Weird tale of Chris Brown, the erratic 1980s journeyman third baseman, who appears to have killed himself in an arson in Sugar Land.

My father told me about a local Houston furniture store that offered free furniture to anyone who bought over a certain amount over the weekend if the hapless Houston Texans football team beat the then-undefeated Indianapolis Colts in Indianapolis. It must have moved some furniture, and certainly got the store free publicity, so a Southern California furniture store tried the same tactic when the mediocre UCLA Bruins played the #2-ranked USC Trojans, who had won seven straight matchups in the cross-town rivalry, and were a 11-to-13 point favorite. Oops.

I had presumed the Houston store hedged its 50-50 bet with customers by putting a few thousand dollars on the underdog moneyline in Las Vegas, but there's no mention of that in the LA Times story.