Cheap Seats

Oh, shut up

Baltimore closer Randy Myers will make $3 million this season, and recently tried to get a $30,000-a-year public address system operator fired at Camden Yards. Myers said he was warming up on the mound when the P.A. system blared part of a song unexpectedly and he pulled a muscle - and then lost a game.

Please shut up

Bud Selig said his reign as baseball’s acting commissioner will go down as the most fruitful five years in the sport’s history.

Selig told a gathering of newspaper sports editors that Padres president Larry Lucchino “keeps saying to me and saying publicly that someday I’ll be the Harry Truman of baseball.

“He happens to be one of my political heroes because, while Harry was in office, he got castigated. It was only a decade or two later that people understood him,” Selig said.

Choosing to ignore the fact that the playoffs and World Series were canceled in 1994 as owners and players footdragged over a labor agreement, runaway salaries, sagging attendance, a record number of clubs for sale and a weaselly disciplinary policy, Selig saw only sunshine.

“We have labor peace with at least some salary restraint,” Selig said. “There are three divisions and a wild card. Do you remember what happened when we passed that? The critics were ranting and raving. Today, everybody loves it. Now, you don’t hear a peep from anybody.”

Selig did lament the Roberto Alomar spitting incident and George Steinbrenner’s lawsuit against team owners as black eyes the sport needs to avoid.

“People are sick and tired of reading about disputes and acrimony,” Selig said. “They want to hear about Ken Griffey Jr. hitting home runs.”

Bud, they want to hear about you resigning.

We mean it - just shut up

Sports marketing guru Mark McCormack believes the British government’s plans to ban tobacco advertising will damage the the country’s sports programs.

“Obviously, the health reasons are pretty important in this, but I don’t think you can ignore the benefit to sport and the development of sport that results from the money,” said McCormack, head of International Marketing Group. “I personally subscribe to the fact that if tobacco money is being used to further the interest in sport then that is not all bad.”

Dammit, shut up

According to Deion Sanders, race is the reason he’s booed in National League ballparks.

“I never want to make it racist, but how many black guys are cheered?” he said. “Why does Barry Bonds, a three-time MVP, get booed?”

Sanders didn’t ask why Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. was the leading vote-getter in last year’s All-Star balloting and is cheered everywhere. Or why Kirby Puckett was the most popular player in the game. Or why fans around the leagues warmly welcome Tony Gwynn, Mo Vaughn, Barry Larkin and Frank Thomas.

Shut the hell up

Disney is being sued by the maker of Ping golf clubs, because one of the characters in Disney’s upcoming animated feature “Hercules” is named Ping.

The last word …

“Foul them on every play and see if you can get away with it.”

- Bulls coach Phil Jackson on Pat Riley’s coaching philosophy

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo