Cheap Seats

You mean they were frisked for candy bars?

The new ritual of Expos fans - throwing Oh Henry! chocolate bars to salute slugger Henry Rodriguez - seemed certain to get somebody fired in Montreal. Instead, somebody quit - in Ottawa.

Murray Wilson, marketing director of the Expos’ Triple-A farm club, resigned after owner Howard Darwin prevented fans from bringing the bars into Ottawa Stadium for an exhibition game between the Lynx and the Expos. Darwin cited rules against fans bringing food into the park.

“Thursday should have been the crown jewel of the season for this organization,” Wilson said. “The Expos were here, the stadium was nearly full, a four-year association with Montreal was announced and all you read about was the Oh Henry! controversy.”

Wilson said it was becoming increasingly difficult to work under Darwin’s hands-on management.

Guess he won’t be sending any resumes to the Reds then.

She knew him when

Kristy Barrett, who works for “Entertainment Tonight” in Los Angeles, was watching the sports report on television when the news came on that Buddy Lazier had won the Indianapolis 500.

Buddy Lazier? The Buddy Lazier who used to live in Vail, Colo.? The kid she knew from high school? The kid who used to give her rides on the handlebars of his bicycle? That Buddy Lazier?

Barrett said she should have known Lazier would win the Indy 500 after that first bike ride.

“He was really good at left turns,” she said.

How was he at making sure everyone else in school crashed?

Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em

It’s been a heck of a year for Cincinnati pitcher Mark Portugal.

It was bad enough that his adoring owner, Marge Schott, described him in Sports Illustrated as “just not worth a damn.” It was worse that he hadn’t won any of his nine starts, including three in which he gave up three hits or fewer. Then his team got him an early 3-0 lead in Florida - only to see the game rained out.

“Mother Nature has taken over as my least-favorite female,” Portugal announced. “I’m not going to comment on who was No. 1.”

A different Drummer

The recent death of golf writer and television personality Bob Drum prompted the retelling of a few stories, including this one from Golf World magazine.

It seems Drum once wrangled a trip to the British Open, even though his paper, the Pittsburgh Press, had not assigned him to cover it and told him that it didn’t want any stories from him.

When Arnold Palmer, from Latrobe, Pa., near Pittsburgh, was second after the third round, an editor cabled Drum: “Need story tomorrow on Palmer.”

Drum’s cabled reply: “I hope you get one.”

Of course, the next thing he wrote appeared in the paper under the headline, “Positions Wanted.”

The last word …

“They tell us for months that their swimsuit issue is coming, but then they put Marge Schott on the cover and they give us no warning at all.”

- Bob Golic, on Sports Illustrated

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo