Splinters From the Bench

The Struggle Continues For Dan and Todd

• The Star's Dan Dunkin covered the Indiana Pacers' loss to Dallas January 6, and wrote in the next morning's paper about how Dallas rookie Jason Kidd "played with his usual wreckless abandon. . ." and Todd Hottell, sports editor of the Westside Flyer, an Indianapolis suburban weekly, covered Warsaw's upset of Indianapolis Ben Davis in high school basketball and wrote in the January 3-8 edition that a Warsaw player almost "single-handily" outscored the Giants. (January 8, 1995)

• Slick says he can't stand by and do nothing while the nation is faced with another summer without major league baseball. He's putting heat on players and management to settle the strike, now in its sixth month. Let's hope they resist.

Spittin' And Scratchin'

• I'm encouraged by how nicely baseball has vanished from the American scene. The strike's first few weeks produced a lot of bleating, letters, and calls from disappointed fans, and think pieces from the pundits. That's for the most part vanished and life has gone on nicely. The real test is yet to come. The traditional opening of spring training in mid-February will revive our baseball consciousness, and the first week of April, the normal season-opener, will be another reminder. If we're just courageous and strong, though, we have a chance to pull through and discover, as the Chicago Tribune's Mike Royko puts it, "we can endure a few months without (all that) spitting and crotch scratching."

Barkley Bingo For Beautiful Bernie

• The Phoenix Suns' Charles Barkley was politically correct during the NBA's all-star game weekend festivities in Phoenix. Charles said at a press conference that he hated "f---ing white people" and then said if the assembled wretched scribes didn't like it, then "f--- you and f--- your family." Pooh-bahs hastened to apologize on Charles's behalf--Charles will be Charles, Charles was just kidding, that sort of thing--but nobody raced out to restore the jobs lost by Jimmy The Greek and Al Campanis for similar, but politically incorrect, utterances. It was left to the Chicago Tribune's beautiful Bernie Lincicome to bore through to the matter's essence. After examining the multiple complexities of Barkley's yappings, Lincicome wrote in his February 13 column that "Anything concerning Charles Barkley ought not to have this many layers. He is about as deep as a fruit spoon. . .The point is nothing Charles Barkley has to say about anything is important. Nothing any jock who is not Bill Bradley has to say about anything is important. Paying attention to Charles Barkley is like caring if Steve Carlton blathers on about Zionist bankers running the world. . ." (February 14, 1995)

• Buried eleven paragraphs deep in a February 19 London Sunday Times story about America's baseball strike, I unearthed this tidbit: George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees, paid himself a $25 million "consulting fee" for signing a 12-year television contract for his team, according to Andrew Zimbalist, professor of economics at Smith College and author of Baseball and Billions. The Sunday Times offered a few additional insights into the economics of baseball and concluded that with so much money at stake, by golly, you could bet there'd be a 1995 season. (February 20, 1995)

Do We Need A National Bureau of Sports Measurement?

• Don Wade of Scripps Howard News Service is the first guy I've seen to publicly admit that artificially inflating the heights of athletes is a widespread practice in sports. Writing in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend, Wade cited the case of Purdue's Justin Jennings, who is 6 feet 6 inches tall, according to the Boilermaker media guide. Wade got Jennings to admit he's actually "6-3, 6-4--with my basketball shoes on." Let's hope this courageous example will encourage others to come forward into the light where, it is suggested, the truth shall make us free. (February 27, 1995)

• New York Yankees relief pitcher Steve Howe, suspended seven times already for violation of baseball's drug abuse rules, has been placed on probation for his latest offense, a 1992 "attempt to possess cocaine." A condition of his sentence requires Howe to have a job. But there's a baseball strike, so Howe's multimillion dollar contract to pitch doesn't count. The Yankees came to Howe's rescue by giving him a $40,144 per year job in their Fort Lauderdale minor league club's ticket office. If this is punishment, where do the rest of us get in line?

• "Great coaching isn't winning. That's successful coaching. Great coaching is achieving great effort, especially from lesser talent." --Sam Smith, Chicago Tribune basketball writer, defending Chicago Bulls Coach Phil Jackson's performance this year. (March 6, 1995)

Shoveling, Whining, Shilling. . .

• We can remember the day, can't we, when the NCAA basketball tourney selection program cut directly to NCAA headquarters where the pairings were immediately announced to a breathless nation? It was probably inevitable that it be expanded to a one-hour program with teasers, false hopes, and mindless hype strung out for more than half an hour before the picks are revealed. Sunday's program was a mighty aggravation, as one stupid interview and special after another dragged things out. CBS's Andrea Joyce shoveled pablum from NCAA headquarters, and Jim Nance, Quinn Buckner, George Raveling, and Billy Packer were face-guys back at headquarters. It was thin gruel, and capped, as usual, by Packer's whining about the Big Ten selections. Sunday, Packer objected to six Big Ten teams getting in, more than any other league. He could have a point this time, but the bottom line is Packer's an ACC shill with limited credibility as a result. (March 14, 1995)

• Georgia Tech was upset over being left out of the NCAA tournament and in response Yellowjackets Coach Bobby Cremins made quite a point of then turning down an invitation to the NIT. He said there would be a conflict with academic examinations. That means Georgia Tech would have had to turn down an NCAA invitation because of exams, too, doesn't it? It's refreshing to know that in the vast and sounding sea of sleaze in college athletics there's at least one courageous school and coach that will stand up for academics and principles. (March 14, 1995)

Out Of The Punchbowl, Into Respectable Society. . .

• The Star's Mark Ambrogi, covering the Midwest NCAA Regional first-round from Austin, Texas, offered us a charming side of Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson not seen often enough. Richardson was apparently amused by reports of Indiana Coach Bob Knight's much-publicized tirade at the Boise regional site, and used it as a backdrop for an anecdote he told reporters about being criticized earlier this past season for "calling his critics a bunch of turds." Richardson said he didn't think "turd" was a bad word "because my grandmother called me that every day. She said, 'You little turd, come here.' For a long time, I thought my name was 'turd.' When I used that, it didn't dawn on me that I said something to erupt the world because I heard it all the time when I was a kid. So I apologized. But then I heard a man (Knight) go bleep, bleep, bleep. I'm sure glad he didn't use that where I came from. Different strokes for different folks." Indeed.

• "He's a very emotional type of guy. He's in another country and still has some sense of uncomfortability here." --Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan, quoted March 21 by the Associated Press commenting on how his return to the team might cost teammate Tony Kukoc a starting job.

• CNN Sports offered a feature April 6 on Baltimore Orioles infielder Cal Ripken, who's poised to break Lou Gehrig's major league baseball record for consecutive games played. CNN breathlessly described Ripken as a player in the same class as Babe Ruth and blathered on about Ripken's awesome achievements and soon-to-be-legendary status. To mention these three in the same breath is preposterous. The facts are these: Ruth in 8,399 at-bats hit 714 homers, 136 triples, 506 doubles, had 2,873 total hits, scored 2,174 runs, batted in 2,174, and had a career batting average of .342. Gehrig had 8,001 at-bats with 493 homers, 163 triples, 534 doubles, 2,721 total hits, scored 1,888 runs, batted in 1,995, and had a career batting average of .340. Ripken had 8,027 at-bats, 310 homers, 40 triples, 414 doubles, 2,227 total hits, scored 1,201 runs, batted in 1,179, and had a carrer batting average of .277. Give due credit to Ripken for tenacity, longevity, stick-to-it-iveness, and the good fortune necessary to avoid serious injury and compile such a streak, but Ripken's record, while remarkable, is nothing more than a record for showing up for work. (April 6, 1995)

Ric Anderson Looking For A Spinal Transplant

• Saddest news of the week: major league baseball resumed today with a Dodgers-Marlins game in Miami before a near capacity crowd. John Pacenti of the Associated Press interviewed fans about how they felt about baseball and its just-ended 7-month strike. "I feel like a prostitute," said Ric Anderson, 26, at Miami's Joe Robbie Stadium. "The thing for fans to do is stay out of the ballpark, but I'm not strong enough to do it. I don't have the backbone." At least Ric's honest. (April 26, 1995)

• Baseball fans, though, will return in their customary droves. There will be no justice in America until major league teams play in empty stadiums. Till then, we're all gutless fools.

Mongo Lives!

• Two University of Cincinnati basketball players, Art Long and Danny Fortson, have pleaded innocent to charges one of them punched a policeman's horse. (May 3, 1995)

Sleazebagville. . . .

• Radio WIBC (1070 AM) offers five-nights-per-week of sports talk, usually featuring the station's Jim Barbar and a co-host, Robin Miller, a sports writer for the Indianapolis Star, whose public persona is a carefully contrived mixture of in-your-face bad manners, boorishness, arrogance, and foul language. The show features the usual litany of in-house jokes and blather, punctuated by calls from listeners and "phone-in" guests and cronies of the co-hosts and, usually, Miller's rant of the day. Last week it was the Americas Cup, with Miller branding yachtsmen "candyasses," much to the delight, no doubt, of the many droolers in the audience. Network sports broadcaster Brent Musberger also came under the lash, with Miller ridiculing Musberger's mispronouncing the name of Orlando Magic guard Anfernee Hardaway. Miller sneeringly told us that Hardaway is only one of the highest paid athletes in world history and clearly implied that was reason enough we should all know how to pronounce his name. I suspect this vignette tells us far more about Robin Miller than Musberger. I wasn't around for the show's inaugural, but what it is now--or is it just my imagination?--is a nightly torrent of the same coarseness that's infested our society, with the audience listening in on a grizzled gang of lowlifes in the neighborhood's seediest bar, hearing the boys snickering, telling dirty jokes, snorting, the room filled with the stink of their cigarette smoke, body odor, and bad language. Swell for a tavern, pretty sad dangling in the public eyeball. (May 7, 1995)

• Have we noticed that major league baseball players who were angry as hornets about the idea of replacement players don't seem the least bit concerned about playing with replacement umpires? (May 10, 1995)

• A story in the May 12 USA Today referred to a Chicago radio station report that New York Yankee pitcher Jack ("Black Jack") McDowell has a "degenerating hip condition" that caused the Yankees to consider returning him to the Chicago White Sox, McDowell's former team. McDowell himself was quoted saying he did indeed have a "hip abnormality" but it didn't affect his pitching. Writer Tom Pedulla's memory apparently doesn't reach back to the 1980s or he would have made a sinister, ominous connection: this is the second time the White Sox have traded a pitcher with a "hip abnormality" to the Yankees. In the 1980's the Sox grudgingly surrended a prized young hurler--Richard Dotson? Britt Burns?--to George Steinbrenner's wiles and bottomless bank account, even though it was widely known and reported that the chap suffered from a career-threatening hip condition. My recollection is that the player had to retire from baseball without completing even a single season with the Yankees, thus entering Yankee archives as Astounding Blunder No. 43,588 of the Steinbrenner Era (somewhere in there with deals for Bob Shirley, Ed Whitson, Kenny Holtzman, Bob Sykes and many others). Could it be something in the Chicago water supply? Does anyone smell a consiracy here? (May 13, 1995)

• My favorite moment so far in the Indiana Pacers-New York Knicks NBA playoff series came at the end of Game 1 in New York, which featured Indiana's miracle comeback in the final 18 seconds to win, 107-105. The Pacers did not play well much of the game and the Knicks seemed in control as time wound down and they took a six-point lead into the final 18 seconds. NBC's broadcaster, the once-ponytailed-but-now-seriously-cleaned-up basketball star Bill Walton, told us repeatedly that the Pacers were simply not able to deal with the Knicks' pressure defense and didn't have the discipline to slug it out with the big boys from Gotham City. There was just a hint of disdain in Walton's voice for the Hoosier rubes. Then came Reggie Miller's eight points in 18 seconds and you could all but hear Walton's strangled gulps as the upstart Hoosier hawnyocks jammed one in his ear. Gotta tell ya, I loved it.

• Have you seen Billy Packer shilling for some loan-by-phone outfit called "Mr. Cash?" Call 1-800-444-CASH, Billy urges us.

Well, It Was A Day, Anyway

• This exchange occurred May 13 on Indianapolis TV Channel WTHR-13's live coverage of the first day of Indianapolis 500 Mile Race qualifications: TV-13's track reporter Dave Calabro: "What a great day to qualify." Driver Eddie Cheever: "It was a terrible day to qualify." (May 13, 1995)

• In a society in which no outrage is too outrageous, no human degradation so vile it won't be converted into instant cash by clever entrepreneurs, no insult to human dignity great enough to draw universal censure, and no conscience anywhere to be found in the popular culture, NBA referees Saturday stopped the Indiana Pacers-Orlando Magic playoff contest to order Pacers fans seated behind the Magic basket to stop using a whirling pinwheel sign because the Magic claimed it was distracting. . .and Sports Illustrated took another courageous step for freedom of the press by putting the execrable Dennis Rodman on this week's cover. (May 27, 1995)

Shaq's Bricks

• The Pacers-Magic series has featured a lot of talk about the importance of free throw shooting, and Shaquille O'Neal's startling ineptness at it (a 56 percent or so career average). Yet any junior-high school-aged athlete or serious fan can watch Shaq shoot free throws and instantly see what's wrong. Shaq doesn't hold the ball properly, doesn't shoot it properly. His form is terrible. How is it possible that O'Neal has reached the professional level of basketball and is so incompetent at this phase of the game? Hasn't any coach ever noticed? Has a coach tried, but found out Shaq was too stupid to learn? I doubt the latter. Free throw shooting isn't rocket science. My guess is nobody's ever tried to correct the problem. Seeing Shaq brick 'em up there reminds me of the IU players who go through four years of college ball with awful free throw shooting mechanics and are just as bad when they're seniors as when they arrived on campus.

• And speaking of execrable, odious, appalling, loathsome, vile, despicable and stinky, how about the wire report in this morning's Star that has Yankees owner George Steinbrenner secretly plotting to get two more drug addicts, Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, into Yankee uniforms? (June 5, 1995)

Robin's Agonized Cry For Help. . .

• At about 7:10 p.m. June 6 on WIBC's Sports Talk radio program featuring WIBC's Jim Barbar and the Indianapolis Star's Robin Miller, just following conversation about auto racing, Barbar was speaking when Miller loudly interrupted with "Brent Musberger is a homo. . ." A few snickers could be heard, and then things moved on. Miller's comment came straight from the blue; no topic involving Musberger or sports broadcasting had been discussed. The remark apparently welled up spontaneously, an outcry from Miller's tortured soul, a cry for help, for understanding. (June 6, 1995)

• Life's Deep, Ongoing Mysteries Department: USA Today prints a regular feature on major league baseball attendance, listing all teams and the home and road attendance for each. But it omits a single crucial element: a comparison of this year to last year. In a year following the longest strike in baseball history, when such comparisons are made and cited almost daily in sports news,and are of compelling interest to fans and students of the game, why would this great newspaper print this ton of attendance data but not give us the all-important reference to last year's comparable attendance? Mystery shrouds. (June 15, 1995)

Adding One To The 'We Know One When We See One' List

• American tennis player Jeff Turango's tantrum July 1 at Wimbledon, in which he accused an umpire of deliberately favoring certain players in his decisions, then stalked off the court during a match, and which culminated with Turango's wife slapping the umpire in the face, is one more sad episode of ill-mannered Americans confirming others' worst beliefs about us. Turango, a former NCAA champion at Stanford, is described by the wire services as "temperamental," with a career filled with fines and reprimands. Yet tennis's big cheeses continue to tolerate Turango and numerous others like him. I'll bet more than one Indianapolis Star reader thought of Coach when reading this story over Sunday morning coffee and flapjacks. (July 2, 1995)

• Colorado Rockies Coach Don (The Gerbil) Zimmer left the dugout in the fifth inning of the Rockies' 5-4 win over St. Louis June 7, changed clothes, and went home, retired from baseball after a 47-year-professional career. He left suddenly with no fanfare, he told the Rocky Mountain News, because he didn't want any ceremonies in his honor. "I don't have to have no night," he said with astonishing candor. "I'm a (bleeping) .238 hitter." Who could have said it better? A class act, that Gerb.

• When will major league baseball acknowledge the screaming hypocrisy of allowing Steve Howe and Darryl Strawberry to play in the big leagues but blacklisting Pete Rose from its Hall of Fame?

• "I just hope people judge him (Darryl Strawberry) on the fruits of baseball and that the past will be the past. I'm not judging him for anything because then I'd have to go back and judge myself." --New York Yankees relief pitcher and seven-time drug offender Steve Howe, quoted July 20 in an Indianapolis Star wire story. (July 20, 1995)

Gotta Love These Guys, Pimpin' 'Dame Like That. . .

• In just one year since its founding, the Chicago-based Anti-Notre Dame Athletic Club has recruited 572 members. There's something beautifully fiendish about one of the club's major enterprises: it buys up blocks of tickets to Notre Dame home football games from visiting universities. . .so Irish fans can't get their hands on them. Savvy Irish fans have now begun paying the club's $25 membership fee and joining in order to buy tickets. No word on what the club's response might be, though simply destroying the tickets so nobody can use them is one that comes immediately to mind. "We don't mind (taking) their money," the club's president--who wishes to remain anonymous--says of the infiltrators. "We just don't like their team." (July 6, 1995)

Another Weasel Flushed Out In The Open

• Michigan's athletic director Joe Roberson has admitted that former Michigan football coach Gary Moeller was fired in May and did not "resign" as Roberson and the university had reported. The troublemaking Detroit News used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a confidential document--a letter from Moeller's attorney to the university's--which finally flushed Roberson onto open ground. A day after the News published its report, Roberson said "If you want to say he was fired, I guess you can legally and technically say that." It was also revealed that neither Moeller's severance package, which included $341,250 of salary for the remaining two-and-a-half years of his contract, nor his firing had been submitted to the university board of athletic control for review and approval, even though Roberson said the board is supposed to approve all matters of budget and policy. Moeller, meantime, was hired June 23 by the Cincinnati Bengals to be their tight end coach, an interesting assignment for a man who lost his last job for public drunkenness. (July 7, 1995)

• We should make a deal wth Mickey Mantle. We'll give you a new liver, Mick, but if we ever see you takin' a drink again, we're goin' in there and take it back. Fair enough? (July 11, 1995)

• And while we're at it, we ought to be saying our goodbyes to The Mick, too. The Big C is relentless. My guess is Mick won't be with us a year from now.

