Cheap Seats
Does Nike make a stiletto heel?
Colin Thomason ran his 186th marathon last week in Culver City, Calif. He said he has run the last 86 wearing a dress.
Why? Well, Thomason is from Wales, and he says it’s a tradition to run in a dress after your 100th marathon. On this occasion, Thomason wore an orange and black ensemble and carried daffodils.
Is this what they mean by “cross training?”
Kick on somebody your own size
A New England ball boy says Jets kicker Nick Lowery slapped him during Sunday’s 31-28 Patriots win after he refused to warm up footballs on a cold afternoon.
“Nobody looks good in this incident. I regret it,” said Lowery, who stopped short of admitting he slapped 20-year-old David Foscaldo. “In the heat of the moment - in this case the cold of the moment - I lost my cool.”
As a courtesy, home teams usually place a bag of footballs next to the heated seat on which players can sit, thus keeping the balls warmer and softer. But Lowery claims Foscaldo was anything but courteous, though the ball boy says the kicker cursed him, as well.
“Afterward, I looked for him,” Lowery said. “He said, ‘I’m just mad because they almost arrested me.’ ” But Pats snapper Steve DeOssie had another view.
“I told him he was a coward and other words you can’t use on TV, and offered him the opportunity to hit somebody closer to his own size,” said DeOssie. “And that’s when he started groveling.”
Lowery emphasized that Foscaldo isn’t a little kid: “Ballboy gives the connotation that he was 12 - the guy was 180 pound and looked like he was 25.”
Well, by all means then, slap him.
Only in Philadelphia
Don King is calling Saturday’s Mike Tyson-Buster Mathis Jr. bout in Philadelphia “Presumption of Innocence” - a reference to mail-fraud charges pending against him - but a better name might be “Presumption of Free Lodging.”
King and his minions have aggressively tried to secure hundreds of free hotel rooms, as well as relief from city and state taxes - breaks he gets in casino cities where bouts are magnets for high rollers.
“They wanted 75 comped rooms,” said Rick Odorisio of the Wyndham Franklin Plaza, “in return for making us press headquarters. We passed.” Another hotel executive said King’s flunkies said “Give us all these rooms and we’ll give you a bunch of tickets. It was odious.”
Sniffed Joe Hand Sr., a local boxing figure, “This is going to be like a two-hour commercial for Philadelphia. Would it be so much for the city to say to Don King, ‘Thank you for all you’re doing?’ ” King did strike deals for blocks of comped rooms at the Marriott and the Hotel Bellevue - on the condition he room there.
“He’s staying here,” said Tracie Harper, marketing director at the Bellevue.
“He’ll be here,” said Chris Hosmer of the Marriott.
King did stay at the Bellevue’s presidential suite last week. One of King’s staffers, unaware that his boss had checked out, was shocked to knock on the door and be greeted by the room’s next occupant, Sen. Bob Dole.
Presidential suite? Speaking of presumption, Bob…
The last word …
“Grass isn’t his best surface.”
- Golf analyst Roger Maltbie, watching former tennis star Ivan Lendl hit five shots into a water hazard
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo