Cheap Seats

Sparky Mortimer, the sequel

Most 11-year-old baseball fans would be happy collecting bats or filling the Gatorade jug for their local minor-league team. Not Brian LaRochelle.

Armed with a computer and aided with a trunkful of media guides, the Little League catcher will keep stats this summer for the New Britain Rock Cats of the Eastern League. He’ll also do radio public service announcements and conduct player interviews geared toward young fans.

“I just thought it would be easier than trying to get on the field,” Brian said. “They already have a batboy, and you don’t see kids in the broadcast booth.”

Then what’s Phil Rizzuto doing there?

The Round Mound of Sound leaves town

Nor will you see Wayne Cody in the broadcast booth anymore. Bumped off Seattle’s television airwaves four years ago, the bearded, rotund sportscaster has retired from KIRO radio as well, effective last Friday.

“The television years were fun,” Cody said. “We brought a horse into the studio to stomp out (the number of the horse) who would win the Kentucky Derby. (Magician) Doug Henning made me disappear. I wore a pumpkin suit at Halloween, did one of the TV shows from a hot tub.

“I’ve often wondered why somebody didn’t come back and say, ‘Cody, why don’t you come in and do the weekends and do some of that goofy stuff?’ It’s really too serious now. People not standing for the national anthem. People head-butting people on the basketball court. And most of the players can’t ad-lib a belch coming out of an Italian restaurant.”

That was never Wayne’s problem, as a Longacres jockey once pointed out during a live interview.

“I guess I’m a little big to be one of you guys,” Cody ad-libbed.

“You’re a little big to be one of the horses,” the jockey replied.

Call it the Journalism Hilton

Organizers in Utah have balked at housing athletes for the 2002 Winter Olympics in a pair of rundown apartment buildings near a toxic waste cleanup site in Midvale.

But they think it might be the perfect digs for some of the 10,000 reporters who will cover the Games.

Midvale is preparing a proposal detailing how it could turn apartments located across from the Sharon Steel Superfund site, into Olympic housing.

“We’ll have to look at it,” said Dave Johnson of the Salt Lake organizing committee. “What’s most important to us is to meet the needs of the people we’re committed to provide housing for.”

In that case, give us a phone, an ice machine and a view of Love Canal.

You are what you eat

New Jersey Nets guard Vern Fleming has become the 200th player in NBA history to score 10,000 points. Asked the key to his durability, the 12-year veteran said: “I’ve had a hot dog, soda and pretzel before every game.”

Your durability, Vern, not your regularity.

The last word …

“It was kind of uncomfortable, but it really did turn into a positive experience. I sat next to one of their kids, about 6-8, 240 pounds. He’s a redshirt, so I spent most of the flight trying to get him to transfer.”

- Bradley coach Jim Molinari, on sharing a plane with first-round NCAA opponent Stanford

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo