Kids' DVD is a homer for Affleck

Ben Affleck may have scored his best gig yet. The rabid Red Sox fan and father of 1-year-old Violet will be heard in the new kiddie DVD "Red Sox Baby: Raising Tomorrow's Boston Red Sox Fan Today" when it comes out next month. The DVD promises to help teach "counting, spelling, and color recognition. It will also instill a love of the Red Sox in young ones," according to a promotional blurb . The Oscar winner isn't the only celeb in the series. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner gives voice to the DVD trying to teach spelling and the like to the wee ones in the Evil Empire.

Southie native lauded for new book

Author Michael Patrick MacDonald, the Southie native who wrote "All Souls," received an award from Irish America magazine for his most recent book, "Easter Rising." The award -- along with several others, including one for Senator Hillary Clinton -- was given Sunday night in Manhattan at a gala dinner that featured a performance of the new Broadway show "The Pirate Queen," by fellow honorees Moya Doherty and John McColgan, the producers of "Riverdance." (Doherty and McColgan, summer residents of Martha's Vineyard, are the reported owners of a 4.7-acre estate for which they paid an island-record-setting $25 million.) Also honored were comic Kathy Griffin, actor Milo O'Shea, and psychologist Garrett O'Connor and his wife, actress Fionnula Flanagan, who is best know to local viewers for playing the mom on Showtime's "Brotherhood," which is filmed in Rhode Island.

'Nurses' is a funny role for Dushku

To the delight of her many male admirers, the enchanting Eliza Dushku is set to play a nurse in a new one-hour pilot for Fox. The network announced yesterday that the Watertown native will star in "Nurses," about the lives and loves of a team of nurses. Dushku, best known for her role on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," will play a young woman just out of nursing school who joins the hospital run by her father. Katheryn Winnick was originally cast in the role, but the part was recast after the character was made more comedic.

A delay for 'Where the World Ends'

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has postponed the world premiere of ‘‘Where the World Ends’’ a much-anticipated commission from New England Conservatory’s Gunther Schuller, and replaced it with ‘‘Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee,’’ an earlier Schuller piece. ‘‘I’ve been looking forward very much to [the] new piece as part of my final Symphony Hall program this season,’’ BSO music director James Levine said in a release. ‘‘As it turns out, its scope and language require more rehearsal time than it could possibly receive in the context of this month’s program as I had originally conceived it.’’ The BSO doesn’t yet have a new date for the world premiere of the commission celebrating the BSO’s 125th anniversary.

Globe correspondent June Wulff contributed to this report. Names can be reached at names@ globe.com or at 617-929-8253.

Skater Sasha Cohen was supposed to have a quick and easy visit to Boston to promote next month's "Champions on Ice" tour at the TD Banknorth Garden. But that was before her airline lost her luggage, which included her skates. The Olympic silver medalist still managed to make the rounds yesterday including a stop at the Simoni Skating Arena in Cambridge to meet young skaters. . . . It was just a matter of time before Dunkin' Donuts tapped the actual faded '90s performer Vanilla Ice to promote its flavored iced coffees. His Pale Coolness will be in town March 20 to give a year's worth of iced coffee, $1,000 in cash, and a Nintendo Wii to the person who best creates Dunkin'-themed lyrics to his hit "Ice, Ice, Baby." . . . It's a no-go on the Rodrigo Y Ga briela shows in Boston. FM radio station WBOS had the Dublin-based Mexican recording artists -- Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero -- scheduled for a private concert last night that would have been broadcast live from the First Act Guitar Studio in the Back Bay. But Sanchez couldn't get into the United States because of a visa problem . Tonight's show at the Roxy is postponed, we're told. . . . Dancer and choreographer Donald McKayle can get anyone to dance -- even if they have two left fins. McKayle was given the Boston Youth Moves' Lifetime Achievement Award at "Swellegance," the teen dance program's annual fund-raiser , the other night. The 76-year-old created movement for the animated characters (including the fish) in Disney's "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," has choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Broadway, and for performers including Tina Turner.