Black Jack Bucking For a Spot On The Toxic Top Ten List

• It gave me a good feeling to read in this morning's Associated Press account of yesterday's White Sox-Yankees doubleheader that when the Yankees' Black Jack McDowell was removed in the fifth inning of the nightcap after allowing 13 hits and nine runs, he was loudly booed and responded by giving the crowd of 21,188 the bird as he strode manfully to the dugout. Black Jack is paid well over $5 million per year and sports a 7-6 record with a 4.87 ERA after this most recent debacle. His reputation as a flamer had been relatively submerged since he was signed last winter by the Yankees. It's good to know he's still one, and equally satisying to hear that the local fans are showering him with abuse worthy of his pitching record. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani closely followed Black Jack in this Gotham City Parade of Jerks by criticizing fans who booed McDowell and noting that crowds at the old Yankee Stadium used to cheer pitchers as they left the mound. Pressed by eager reporters for more, Giuliani suggested "there are better ways to communicate frustration" than the gesture McDowell chose, though he did not explain what those were. The Yankees, who are nothing if not inconsistent about the type of behavior and employee they'll tolerate, promptly fined McDowell $5,000 and announced they were giving the money to children's charities. The American League ordered the obstreperous twirler to atone by buying "a large amount" of tickets to Yankee games and giving them away to fans. McDowell made it clear it wasn't his job to be nice to fans and he wouldn't be apologizing for anything. He offered a classic piece of deflection, too, by suggesting that, somehow, a mysterious, omniscient "they" had twisted the facts of the matter: "It's sad that they got this turned around so that I'm the poster boy for the strike with the players vs. the fans. That's really not the way it is." And here, as with the Coach Knight Unpleasantnesses, all attempts at punishment are far too feeble. These paltry gestures by the Yankees and the league show only that neither is serious about getting McDowell's attention. A bonus that should not pass unremarked: yesterday's midsummer crowd of below 22,000. In baseball's pre-plague years, a Yankees-White Sox doubleheader in either city would have drawn two or three times that number.

• But I repeat: there will be no justice in America until they play in empty stadiums. Or stadia. None.

Jail Break

• Mid-July saw University of Illinois basketball recruit Willie Coleman drop out of the university's summer "bridge" program for "personal reasons," apparently to take his basketball talents elsehere. The former Peoria Manual High School star told the Champaign News-Gazette, "Now I know how people feel in jail. You just can't go out when you want to. This (apparently a reference to summer school) is a real shock."

Two More Icons Go to Ground

• Baseball Hall of Famers Willie McCovey and Duke Snider have pled guilty to federal tax fraud for failing to report thousands of dollars of income from autograph signing and sports memorabilia shows. Both face up to six months in prison and a fine of $250,000. Unlike so many of the surly, petulant icon-gods roaming America's sports and entertainment world today, Snider was contrite, telling reporters "I made the wrong choice" in opting not to report the income. Prosecutors and the IRS have all but promised that more indictments of sports figures are in the works. I especially enjoyed the irony of a quote from baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where spokesman Jeff Idelson said: "There's nothing in the bylaws or rules" about ejecting people from the hall for criminal convictions. Pete Rose must have winced on hearing that. Timing is everything.

Yup, We Know Who He Is

• The Chicago Tribune ran a short sparkler on ex-Bears coach Mike Ditka last week as NFL training camps opened. Iron Mike, puffing a cigar, growled gruff, surly, short-fused answers to every question. This is the start of Ditka's third year away from coaching since the Bears fired him in 1993. How does it feel, Coach? Do you miss the game? Do you want to get back into coaching? Ditka, who we can bet wanted another coaching job until he discovered nobody was stampeding to his door to offer him one, said "I don't see it happening. I don't want a job in the NFL." He's had some feelers. The new Florida franchise contacted him. The St. Louis Rams asked him to call when they fired Chuck Knox. "I refused to pick up the phone," harrumphed Mike. "I said, 'I don't want to get on a list with six assistant coaches and college coaches.' That's silly. My record speaks for itself. They know who I am." Yes, it does and they do. And that's why Ditka's not been offered a coaching job. (July 25, 1995)

• Indiana Pacers owners are beginning to quietly grumble that they can't survive without--guess what?--a new arena. Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith has appointed a commission of locals to analyze the impact and role of all local sports franchises and address the pros and cons of public (read: taxpayer-paid) financing of them. Whether this is window dressing for decisions already made is unknown. Similar scams are underway in Chicago, where Bears owner Mike McCaskey is again threatening to move the team if a new $200 million stadium isn't provided, in Milwaukee, where the baseball Brewers want a $250 million park, and in Cincinnati, where the football Bengals and the baseball Reds are both whipsawing local officials with demands for new stadia. City council debates have degenerated into strident shouting matches as team-imposed deadlines approached and panic rose. A few years ago the Chicago White Sox extorted a new stadium from taxpayers by threatening to move to Florida. Taxpayers, upon whose backs these barons ride to personal financial glory, are the ultimate losers in these games, which extend beyond sports franchises to corporate and private business organizations who've raised extortion of the public treasuries to a major American growth industry in the past 10-15 years. This cosmic question needs to be explored: is there a point when local authorities should tell these corporate blackmailers to take their franchises elsewhere? No American city I know of has yet reached it. (August 10, 1995)

Check With The Inmates First

• Earlier this summer the San Diego Padres wanted to bring up a player from their Triple A minor league affiliate who had played in the "replacement player" spring training games held while the "real players" were on strike. For reasons not revealed, Padres management felt it necessary to ask their current players to vote on whether the minor leaguer should be brought up. The vote was no, of course, so the Padres didn't. This made everyone feel good about himself but also supplied proof, as though we needed it, about who's running the San Diego Zoo. (August 13, 1995)

Flawed, Awesome: Say Goodbye To The Mick

• I'll confess. Tears came to my eyes this morning reading about the death of Mickey Mantle. My childhood baseball idol, an alcoholic wreck from 45 years of two-fisted boozing, dead at age 63 of "the most aggressive cancer that anyone on the medical team has ever seen," according to Baylor University Medical Center medical director Dr. Goran Klintmalm. Ample tributes will be written and I look forward to reading them. For my part, it's a bittersweet memory: those prodigious home runs, the boyish smile, the what-might-have-been of the talent stolen by injuries and wasted by Mantle's devil-may-care saunter through 18 seasons in Yankee pinstripes. Flawed, indeed. Awesome, in spades. Nobody playing baseball in my lifetime could ever stir the magic, the emotions Mickey Mantle did. Adios, Mick. We'll never forget you. (August 14, 1995)

• My grief over Mickey Mantle's passing was tempered by a blaring radio announcement today that August 14-18 has been declared "Sports Frenzy Week" at the local Incredible Universe store. A weeklong parade of sports celebrities has been lined up to wheedle and tease me into driving over to shop. This, friends, is yet another reason to go on living.

Yeah, But What About Tomorrow?

• Chicago White Sox general manager Ron Schueler, in a Chicago Tribune interview August 27, actually uttered this puzzling statement when discussing his decisions to dump some "rented" free agents (Jim Abbott, Rob Dibble, Chris Sabo, and Mike Devereaux) this summer and give their roster spots to some young (and lower-priced) prospects for the rest of the season: "I'm not looking for the future. I'm looking for next year." (August 27, 1995)

Worth It, I Say

• Peter McNeeley was paid $6,067.42 per second ($540,000 in total) to get himself knocked out in his 89-second bout with Mike Tyson August 18 in Las Vegas. How many of us would take that deal? I would. You'd only notice one punch, and that for only an instant. The joke's on us, folks.

• Tyson, meanwhile, pocketed about $25 million for breaking a sweat: $280,898.87 per second. Hey, is this America or what? (August 20, 1995)

And His Dog, Cat, Clothing, Boom Box, Car, Goldfish, Stamp Collection, Family And Friends Are Ridiculous, Too!

• Today's Indianapolis Star/News (they've merged now, and never you worry about a single employee losing a job--management has promised that won't happen) carried a brief sports item which well illustrates why baseball--indeed all of major professional sports--is held in deep contempt by many of us. The story was about Mike Moore, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers announced Sunday they were unconditionally releasing the 35-year-old Moore, whose 5-15 won-lost record represented the most losses this year by any pitcher, and included 10 straight defeats for Moore himself. In addition, his 7.53 ERA this year is among the worst in baseball history for any pitcher working at least 100 innings in a season. Moore's 14-year career record is below .500 at 161-176, and his career ERA is an atrocious 4.39. In his three seasons with Detroit his record was 29-34. Thus it seems clear enough that Moore was a shrieking mediocrity before he came to the Tigers as well as after joining them. Detroit rewarded Moore with a three-year $10 million contract when it signed him as a free agent. Detroit is ridiculous, Mike Moore is ridiculous, and $10 million dollars for Mike Moore is ridiculous. (September 4, 1995)

• Puzzling Headline: The Sept. 7 Indianapolis Star, describing Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken's setting of a new record for most consecutive games played (2,131), said "Cal Ripken Has Done The Impossible. . ." How can that be, if he did it?

Osborne In Heroic Struggle With Judgmentalism

• University of Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne is having real trouble just spitting out the words in the much-publicized Recent Inflictive Unpleasantness involving Lawrence Phillips, his star running back and Heisman Trophy candidate. Phillips has been arrested and charged with assaulting a former girlfriend in a fracas at her apartment. Police indicate Phillips scaled a wall to her third-floor balcony, assaulted her, and "took her" (is this code for: "dragged"?) downstairs to the foyer of the building before being "pulled away" from the woman by other apartment residents. Coach Osborne huddled with the running back shortly thereafter, and emerged to announce he'd kicked Phillips off the team indefinitely but not, he hastened to say, necessarily forever. Referring to the Unpleasantness involving Phillips and the young woman, Coach Osborne said, ". . .I wouldn't call it a beating, but he certainly did inflict some damage to the young lady. She was dragged down some stairs and there were some injuries." In street parlance this would be kown as "inflicting the crap out of her," wouldn't it? (September 14, 1995)

• Is it my imagination or have assaults against women by college and professional sports stars reached epidemic proportions? In just the past few days we've had Nebraska's Lawrence Phillips and the Cincinnati Bengals' Dan "Big Daddy" Wilkinson arrested for inflicting damage on outgunned young women. One of the big foundations ought to research this. And women ought to pack heat 24-7-365.

• Best pofessional sports franchise name in years: the NBA's new entry in Toronto, the Raptors. (September 27, 1995)

• Find me a pundit anywhere who'll bet one dollar that the addition of the execrable Dennis Rodman to the Chicago Bulls roster won't create a seasonlong circus of distraction for this team. Some are praising Bulls management for being daring, and willing to take a risk. If Rodman could undergo a brain transplant this might work. Absent that, a miracle is what the Bulls will need for this to work.

Still Not Enough Empty Seats

• About 30,000 seats went unsold in Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium for two baseball playoff games with the Atlanta Braves. The Reds were offering centerfield bleacher seats for $30. Pundits wrung their hands. Kool-Aiders muttered angrily about the disloyalty of those who didn't show up. Still, there will be no justice in America until they play in empty stadiums. None. (October 16, 1995)

And Doc Makes Three. . .

• The New York Yankees--my boys, my beloved boys--have signed a third drug addict, former Mets pitcher Dwight "Doc" Gooden. What's wrong with George Steinbrenner, anyway?

Good!

• You've got to love the political incorrectness of this year's baseball World Series: the Atlanta Braves against the Cleveland Indians. The bleeders will be foaming at the mouth over this.

Double Good!!

• USA Today reports that "Burnie," the Miami Heat mascot who was convicted of aggravated assault for dragging a fan onto the court during a preseason game between the Heat and the Atlanta Hawks last year, now faces a $1 million lawsuit filed by the draggee, Yvonne Gil-Rebollo. Her lawyer, David Efron, said "This case is about every fan's right to go see a game without being harrassed by a clown or by anybody." Great. Now if we can only get this concept extended to telemarketers who call us at home uninvited, and to other assorted pests, freaks, and hucksters dangling in the public eyeball, the world will truly be a better place. (October 13, 1995)

Buck Finds Two

• Buck Showalter has turned down a two-year, $1.05 million offer and resigned as manager of the New York Yankees. Good. It's encouraging to find someone in the organization with some integrity. (October 27, 1995)

A Little Something To Be Thankful For

• Former Evansville University basketball star Parrish Casebier, who over the past few years has declined to honor numerous court appearances for various misdemeanor and felony charges--believing, apparently, that the laws don't apply to him if it means being inconvenienced--has been tracked down and arrested and will spend four years in prison for rape. Casebier led the Evansville Aces in scoring in the early 1990s. He was convicted in absentia Sept. 28 in an Evansville court, and a month later was arrested in Nebraska where he was working. Welcome back, big guy!

• The NBA's new franchise, the Toronoto Raptors, hasn't played a league game yet, but it's quickly getting in step with the local police blotter. One of the team's players, Alvin Robertson, was arrested over the weekend and jailed on a charge of assaulting a woman at Toronto's Sky Dome Hotel, where he is staying. Robertson was held overnight and freed on $3,000 bail. . .it was a challenging weekend for Denver Broncos wide receiver Mike Pritchard, too. He was arrested Sunday on a charge of vehicular assault and "driving while impaired" (nothing said about the more likely problem, living while impaired), after his automobile--on its own, surely--ran into two pedestrians in Boulder, Colorado. Pritchard is one of three Bronco nominees for the team's "Man of the Year Award." (October 30, 1995.

Cracking The Code At Nebraska

• Who Do They Think They Are, Anyway? Department--A group of women faculty at the University of Nebraska wants the student conduct code changed to suspend from extracurricular activity any student convicted of a violent crime. The proposal, which will be voted down by the faculty Senate on Nov. 7, comes after Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips was cleared to return to footballing after pleading no contest (and so far as the girl is concerned, it wasn't) to charges that he "inflicted some damage" (his coach, Tom Osborne's words) on his girlfriend (code for: beat the crap out of her.). Besides, criminals have a constitutional right to extracurricular activities.

• One fond hope to carry me through another winter of discontent: the chance that major league baseball will not reach a labor agreement with the players and the 1996 season will be canceled. And then maybe all of them, forever and eternity-type time.

But They Still Buy Tickets. . .

• Mike Francesca--or was it Joey Buttafouco? Charles Manson? Gore Vidal?--they all blur--pummeled me on ESPN sportstalk radio Sunday morning with a lament about the ugliness of the Cleveland Browns situation, how angry and bitter the fans were last Sunday, the first after owner Art Modell's announcement he was moving the team to Baltimore. Well, the real problem is that there was a crowd. When are these fools going to wise up and stop going to the games? There'll be no justice in America till they play in empty stadiums. Or stadia. None.

• Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr is fuming over an Ann Arbor News article which describes quarterback Brian Griese's performance as alternating between "brilliant" and "awful." Carr himself is quoted in Mark Ambrogi's "Around The Big Ten" column in the November 16 Indianapolis Star saying "Brian Griese is a 3.0 student. He's 21 years old. He's worked hard and competed. I think the man who wrote that article owes him an apology. It's the first year that he's competed. He shouldn't have to pick up a paper and read that his performance is awful." Oh? I don't follow Michigan sports so have no idea how the young chap's performed, but what if his performance has been awful? Is the press supposed to say it's been something else? Is that what Carr's saying? It's worth noting that Carr did not address the issue of how Griese has performed. His wail is that it's not fair if the press isn't tub-thumping with Chamber of Commerce boosterism for good old Michigan. (November 16, 1995)

• My boys, my beloved boys, the New York Yankees, have chosen not to use their option to rehire outfielder Daryll Strawberry, thus reducing to two the number of known and convicted drug addicts on their roster. Good!

Quick! Who's Guilty Of Judgmentalism Here? Notre Dame or Michigan?

• The University of Notre Dame has suspended its football team's leading rusher, Randy Kinder, from the school's upcoming Orange Bowl game against Florida State and from spring practice. The university would not reveal the reason for its disciplinary action, but the lad himself told eager reporters it was for "an overindulgence of alcohol" and "immature behavior" (code for: getting drunk and raising hell). Let's see if I've got this right. At the University of Michigan, varsity basketballers were videotaped stealing beer from a convenience store and suspended from one game against Michigan State but quickly reinstated in time for the Indiana game and before any adjudication of the legal charges. Michigan Athletic direcor Joe Roberson rushed to go public to defend the lads' constitutional rights. At Notre Dame, the offender was suspended from the team's most prestigious game of the year and barred from spring practice as well, and the administration said nothing. At which school do you spot a hint of backbone, a willingness to be judgmental, stand for something?

• A scribbled note. . .Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune once offered the whimsical possibility of an all-rhyming NBA team in Cleveland. . .if the Cavaliers could just sign ancient Billy "The Hill" McGill and trade for Kendall Gill, those two could team with Tyrone Hill, Bobby Phills and Terry Mills. McGill, Gill, Hill, Phills and Mills does have a certain beat. But alas--apparently--it was not to be. No harm in dreaming, surely.

• The Atlanta Braves, struggling to keep their player payroll under $50 million, have traded Kent Mercker, their No. 5 starting pitcher. Mercker was paid $2.25 million last year and would have been paid over $3 million this year. In a brief account of this in the December 18 Indianapolis Star readers found a clue to why millions of baseball fans are sick and disgusted with their beloved game, the buffoons who run it and the hired Hessians who play it: Mercker's record last year was 7-8 with a 4.15 E.R.A. (December 18, 1995)

• The New York Yankees cut loose the insipid and overpaid "Black Jack" McDowell without an offer recently, and within a week he'd signed another monster contract, this time with Cleveland. Good riddance. (December 12, 1995)

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