‘Brown’ for this Bunny

Playmate goin’ for Derby Double

Kentucky Derby Week in Louisville is filled with celebrations and parties leading up to Saturday’s big race. One of the top events is the Friday night Crown Royal Playboy Kentucky Derby party at the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center. Twelve Playboy Playmates will host the sexy soiree while celebrities, athletes and VIPs enjoy cocktails and dance.

Among the Playmates hosting the event is Miss August 2004 Pilar Lastra. The Texas-raised Lastra (far left in photo with Miss August 2001 Jennifer Walcott, (center) Miss May 1998 Deanna Brooks) is also an actress and a featured model on NBC’s “Deal or New Deal.” This will be the third year in a row she will attend the Derby festivities, and she has an opinion on who will win this year.

“Big Brown, really looks good and is undefeated, having the same record – 3 for 3 – coming into the Derby as my pick from last year, Curlin, the eventual Horse of the Year,” Lastra said. “I also like Pyro. He looked good winning in Louisiana. He is trained by Steve Asmussen, who was raised in Texas, just like me, and he also trained Curlin. I am hoping one of these horses gets post No. 14, because I am always loyal to my ‘Deal or No Deal’ number.”

Spray to go, kid

Joba Chamberlain says he met the person who paid $600 to $700 for the can of bug spray used in last year’s ALDS in Cleveland when Lake Erie midges invaded the mound in Game 2.

“I met the kid in Tampa, he said he paid $600 to $700 for it,” Chamberlain said of the can that was auctioned by MLB. “He said he worked in a garage. It’s a pretty funny story.”

After the spray didn’t work, Chamberlain packed his own remedy for this weekend’s visit to Progressive Field, which was Jacobs Field when the bugs help run the Yankees out of the ALDS in the first round for the third straight year. This time, on the advice of a Nebraska policeman, Chamberlain packed a “bucket of vinegar.”

Mag throwing a fit

Men’s Fitness magazine will find the fittest of the fit next Sunday when it hosts its Ultimate Athlete Event at Central Park’s Wollman Rink. Men and women aged 21 and up (under 21 must be accompanied by a minor) will compete in eight athletic events.

The winner drives home in a Hummer H3 Luxury Trim Level SUV. In fact, Jane or Joe Athlete can even select the interior and exterior colors. And just as “American Idol” has made singing careers for many of its contestants, the Ultimate Athlete Event winner will be featured in an upcoming issue of Men’s Fitness.

Green around the Gil

CW11 sports anchor Sal Marchiano will be signing his memoirs, “In My Rearview Mirror” (amazon.com), on May 15 at Empire City Gaming at Yonkers Raceway. The Fordham/WFUV product says his favorite Yankee that he interviewed was Mickey Mantle, and his favorite Met was Tug McGraw. But his favorite story is about the Mets’ late, legendary manager Gil Hodges:

“In September of 1969, I joined the Mets on the road for WCBS TV to cover their run at the championship. It was the same day Steve Carlton struck out 19 but Ron Swoboda hit two home runs to win the game for the Mets. We were at the Park Lane Hotel in St. Louis. I got on the elevator and the only other person on the elevator was Gil Hodges. He asked: ‘Why are you always so nervous around me?’ I answered: ‘Because you were my favorite player ever, as a kid, in Brooklyn. I kept a book on your every at-bat with the Dodgers.’ Gil responded: ‘Just relax, you are a pro reporter, now.’ He was very perceptive, and that was one of the things that made him a great manager.”

Osgood as it gets

Dodgers Hall of Fame play-by-play man Vin Scully receives the Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting from Fordham’s WFUV Radio Tuesday night at Sotheby’s, but few people know that Charles Osgood, the CBS News icon who gets a Lifetime Award, too, had a sports connection during his Fordham days.

“I was the PA announcer for the home games of the Fordham basketball team,” recalls the host of Sunday Morning, “and at half-time I would go upstairs and play the organ. I was both Bob Sheppard and Gladys Gooding.”

Gooding, of course, is the answer to that time-honored New York sports trivia question: Who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Knicks and New York Rangers?

Wagner . . . to Walker

Wesley Walker, among six former Jets who will remember when Shea Stadium was their home in ceremonies before tomorrow night’s Mets game, had better bring his old cleats. Billy Wagner, former quarterback at Ferrum College in Virginia and still apparently a pro quarterback wannabe, wants to give the former wideout a workout.

“I hope I get the chance to throw him a couple of down-and-outs,” said the closer, who throws a football three times a week for arm-conditioning reasons. “Throwing a football keeps my arm angle where it should be. I read the other day they are starting a new football league. Who knows? After I’m done playing baseball, I might start a new career.”

Walker will join Joe Klecko, Greg Buttle, and three members of the 1968-69 World Champions – Emerson Boozer, Randy Beverly and John Schmitt – as the Shea countdown reaches, appropriately, Game No. 69.

Dollar Billboard

Dollar Bill Bradley created a crowd in Times Square at 45th Street recently when he was looking at something across the street while on his cell phone. The Knicks great and former U.S. Senator from New Jersey was observing giant photos of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Jimi Hendrix on billboards with large credits for the photographer, George Kalinsky, Bradley’s longtime pal, who happened to be on the other end of the phone.