versa. That way, a lousy hand for one human player will result in a correspondingly strong hand for his partner in the other room. At the end of the tournament the chips of both humans were added together and compared to the computer’s…Poker Pages broke down the final session for us: The players returned for session 3 on 24th July at Noon. It was Laak v Polaris on the public table, and Polaris v Eslami on the private table. After 500 hands Phil Laak had beaten the machine by $1455. In some notable hands, Phil is dealt pocket 6’s, the board show Kc Ac Ah 2s 7s, Polaris shows Queen high and Phil’s 6’s hold up, he comments “Take that Polaris punk.” Earlier Phil had a pair of queens in the hole and Polaris hits him with a check raise on the river. Polaris shows King high and Phil thinks Polaris is “sick and cracked out!” On the private table it is Polaris (playing the same hands that Phil receives) v Eslami (playing the same hands as Polaris). The machine beats the human but only by $635, meaning the human team win session 3 by $820 to set up a deciding final session.

ASIAN FOOTBALL CUP VIOLENCE

It’s a beautiful game until the guns come out. Iraq won their way into the Asian Cup final with a tension filled semi-final against South Korea in which Iraq prevailed in a penalty-kick 4-3…so I guess we could have never seen this one coming…Two suicide car bombings struck soccer fans in Baghdad as they were celebrating, killing at least 27 people and wounding more than 100. The victims were among the thousands of revelers who took to the streets of the capital. The first attack took place about 6:30 p.m. when a bomber exploded in a crowd of people cheering near a well-known ice cream parlor in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Mansour, according to police and hospital officials. At least 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded, the officials said. Another suicide car bomber detonated his payload about 45 minutes later in the midst of dozens of vehicles filled with revelers near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the eastern district of Ghadeer, killing at least 16 people, including two soldiers, and wounding nearly 60, area officials said. (Yahoo) Can’t we all just get along. pa-leeze.

As always, thanks for reading. Delinda
delinda@athlebrities.