Welcome to Friday’s Morning Mashup. For the latest news, start at our WEEI.com home page or click here for the top stories from our news wire.

WHAT’S HAPPENING LOCALLY FRIDAY:
MLB: Red Sox at Mariners, 10:10 p.m. (NESN; WEEI)

SATURDAY:
MLB: Red Sox at Mariners, 10:10 p.m. (NESN; WEEI)
MLS: Revolution at Crew, 7:30 p.m. (CSNNE)

SUNDAY:
MLB: Red Sox at Mariners, 4:10 p.m. (NESN; WEEI)

AROUND THE WEB:

♦ Lakers guard Ron Artest told The Los Angeles Times Thursday that he is “definitely going to play for the [Chesire] Jets” of the British Basketball League. Although the Jets can only pay him about $2,500 per month, Artest was lured with a promise that he will get to appear in a television soap opera and perform his music. “When they told me I had the opportunity and asked if I wanted to do a soap opera, I said, ‘Of course, man.’ I’m not going to run away. When I was a kid, I wanted to be on TV. Why would I run away from being on TV?” Artest is expected to join the team in late November, missing the first two months of the season partly because he first promised to play in some exhibition games for a team in Finland.

♦ Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, also is a politician in his homeland, recently elected to lead the Right Cause party. He has set some lofty goals. “I think I am capable of doing the tasks of the prime minister,” he said Thursday in Moscow. The prime minister (the country’s second-highest post, currently held by Vladimir Putin) is appointed by Russia’s president (Dmitry Medvedev). Prokhorov added that he needed to be in agreement with leadership in order to fulfill such a task. “I could not be a prime minister under an agenda which I don’t believe in,” he said.

♦ The New York City area has had three new sports stadiums erected in the past few years. According to Grantland’s Peter Richmond, it’s 0-for-3. Richmond writes that America seems unwilling to take design risks. Said designer Carlos Zapata: “The baseball stadiums are the ones that are a total shame. They are looking backward.”

♦ Florida Atlantic football coach Howard Schnellenberger, who coached the University of Miami to its first national championship in 1983, announced this will be his final season of coaching. In The Miami Herald, Greg Cote looks back at the 77-year-old Schnellenberger’s storied history.

ON THIS DAY TRIVIA: On Aug. 12, 1986, which Red Sox pitcher pinch hit and singled in a 6-5 loss to the Royals?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We had good guys, by and large, [but he] walked in the locker room and vomited on it.” — Former Vikings coach Brad Childress, talking about Randy Moss

STAT OF THE DAY: 47 — Points scored by the Patriots in Thursday’s rout of the Jaguars, the most points they have ever scored in a preseason game

‘NET RESULTS: Impressive goal from Irish soccer player Paddy McCourt.

TRIVIA ANSWER: Tim Lollar

SOOTHING SOUNDS: Dire Straits lead singer Mark Knopfler is 62 Friday.

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