New York Knicks guard Nate Robinson and actor/comedian Will Ferrell are an unlikely duo, but since the reigning NBA Slam Dunk champion started hanging out on the set of Ferrell's new comedy "The Other Guys" a few months ago, the two have become buds. So it was no surprise that Robinson was looking to impress his new friend by shooting 7-for-11 and scoring a season-high 19 points on Sunday when Ferrell, co-stars Mark Wahlberg, Rosie Perez and Brooke Shields showed up at Madison Square Garden with more than 20 crew members to shoot a short scene during the Celtics-Knicks game.

"I think he [Robinson] has every one of Will's movies memorized," said the movie's co-writer Chris Henchy. "Mark, Will and Adam [McKay, director and co-writer] are such NBA fans, I think as giddy as [Robinson] is to come by the set, he walks away and they go, 'Nate's on our set!'"

Robinson impressed the director so much he even gave him a cameo in the film, which stars Ferrell and Wahlberg as two detectives. During an explosion scene, Robinson runs over to an injured Ferrell and Wahlberg to steal their wallets. It's a brief scene for Robinson, but is perhaps the beginning of a comedy career for one of the NBA's most entertaining characters.

Assuming the scene makes the cut, Robinson wouldn't be the only New York athlete featured in the film, which is scheduled to be released in August. Derek Jeter also makes an appearance -- and an even more dramatic exit. "Mark has accidentally shot Derek Jeter while on duty," Henchy explained. "It's becoming a crazy cast."

Sunday's scene at the Knicks game, which will likely last less than 30 seconds in the film, was based around Ferrell and Wahlberg, who are bribed with courtside seats to not go after a case. While flirting with Perez and Shields, they realize halfway through the game that they've been bribed and abruptly run out. Ferrell was decked out in a traffic-cone orange Knicks hat and a gray suit for the scene, while Wahlberg, a Boston native, didn't seem to mind wearing Knicks garb for the film and sported Danilo Gallinari's No. 8 jersey.

Wahlberg and Ferrell left once the filming wrapped up following halftime after shooting the scene more than a dozen times, but Shields, Perez and Henchy stayed to watch from the front row while sitting next to "30 Rock" star Tracy Morgan and director Spike Lee.

Real Salt Lake took home the MLS Cup on Sunday in thrilling fashion by edging the Los Angeles Galaxy on penalty kicks. So, naturally, the biggest soccer story in America on Monday is regarding David Beckham. He has announced he will return for a fourth MLS season next year, which is great news for the perpetually developing league. But that's not all. He also said he plans to exercise an option in his contract that allows him to buy an MLS franchise. We here at Page 2 love this idea and wanted to help out by suggesting a few places for the team to be located.

Austin, Texas: Warm weather, great people and plenty of movie production companies for Beckham to become involved in. Plus, his wife is already burnt-orange, so the locals will love her.

Miami: South Beach has become the place to be for famous sports owners, and it would be fun if Posh Spice and Jennifer Lopez started a diva feud. A lip-synch-off would be the only fair way to settle it.

Washington: D.C. could support a second MLS franchise, and Beckham's BFF, Tom Cruise, already has cast some strange spell over the local sports teams that he could use to get his friend whatever he wants.

Detroit: It would be nice if at least one football team in town had a chance to succeed. Plus, the Beckhams love being part of "the scene," and when you think of glitz and glamour, you think Detroit.

New Orleans: The Beckhams have showed a real love for getting naked in ad campaigns. Mardi Gras would give them a chance to truly pursue their passion.

Hollywood: It's where the Beckhams belong, and it would prevent Beckham from having to engage in his most arduous and traumatic task: finding a new hairstylist.

London: If the United States is going to be serious about soccer, everyone knows its league needs to be based in Europe. Placing Becks' team in London could start that transition.

As Joe Mauer clears room in his trophy case for the MVP award he received Monday, Yankees and Red Sox fans are no doubt mentally clearing their rosters for the game's best catcher in 2011. Mauer will be eligible for free agency after next season, and New York and Boston fans can't imagine him signing with anyone other than the Yankees or Red Sox.

Of course, that's the thing about Yankees and Red Sox fans -- they can't imagine anything in baseball outside their teams. But frankly, it's hard to see Mauer playing the 2011 season anywhere other than the same location he's played his entire life: Minnesota.

A St. Paul native, Mauer has played on the same fields where Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor and Jack Morris played. He not only has played his entire major league career in the Metrodome but also played there while growing up, in youth football leagues and as quarterback in the state high school championship. And there are times it seems half the Twin Cities is related to him. "I definitely enjoy playing in front of my family and friends in Minnesota," he said in a teleconference call Monday. "It's all I really know."

Money should not be an issue. The Twins will be moving into a new, taxpayer-funded stadium next year and will see their revenues increase substantially. Minnesotans were told for years that the Twins needed a new ballpark to retain their best players. If the Twins fail to re-sign Mauer -- the most popular Twin since Kirby Puckett -- there will be hell to pay.

Puckett turned down more lucrative contracts to re-sign with the Twins after the 1992 season, and it is worth noting that Mauer has the same agent Puck did: Ron Shapiro, an agent more concerned with relationships and reputation than squeezing the very highest dollar from a club. (Not that this is any sort of reference to Scott Boras. Not at all. No, sir. Don't mean to imply that at all. Get that thought out of your head. These are not the droids you're looking for.)

Mauer said he would rather have won the World Series than the MVP -- "I think any player will tell you that," he said -- but also thinks he can win it in Minnesota. "Over the years we've proven that we can get to the postseason, and my experience has shown that any team that's hot can win it," he said. "It's a matter of whoever is playing hot at that moment. If we can get to the postseason, we definitely have a chance."

