Morning briefing

Wild start leads to a rare result

Creighton defeated North Dakota State, 2-0, in a college baseball game Wednesday, in a game that featured one of the rarest feats in baseball as two North Dakota State pitchers combined on a no-hitter and lost.

Chad Berg walked four of the first six batters of the game, allowing Creighton to score its first run, then hit Joe Servais with a pitch to make the score 2-0. Berg was replaced by Chris Paterson, who finished the game without giving up a hit.

Creighton Coach Ed Servais said he hadn’t seen anything like it in his 40 years in the sport.

“Baseball is a strange, strange game,” he said.

Trivia time

How many times in the modern era has a major league team lost when its pitchers threw no-hitters?

Rocking the house

During their run to the World Series last October, the Colorado Rockies launched a marketing campaign built around the term “Rocktober.”

Now, the team is one step closer to owning the rights to that term after obtaining a key approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to a report on 9news.com, the website of a Denver television station.

Of course, in order for the trademark to reap any benefits, the Rockies would probably have to be playing in October, a prospect that wasn’t looking good after the team’s 1-5 start this season.

Now do you believe?

Rory Sabbatini won the Masters Par-3 Contest on Wednesday by shooting five-under 22 and immediately dropped out of contention to win the year’s first major.

The par-3 contest has taken place since 1960 and no winner has gone on to take the Masters.

“You can’t break the curse unless you’ve won the par-3 contest to start with,” said Sabbatini, who tied for second at the Masters last year.

“I’m not a very superstitious person. I don’t believe in curses.”

On Thursday, Sabbatini shot an opening-round three-over 75, seven strokes out of the lead and in a tie for 52nd place.

No kidding around

The Par-3 Contest has a tradition of players using children as caddies and/or proxy putters, which gives Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne hope that Tiger Woods will play the Masters prelude in the future.

Woods, who skipped the contest for the fourth consecutive year, has a daughter, Sam Alexis, who is almost 10 months old.

“I have instructed them to save for the future those little caddie uniforms in Sam’s size,” Payne said.

Court of public opinion

Sacramento Kings forward Ron Artest can opt out of his contract and become a free agent this summer, and he told the Sacramento Bee that part of the decision-making process would entail scouring Internet message boards.

“If I’m going to be in Sacramento, I want to know what the community is thinking about me,” he said in an interview with the paper. “[After] that last game, it was ‘Ron Artest don’t pass the ball,’ and one guy said he didn’t want me in Sacramento, I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

Trivia answer

Twice. Ken Johnson of Houston no-hit Cincinnati in 1964 and lost, 1-0, and Steve Barber and Stu Miller of Baltimore combined on a no-hitter against Detroit in 1967 and lost, 2-1.

And finally

The Miami Heat, sporting the NBA’s worst record at 14-64, announced a “Ten Gets You In!” promotion, offering season tickets for $10 a game for 2008-09.

It’s better known by its other name: “You get what you pay for.”

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peter.yoon@latimes.com