Cheap Seats

Will a groundskeeper be next?

First they ejected a public address announcer. Now Texas-Louisiana League umpires Mel Chettum and Vince Price have bounced two scoreboard operators and mascot Davy Cricket from a game between the Lubbock Crickets and the Abilene Prairie Dogs.

Benches emptied when Lubbock’s Britt Bonneau was hit by a pitch from Earl Steinmetz. Abilene manager Charley Kerfeld admitted ordering the purpose pitch “because (Lubbock manager Greg) Minton is an idiot. You don’t (steal a base) when you’re down 9-0. I learned that in grade school.”

Countered Minton: “There’s nothing that says a team can’t try to score some runs when it’s losing. I think (Kerfeld) had a brain cramp.”

Ejected were Steinmetz, Bonneau, pitcher Noah Peery and the mascot. Then the umpires tossed scoreboard operators Steve Cooper and Arni Sribhen for flashing a sign on the scoreboard that showed an eye and a pair of glasses.

Only Davy questioned his ejection.

“I was just standing there by the third-base line, and Mel pushed me from behind,” Davy said. “He shoves me and says ‘Get this bug off the field.”’

And how do those cleats taste?

Shortstop Robert Eenhorn of the New York Yankees idolized Ryne Sandberg, second baseman with the Chicago Cubs. So when Sandberg wrote a book - “Second to Home” - Eenhorn devoured it.

Not long afterward, Eenhorn was watching a game from behind home plate, according to Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe, when he spotted a man wearing a Cubs jacket. Eenhorn began talking to the man about Sandberg and mentioned that he had read what Sandberg had written - particularly his criticisms of Cubs general manager Larry Himes.

“I couldn’t believe the things in the book,” Eenhorn told the man. “What a jerk that GM was.”

The man in the Cubs jacket? Larry Himes.

A case of the Benz

Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie’s prize for winning the 10,000-meter run at the last world track and field championships was a Mercedes-Benz. It was also his motivation in successfully defending his title this year - even though he doesn’t know how to drive.

“It’s still in the garage,” Gebrselassie said of the ‘93 Benz. “I still cannot drive. It only has 45 kilometers on it. But if I won one more, I would try a little bit harder. If I had just one and I had an accident, learning to drive would be difficult.”

Yeah, but what if the second one runs out of gas?

Another place you can say twice: Bora Bora

Jimmy Johnson is at it again, claiming he has no strong desire to return to NFL coaching with exceptions.

“I know this is out of the blue, but New York is a little intriguing,” he said. “It’s got kind of a magic name. You have to say it twice: New York, New York.

“It’s a remote possibility. But it’s the only non-warm-weather site I might - I don’t know - at least scratch my head about.”

What? And mess up that hair? The last word …

“They said this guy was ignorant, selfish, egotistical. I said, ‘Damn, they’re really dogging someone.’ Then they flashed a picture of me. They were talking about me.”

- Deion Sanders, on a recent TV show he’d flipped to

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo