Text messages from press row ...

Stephen Colbert swung and missed Tuesday night when he said at the top of his Comedy Central show, “I’m like my own All-Star game in that tonight, I’m also not trying very hard.” . . .

Finally, an All-Star game worth remembering. . . .

If you could stay awake. . . .

It was a fitting sendoff for Yankee Stadium, but a more appropriate swan song for the former home of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, et al., would be a game played in cool, blustery conditions in late October, with a World Series championship riding on the outcome. . . .

As it stands now, the finale is scheduled for Sept. 21. . . .

Thanks to Tuesday’s 15th-inning sacrifice fly by former La Puente Bishop Amat High star Michael Young of the Texas Rangers, the American League will have home-field advantage in the World Series for the seventh year in a row. . . .

The last time a National League team had the home-field edge, in 2001, the Arizona Diamondbacks won Game 7 against the Yankees on a run-scoring single by Luis Gonzalez against Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the ninth inning. . . .

The Clippers, basically given Marcus Camby by the Denver Nuggets, are lucky the NBA didn’t take up the suggestion by San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich that it create a trade-advisory group with veto power. . . .

You remember: After the Lakers obtained Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzles for a package that included Kwame Brown, Popovich noted, “There should be a trade committee that can scratch all trades that make no sense. . . . I’d like to elect myself to that committee. I would have voted no to the L.A. trade.” . . .

He probably didn’t care much for this L.A. trade either. . . .

What a steal. . . .

The Clippers might be better off with Camby and Baron Davis than they were with Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, who in seven seasons together led Donald Sterling’s crew to exactly one playoff appearance. . . .

The Spectrum in Philadelphia, where a Lakers rookie named Magic Johnson staged his memorable 42-point, 15-rebound, seven-assist masterpiece in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, is scheduled to be demolished next year. . . .

The Spectrum also was the site of one of college basketball’s most famous games, Duke defeating Kentucky, 104-103, in the 1992 NCAA tournament’s East Regional final after Christian Laettner took a length-of-the-court pass from Grant Hill and hit a turnaround jumper as time expired in overtime. . . .

You might have seen a replay of it once or twice. . . .

Was that fan standing near the third base dugout Tuesday night in Yankee Stadium wearing a Rey Maualuga jersey? . . .

It sure looked like it. . . .

Speaking of USC football, the hyper in-demand Trojans have upped the seating capacity in the Coliseum from 92,000 to 93,607, adding seats in lower northeast and southeast sections of the stadium, after studying how the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox crammed it full for an exhibition in March. . . .

Comedian Jerry Wolski, noting that Boston stripper Candice Houlihan claims her dalliance with Alex Rodriguez during the 2004 American League Championship Series helped the Boston Red Sox end an 86-year drought between World Series championships: “Hoping that lightning strikes twice, Houlihan has been offered a job by a Chicago gentlemen’s club near Wrigley Field.” . . .

It’s not as if quarterback Nick Montana, son of NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana and a recent transfer from Northern California prep football power Concord De La Salle High to Westlake Village Oaks Christian, has no Southland roots. . . .

His mother, Jennifer, is from Redondo Beach. . . .

Nobody who knew Matt McHale, the too-young-to-die former Southland sportswriter who will be buried Friday in Connecticut, ever met a man with a sweeter disposition or a warmer, more compassionate heart. . . .

As Bruce Springsteen sings in “Terry’s Song,” a heartfelt tribute to a fallen comrade, “Now your death is upon us and we’ll return your ashes to the earth/And I know you’ll take comfort in knowing you’ve been roundly blessed and cursed/But love is a power greater than death, just like the songs and stories told/And when she built you, brother, she broke the mold.” . . .

RIP, Matty. . . .

You were a friend indeed.

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jerome.crowe@latimes.com