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You can’t handle the truth

Actor Jack Nicholson was playing a round of golf at the Old Course at St. Andrews, helping Michael Douglas celebrate his 50th birthday, when he asked his caddie, “Tell me, what does a Scotsman have with his Scotch?”

“Another one,” the caddie responded.

That’s his story and he’s sticking to it

In his autobiography “I Was Right On Time,” longtime Negro League player Buck O’Neil talks about some of his many nicknames, which included Jay, Foots, Country, Cap and Nancy.

Nancy?

That, O’Neil wrote, came from Satchel Paige, who was knocking on a hotel door, looking for a female friend named Nancy when his fiancee, Lahoma, showed up in the hall.

O’Neil opened his door and Paige, an expert at innovation, said to his teammate, “Why Nancy. There you are. I was looking for you. What time is the game tomorrow?”

“From that night until his dying day,” O’Neil wrote, “Satchel called me Nancy.”

Our jolly good friends, the Brits

Here’s how the official Wimbledon program described Todd Martin before he played local hero Tim Henman in the quarterfinals: “Martin stands 6-foot-6 in his socks and has been known to hold conversations with low-flying aeroplanes. He is a fine player, an intelligent man and, that rarity, a modest American.”

Modesty comes easier to a country where a homegrown making the quarters is cause for a national holiday.

With friends like these…

San Francisco Giants teammates of pitcher William VanLandingham, weary of his inability to get batters out, refer to him as William VanLaunchingpad.

What am I bid for this old moose costume?

Part of the Kingdome’s 20-year history was auctioned off recently - a basketball backboard and hoop, batting cage nets, a football goal-and-down marker, a hot-dog warmer and a bunch of acoustic baffles just for starters.

And more than 150 television sets that carried live action from the playing field for fans waiting in concession lines were also sold.

“We have items that have been surplused, and we have to have them cleared out for football,” said Kingdome spokeswoman Carol Keaton.

Nothing was quite so surplus as those acoustic baffles - narrow strips of padded synthetic material purchased after some of the dome’s ceiling tiles fell into the stands in July 1994. King County ordered the baffles on the advice of a local consultant. But the Mariners nixed the idea for fear the baffles - ranging from 20 feet to 40 feet long - would confuse players fielding fly balls.

And if you’ve seen Brian Hunter play left field, you know he’s baffled enough.

The last word …

“They could line up orange crates and people would get slivers in their butts to watch Michael Jordan. But you could put recliners in and they wouldn’t watch the Brewers.”

- Michael Ellis, Wisconsin Senate minority leader, on a new ballpark for the Brewers

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo