Each week, star types would be dragged into the booth. Many of them made it perfectly clear that this minute or two before the cameras was the only reason they were within 50 miles of the stadium.

Game? What game?

Not all celebs are this way, of course. Many actually buy season tickets and enjoy making it out to the stadium or arena. Quite a few even know more about the home team than the average fan.

Here’s a list of some well-known folks who seem to be genuine sports enthusiasts. We probably missed a few, but, hey, these things happen.

Jack Nicholson: He’s there for the Lakers thick and thin. And, until the 2008 Finals, there had been plenty of thin since the Showtime days.

Billy Crystal: Yankees fan made the very respectable baseball movie 61. He’s also a Los Angeles Clippers season ticket holder. Now that’s a fan.

Bill Murray: Longtime (and long-suffering) Cubs fan, not to mention a golf enthusiast who has been known to liven things up at Pebble Beach.

Spike Lee: Woody Allen is a diehard Knicks fan, too, but Spike actually participates.

Rudy Giuliani: Former New York mayor has been a fixture at Yankees games, particularly the ones on national TV.

Ashley Judd: University of Kentucky alum once posed in a hockey sweater (and, from the looks of things, little else) to help promote the Wildcat pucksters. When the UK men’s basketball team is in the NCAA Tournament, she’s a regular face in the crowd.

George W. Bush: Longtime baseball fan once was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers.

Mark Cuban: Mavericks owner bought the team when it was awful because he loved the game. Now, he’s a courtside referee-baiter. Also made a bid to buy the Cubs.

Eva Longoria: Wife of San Antonio point guard Tony Parker is a regular at Spurs games.

Stephen King: Longtime Red Sox fan co-wrote a book about the team’s breakthrough 2004 World Series championship.

Will Ferrell: Actor/comedian is a big supporter of University of Southern California football.

Matthew McConaughey: Actor attended the University of Texas and is very visible at Longhorn football games. 

George H.W. Bush: The elder Bush and wife Barbara are big fans of the Houston Astros.

Bill Cosby: A tireless supporter of his beloved Temple Owls.

Regis Philbin: Notre Dame alum is a big advocate of the Fighting Irish.

 Advertisement

It’s also got a trio of hot cameos. Early reports indicate that Tom Cruise should get a career boost with a screamingly funny extended cameo as a fat, bald, foul-mouthed producer. Matthew McConaughey plays a slick, slick, slick agent, while Tobey Maguire appears briefly but significantly in a preview of the Downey character’s upcoming movie.

Like much Hollywood jargon, “cameo” has a flexible definition. Basically, it’s a small part played by an A-list star whose name is mentioned, if at all, only in the final credits. Let’s take a gander at some earlier cameos.

• Bruce Willis played himself in an Ocean’s Twelve cameo, greeting Julia Roberts like an old friend. Julia’s character, you see, was pretending to be Julia Roberts. It makes sense in the movie. Well, not altogether. Anyway, there was something smug about the “inside joke” that didn’t help the movie. In the original 1960 Ocean’s Eleven, headlined by Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, then a member of Sinatra’s Rat Pack, made a fleeting appearance at a bar.

• In the original Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston played the astronaut stranded in Apeland. In the inferior remake, Mark Wahlberg had the lead, but Heston appeared briefly as the wise simian poppa of menacing ape Tim Roth. As in the first movie, Heston also had the last line.

Their new arrivals are christened Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon. You can bet that even the most intimate chums won’t lean over the crib and say, “Hi, Viv!,” particularly with the French spelling. Marcheline was the name of Angelina’s mother, who died in January 2007 after a long battle with ovarian cancer.

Knox Leon (Leon pronounced with a long “o”) was so named because dad Brad is a fan of artist Archibald Knox and has collected several of the late artist’s works. The day after Angelina gave birth, the Archibald Knox Web site reportedly received over 2,000 hits.

Celebrities are different from us ordinary mortals. Among those differences is their practice of giving offspring unusual names. What follows is a list of celebrity baby names, and there’s not a Dick or Jane among them.

Matthew McConaughey’s new arrival is Levi, but he’s not named for the jeans that Matthew occasionally bothers to put on. The spiritual star explains that Levi is another name for the Biblical apostle Matthew. Early tabloid reports predicted that the bouncing baby boy would be named Budweiser, after his pop’s favorite beer. After all, Matthew’s big brother Rooster named his son Miller Lyte.

Julia Roberts named her twins Hazel and Phinnaeus. Nothing wrong with Hazel other than its vintage seems to be several generations ago. But Phinnaeus??? It’s a family name, says Julia. But try explaining that to the kids at school.

Also on the previous-generations name register is Matilda, daughter of Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams. Possibly she was named for the Aussie folk song “Waltzing Matilda.” FYI, Jake Gyllenhaal was her godfather.