For some people, the 11 o’clock SportsCenter matinee will be their date this Friday.

Not me. Though rejected twice for a Valentine’s date, I still have one strike left.

Who’s gonna be the lucky girl?

Or who’s going throw that sinking curve for a third strike and send me packing to the showers, a plastic keg cup filled with warm beer and an “oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to be leading you on” kick in the jimmy?

In sports, there is no sob session; there’s jam session. There’s no pillow talk; there’s pressroom back talk. But athletes – and sportswriters – need lots of love, too.

If you want to talk about trying too hard, just catch a whiff of what 363-year-old dinosaur Rickey Henderson is smoking. Henderson will try to surpass Franklin Roosevelt by vying for an unprecedented fifth term with the Oakland Athletics. Rickey pulled the hackneyed used-car salesman shtick by showing up, uninvited and unwanted, to an A’s fan function looking for a job earlier this week.

The only thing still functioning in baseball’s all-time leader in steals, runs and walks might be his mouth, and he probably greases that motor more than flossing his pearly whites.

If and when Rickey Henderson finally gives up the ghost and hands over his yellow and green A’s jersey to high school basketball phenom LeBron James, will James get the boot from hoops for accepting a retro jersey?

I thought LeBron was playing pro basketball just the other day. You mean that was high school basketball on ESPN? Nationally televised, too. No way. And this kid’s from Ohio.

Didn’t Baby Jordan II almost get kicked out of the high school game for driving a tank? LeBron shouldn’t cringe: He’ll receive more Valentine’s Day smooches than Jennifer Love Hewitt at a singles bar. Baby Jordan I, aka Harold Minor, was a pro a long, long time ago. Then he got bald.

And last but definitely not least, somebody blow a kiss to Ms. Teresa Phillips. Unless there’s a conflicting Tupperware party, Phillips will become the first woman to coach a Division I men’s basketball team tonight when she leads Tennessee State against Austin Peay in Clarksville, Tenn.

Phillips is in for a doozy. If she wins, she’ll be 1-0 and hailed as Joan of Arc of the laughingstock 2-25 Tennessee State squad. If not, she’ll probably settle for SportsCenter.

Eliav Appelbaum is the Daily Nexus’ co-sports editor and is crossing his fingers that a hot date will be in his weekend plans.