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No Zeke Mowatt he
Peter McNeeley may not last long when he fights Mike Tyson, but he is making an impression with media. McNeeley was introduced recently to Lisa Olson of the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald. “Patriots?” asked McNeeley, remembering it was Olson who covered the New England football team for the Boston Herald until team sexists made life impossible for her. Then, sweetly, with no lewd overtones, McNeeley told her, “You can come into my locker room any time.”
The pot calls the kettle
The opinion of fans can affect players, sometimes to the extreme. San Francisco Giants pitcher Terry Mulholland reportedly became so despondent after an exchange with a fan last weekend that he is considering quitting baseball altogether.
After asking for and receiving Mulholland’s autograph, the fan said he agreed with a local columnist who called Mulholland “a pile of soot” - then told Mulholland he was a sucker for giving him his autograph.
Right. Like the fan who stands in line for Terry Mulholland’s autograph isn’t a sucker.
That’s MISTER Jester to you
Maybe baseball is better off without a commissioner. It could get stuck with Primo Nebiolo.
Track’s world championships are on in Sweden, but the martinet president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation threatened to return home to Italy - no, anything but that - because of unkind treatment by the Swedish media, including a series of stories in the Goteborg paper on his autocratic leadership and role in IAAF scandals.
Scheduled for an hour-long interview with Britt-Maria Matteson - the “Barbara Walters of Sweden” - Nebiolo aborted it after 8 minutes by asking Matteson, “What would you think if I asked how many men you have slept with?” Said Matteson, “I’ve worked for 23 years as a foreign correspondent, interviewed dictators and other nuts, but I’ve never met anyone who behaved like Nebiolo.”
Later, Swedish track and field officials Berent Groon and Ulk Ekelund called a news conference to ask the media to back off. A columnist for the Goteborgs-Posten, Jan Hansson, asked the officials if they felt like court jesters for Nebiolo.
Responding simultaneously, Groon said no and Ekelund said yes. After a pause, Ekelund added: “But I’m prepared to take it.”
Home improvement
Cherokee Parks, the Dallas Mavericks’ top draft pick, was reared by a single mother, but the former Duke center says it never bothered him or his sister.
“A lot of people ask me what I did for a male role model,” Parks told the Dallas Morning News. “But my mom, she just did a remarkable job. Whatever she’s been involved in, she’s always gone for it 100 percent. My mom did stuff like working construction, laying drywall. Not a lot of moms out there can lay drywall.”
The last word …
“It’s twisted, unfathomable. My parents are both teachers. There’s no way I could ever say that my job benefits people more than what they do. Yet, in just my first year of playing (pro) football, my dad and I sat down and figured that I’d make something like 200 years worth of his salary (around $5.6 million).”
- Former WSU quarterback Drew Bledsoe, on his $42 million contract with the Patriots
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