Or at least, the Twins have a chance as long as the umps can see whether a ball is fair or foul.

Even Chad Ochocinco has tried to help.

Before the Texans and the Bengals played on Oct. 18, Ochocinco invited Andre Johnson to his home in Cincinnati where he tried, unsuccessfully, to get Houston's freakishly talented wideout to join him on Twitter and Ustream for some much-deserved pub. Instead, Johnson used all of his athletic abilities to duck, shift and spin away from Chad's ubiquitous camera lens and keyboard. It figures: Johnson has led the NFL in receiving yards per game since 2006 while simultaneously shunning the receiva diva style that permeates the league's loudest, neediest group of players.

"I just don't get caught up in who gets the most attention," Johnson told me. "It's not that I don't care or don't have an opinion, I'm just not the kind of person who really worries about that kind of thing." Thank god, say his teammates.

"The crime of it all is, in our sports culture we expect our stars to be loud, outspoken and outrageous," says Texans guard Eric Winston. "Andre has shown the league that, hey, you can be the best wide receiver in football and -- guess what? -- you don't have to act like an a--hole."

In truth, the only label Andre Johnson hates is "quiet." Why? Probably because he's not. He simply doesn't warm up to everyone immediately, and because that makes our job in the media a little harder, a little more complicated, we tend to dismiss players like Johnson as "quiet." But a few weeks ago, while working on the current cover story of ESPN The Magazine, I found him to be thoughtful and funny and an unquestioned leader in Houston.

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Maybe the Washington Redskins need one of their biggest fans, a ninja, to help them win a game?

Actor Rick Yune, a 38-year-old Korean-American who grew up in Washington, D.C., and has been a fan of the Redskins since he was a child, co-stars in the martial arts movie "Ninja Assassin," which opens on Wednesday.

After the Redskins lost a 7-6 heartbreaker to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, I asked Yune, who was flying to New York to appear on "Good Morning America," "Do you think the Redskins stink?"

"Come on, man -- I can't talk about my boys like that regardless [of their 3-7 record]," said Yune, who remembers the glory days of the Redskins in the 1980s. "Can we just say we need some additional players?"

You'd think, as a ninja, he'd be more heartless. Ninjas specialize in unorthodox techniques in battle. The movie, directed by James McTeigue, has the potential to make a star out of Yune and the lead actor, Korean star Rain.

"I think this is going to be a cult classic. I think it'll last a long time in theatres and have a lasting effect," said Yune, who previously was in "The Fast and the Furious" and "Die Another Day." "It has a lot of buzz. It's testing through the roof."

Seventeen years ago, Marshall Ulrich paid a man to pull out all his toenails.

He's not sure why so many people are fascinated by that fact.

"It's not a goofy, freaky thing," Ulrich said. "It was something necessary for me to perform at a level I need to perform."

Ulrich is an elite endurance athlete and ultrarunner. He's completed the Seven Summits, including Mt. Everest. He's run clear across the United States -- last year, at age 58, he ran 3,063 miles, the equivalent of 117 marathons; it took him 52½ days. But that's not how a lot of people know him.

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If you read my piece on Jason King a couple months ago and wondered whether he would complete his task of dunking a basketball by his 30th birthday, wonder no more.

After months of various types of training, recording his efforts and posting them on his Web site -- ifthisguycandunk.com (be sure to check out the "trailer'' previewing Sunday's attempt) -- King awoke on his birthday Sunday morning, went to the gym and celebrated turning 30 years old by … dunking the basketball.

"I was really throwing it down,'' said King, who is 5-foot-9 and played hoops at a small high school. "I felt great. I was almost able to do a reverse. I could almost put it down with two hands. It was too good to be true.''

Alas, it was. King had assumed the hoop was regulation height, but when he found himself dunking with too much ease, he decided to measure the basket. Ah, the folly of youth. The hoop, it turned out, was a mere 9 feet, 10 inches off the court. His dunks did not count. He had missed his goal by 2 inches.

"I wish I hadn't measured it out,'' he said. "I regretted measuring it as soon as I brought out the tape. I wish I had resisted the urge. That was a blow to the ego.''

King, who recently moved from Seattle to Reno, Nev., said he had planned a celebratory lobster dinner Sunday night if he accomplished his goal with a birthday dunk. In a clear sign that while old age has not granted him quite enough vertical leap, it has given him wisdom, he went out for lobster anyway.

More importantly, he now realizes that life doesn't end at 30. Just because he didn't dunk by his birthday Sunday doesn't mean he has to give up trying. And he's not going to give up. King figures he is within an inch of dunking, and he's confident he'll be able to do so one day.

"The whole thing has been so much fun and given me something to do,'' he said. "It's a little disappointing but I'm absolutely certain I'll get it. Today is just another day. I would like to say I'll have a video of me dunking within a month.''

What were Donovan McNabb and Jay Cutler talking about after Sunday night's Eagles-Bears game?

McNabb: Keep your head up.

Cutler: Uh-huh. (In his mind: Whatever.)

McNabb: This is just a bad phase.

Cutler: Uh-huh. (My hat is way cooler than your hat.)

McNabb: We all go through it.

Cutler: Yep. (Maybe YOU do. I'm awesome.)

McNabb: We support each other. This is a quarterback fraternity.

Cutler: Uh-huh. (Is there beer at this fraternity?)

McNabb: Everything will turn around eventually. Believe in that.

Cutler: OK. Thanks. (Yeah, and then I'm going to demand a trade out of Chicago and come take your job. I RULE!)