Cheap Seats

Dad, can you bring home some burgers?

Broncos wide receiver Ed McCaffrey recently taped a Denver commercial for McDonald’s in which the offensive line locks him in a locker.

His 3-1/2-year-old son, Maxwell, didn’t like it. “He saw the commercial when I was away and he thought I was really stuck in the locker,” McCaffrey said. “I had to give him a call to tell him they let me out.”

Biting remarks from the press box

Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Although Philadelphia Flyers star Eric Lindros bared his teeth during a scuffle with the Sharks’ Marty McSorley recently, the NHL decided he hadn’t taken a bite, of, uh, seafood.”

Said Kevin Paul Dupont about Lindros in the Boston Globe: “Lindros will not receive any supplemental discipline (both players got double minors), but he has been advised to floss between shifts.”

Is this a move or an expansion?

Steve Baker of KVMR-FM in Nevada City, Calif., on the possible move of the Minnesota Twins to Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, North Carolina’s Triad region: “Does this mean the Twins become the Triplets?”

Playing the name game

Ed Bouchette in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before the Steelers played the Philadelphia Eagles last month, noted how the Steelers once combined forces with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1943. They were called the Steagles.

Today, if they combined forces, they would just be called losers.

Would this really be a step up?

Jerry Magee in the San Diego Union-Tribune: “‘Rumor of the week.’ No, make that ‘rumor of the year.’ John Robinson will move on from USC and replace Joe Bugel as coach of the Raiders.

“In some ways, it makes sense. Bugel’s position can’t be secure. Players, one can hear, have soured on him. His defense isn’t much.

“Robinson once served for a year as a Raiders assistant coach and could co-exist with Al Davis. He is a master of public relations, an area in which the Oakland club is bereft.”

And the talent level Robinson would inherit would be about the same as it is at USC.

Time to name the all-orchestra team

Glenn Nelson in the Seattle Times said, “In the symphony of professional basketball, Michael Jordan comes off like a trumpet solo, bold and brassy. Grant Hill, in comparison, is more the harp solo, pleasant and light - an enhancer.”

Let’s see. Dennis Rodman would probably be a cymbals solo, loud and obnoxious with no real talent.

The last word …

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Lately, I’ve had to psych myself up just to go out there and punch somebody in the face. That’s not me.”- Buffalo Sabres enforcer Matthew Barnaby was upset after coach Lindy Ruff benched him

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo