Cheap Seats

All-Star Games Are Really Dumb Dept.:

For one thing, it’s a stretch to put a guy like Joe Urso - who has spent five years as an infielder in the California League - on an all-star team. For another, you might have to make him pitch.

That’s what happened to Del Crandall, who ran out of hurlers as the Cal League’s all-star affair against the Carolina League ended after 11 innings in a 2-2 tie.

Crandall used all seven pitchers allotted him in 10 innings because “before the game I’m told by this manager and that manager that I can only use their guy one or two innings,” Crandall groused.

League president Joe Gagliardi ordered Crandall to send a position player to the mound for the 11th, and Crandall stormed into his locker room, prompting boos from the Rancho Cucamonga crowd. Crandall finally turned to Urso, who plays for Lake Elsinore.

With High Desert’s Melvin Rosario, formerly of the Spokane Indians, behind the plate, Urso set the side down in order in the 11th, then walked off to a standing ovation.

“He was throwing some kind of fastball - I don’t know what it was,” Rosario said. “I called for a couple of curveballs, but he shook me off. He knew he could get them out with his gas.”

So we’ll see him pitching for the Tigers next week.

From the home office …

Our Top Tenmeister, David Letterman, came up with a list of Sonics excuses for losing to Chicago:

10. Our uniforms kept getting caught on Dennis Rodman’s nose ring.

9. Can’t prove it, but we’re pretty sure our basket was a lot smaller than their basket.

8. Clinton must have given the Bulls our secret FBI files.

7. Still upset about Julie Andrews getting snubbed at the Tonys.

6. Uninspiring performance by new cheerleader.

5. Whole team still getting over shock that Madonna is having a non-NBA baby.

4. Those championship rings are a little fruity.

3. If we won, we’d get hundreds of calls from people offering us huge endorsement deals - what a pain in the ass! 2. Shouldn’t have had that halftime pep talk by Dr. Kevorkian.

1. Michael Jordan? We thought we were playing against Michael Jackson!

At least he didn’t lose a tennis bet

A Montana man upset over losing a $6 golf bet took his frustrations out on the tennis courts at Meadowlark Country Club in Great Falls.

Witnesses said a man in a pickup drove through the fence onto the courts, spinning his tires and driving back and forth several times before fleeing with tennis nets hanging from his truck.

Police traced the license plate number to 68-year-old Jack Charles Bloxham and found the nets still hanging from his truck’s running gear.

“I really don’t know how it happened,” Bloxham said. “I just hit that accelerator when I turned the pickup on and I was trying to get out of there. There was no intent whatsoever.”

But in an affidavit, police said Bloxham admitted he lost a golf bet and drove into and around the courts purposely. He was cited with felony criminal mischief.

The last word …

“Gail Devers can grow fingernails long enough to trip Gwen Torrence in the 100-meter dash.”

Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star columnist

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo