Cheap Seats

Griffey knows foul lies

As it rained heavily last Thursday, Tiger Woods and Ken Griffey Jr. sat in the clubhouse and saw their tee time washed away.

Golf was out. That left plenty of time for trash talking.

“The last time I played with Tiger, I made him putt a two-footer,” Griffey said. “I saw the Skins Game. He can miss those.”

Asked the day before to describe what it was like to play golf with Griffey, Woods grinned. “I tell him that in this game, you have to play your foul balls.”

Silver and Bleak

Considering their image, a mutiny would seem appropriate for the Oakland Raiders.

In a 30-0 loss to Kansas City two Sundays ago, the game was so frustrating for the team that quarterback Jeff George, who had questioned the play-calling during much of the season, and wide receiver Tim Brown, a perennial Pro Bowl selection and another outspoken player, began to call their own plays, ignoring offensive coordinator Ray Perkins.

“You have my word, in the next couple of weeks, things won’t go down like this,” said Brown, who spoke with Al Davis after the game and appeared to have the owner’s blessing when he delivered his post-game critique. “If I have to have plays taped to my wristband, if I have to change a play on the field, I’ll do it.”

Irritated that Brown made his complaints public, coach Joe Bugel called a team meeting to try to calm things down and make sure complaints were kept private.

But things got worse. After Bugel opened the meeting by calling the Raiders a family, Pro Bowl defensive tackle Chester McGlockton chimed in, “We’re not a family.” Then, according to several players, the room erupted into a nasty verbal free-for-all, with players blaming each other for the team’s struggles.

“It was what you call a hard-hat meeting,” Bugel said. “If you didn’t have a hard hat on, you got hurt.”

Seems like the perfect atmosphere for winning in Oakland.

Suite act

The Apollo of Temple has what all new buildings must have - luxury suites. There are 10 executive suites on the concourse level of the building that was dreamed about for years.

A number of Temple basketball alumni - Duane Causwell, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie, Tim Perry, Marc Jackson and Mark Macon - all got together to buy one of the suites in honor of coach John Chaney for use by his family and friends.

“I couldn’t believe they did that,” Chaney said of his former players on opening night. “Everyone of that group I lied to about the building. I told them and their parents when I was recruiting them, ‘You’ll play in our new facility.’ I guess they didn’t hold it against me.”

Put sugar on it

Golfer Jesper Parnevik on his penchant for eating volcanic dust to clean out his system: “It’s really expensive. I don’t know why. It tastes just like regular dirt.”

The last word …

“We talk about a guy being a living legend - he’s a living museum. I don’t know anybody else who saw the Dempsey-Tunney fight. He can talk about Walter Johnson as if he lunched with him yesterday.”

- Dave Anderson of the New York Times on columnist Shirley Povich.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo