Cheap Seats

America’s favorite fast time

The smallest crowd ever for a Marlins home game was naturally the most intimate. With Florida behind Cincinnati 8-1 in the sixth inning Saturday and the game lacking for action, one young couple began to make love. The woman’s back was to the field, perhaps protesting the Marlins’ fore - er, poor - play.

When passions finally cooled, the lovers were ejected from the ballpark, missing the end of yet another Marlins loss.

The marketing implications are endless. As Charlton Heston might say, “Do unto baseball as it’s done unto you.” Or, in shoe-speak, “Marlins Baseball - Just Screw It.” And we can hear Harry Caray now: “Make me out at the ballgame … “

They just don’t get it

With the baseball strike finally over, it’s refreshing to see players so eager to reconcile with their alienated fans. Take White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen, for lack of a more bitter example. “Right now, fans are acting like we owe them something,” an incredulous Guillen said. “We don’t owe anybody anything.”

Say what? Guillen is dumbfounded by the abundance of obscenities directed at players. “They can think whatever they want to think and they can feel whatever they want to feel,” Guillen said, sounding like a worthy substitute for Stuart Smalley of Saturday Night Live fame. “But we’re human beings. And I don’t think people have a right to act with players the way they’re acting.”

Teammate Mike LaValliere said he got a letter that began, “Dear Scum of the Earth.” He said the writer enclosed a burned schedule and promised never to return to Comiskey.

“There’s a lot of player bashing going on,” LaValliere said. “And I think it’s unfair. If people are genuinely so upset about the baseball situation that they don’t want to go to games, well, I don’t think the players can do anything about that. It was more frustrating for us to be away from the game than it was for them.”

On second thought, maybe LaValliere is right.

Schayes’ rebellion

A rematch of the 1993 NBA finals would be a match made in television heaven for the folks at NBC, who could do much worse than a series involving Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

But Suns center Danny Schayes wants to see it for another reason. He and Joe Kleine would face Chicago’s three-pronged center attack of Will Perdue, Luc Longley and Bill Wennington.

“It would be the Battle of the Titans,” Schayes said. “Thirty-five feet of white centers going at it. In Chinese folklore, this is the Year of the Dog. It could be the year of the Big White Stiff.”

Going overboard

The Kiwis were so confident of victory in the America’s Cup, they began planning how to celebrate well in advance, debating last week whether to create a national holiday, for which there’s precedent.

When Australia won the ‘83 Cup, its prime minister called any boss who didn’t give workers a day off “a bum.” Current New Zealand prime minister Jim Bolger said that, while a national holiday is unlikely, his team’s effort is “a great example of New Zealand tenacity, determination and technical know-how.”

Making Dennis Conner’s efforts a great example of American audacity, duplicity and unabashed arrogance. < The last word …

“You can find it in all music stores, right next to ABBA’s greatest hits.” Suns center Joe Kleine, on the CD by teammate Wayman Tisdale’s band, the Fifth Quarter