Cheap Seats

Monkey business at Paralympics

A New Zealand skier in the Paralympics at Nagano, Japan, had to fend off a wild monkey that entered his room in a hotel near the slopes.

“I was just watching television in my room alone when a large monkey opened a door and leaped in from the hotel’s balcony,” Mathew Butson said. “I picked up my artificial arm and threatened it.”

But could he have held off the U.S. hockey team? The way they played, the answer is probably yes.

The truth hurts

Charles Barkley was in a ripping mood recently on Fox Sports Net’s “The Last Word.” He called co-host Wallace Matthews a “red-neck newspaper hack” and then dismissed Jim Rome as “the village idiot.”

One thing’s for sure about Charles Barkley: He’s not a liar.

Daddy couldn’t say it better

The Miami Heat’s Brent Barry, when reminded that his new coach, Pat Riley, demands tough defense from his players: “I thought defense was that thing surrounding your yard. I didn’t think it was an actual basketball term.”

Humphrey Bogart he’s not

At 38, Orlando’s Danny Schayes is the oldest starting center in the NBA, and he put his age in perspective when he said: “Comparing my game to today’s players is like cutting Humphrey Bogart out of one of his classics and putting him into a color movie.”

Comparatively speaking, Danny, you play like Ronald Reagan, not Bogart.

Wishful thinking

Wallace Matthews of the New York Post got carried away with the Knicks’ 101-89 victory over the Lakers on Sunday with chauvinistic fervor: “What Angelenos seem to forget is that we, New Yorkers, created their artificial paradise.

“Before we began heading West in droves to make money in the pretend world of the entertainment business, the place was nothing but orange groves bound by a desert at one end and the sea at the other.

“And what they don’t understand is what New York created New York can also destroy.”

You guys are so @#!$%&*

Tony DeMarco in the Denver Post: “Reds manager Jack McKeon used a four-letter expletive 20 times during his first address to his full squad.

“But that’s down from 37 when he took over for Ray Knight midway through last season, and from the 35 he used at the first meeting of this spring.”

Those self-improvement tapes are really paying off.

The last word …

“I’m still on Tokyo time. Maybe I did it already.”

- Colorado Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix, who after returning from Nagano was asked if he planned to make a trade.

, DataTimes