Cheap Seats

The Canseco standard

Boston Red Sox slugger Jose Canseco played a round of golf recently, carding a downright painful 112. “I’ve only (played) about 10 times in my life,” the former Bash Brother explained. “If I hit it right, I can drive it about 315 yards or so. I had one bad hole - I got a 15 on it.”

Only one bad hole? Let’s see here … 112 minus 15 equals 97 strokes … divided by the remaining 17 holes … for a per-hole average of 5.7. Many bad holes, Jose.

I hate to name names, but …

Mike Keenan, who left the New York Rangers last summer to become general manager and coach of the St. Louis Blues, has more than a faint idea of which anonymous Rangers player told Sports Illustrated recently that Keenan comes “with an expiration date.”

Said Keenan: “Any player who would not go on record, to me, is a coward. You’re not going to get an anonymous comment from Mark Messier or Kevin Lowe or Steve Larmer or Brian Noonan or Stephane Matteau or Adam Graves or Brian Leetch or Jeff Beukeboom or Sergei Zubov.

“So, I can pretty well tell you one of the three or four players who said it, and they’re the guys who didn’t play.”

Men of many convictions

Cowboys coach Barry Switzer is fed up with all the background checks scouts do on prospective draft picks. “If Charles Manson ran a 4.3,” Switzer cracked, “somebody would draft him.”

Owner Jerry Jones piped up, “Not the Cowboys.”

Jerry’s right. Who needs Manson with Erik Williams on the roster? And anyway, Manson was a bust at the combine - that ball-and-chain hurt him in the 40.

Oh, to beat up on Young again

When George Young was named general manager of the New York Giants in 1979, he said all he wanted was an office with a fence around it and a gate. Despite winning two Super Bowls since, Young appears ready to top that fence with some barbed wire.

The hypercritical New York fans and talk shows have decided Young isn’t keeping up with the times or handling the salary cap well. Young finally exploded a week ago at a reporter who brought up the team’s recent poor drafts.

“Why don’t you write what you want to write, that we can’t draft?” Young harumphed. “I’m not going to respond to that. Why do I have to make an excuse for our drafts? I’m tired of it. We draft the guys when we draft guys. They don’t come injury-proof or anything else. I’m a dummy on the cap and I’m a dummy on the drafts, too.”

Young remembers when fans booed his selection of Phil Simms in 1979. The cameramen even asked thencommissioner Pete Rozelle to announce the pick a second time so they could get the boos on film.

“They went through the whole thing again and they booed more,” Young recalled. “Pete even started to smile because he knew what was coming, and they said even he was laughing at the Giants’ pick.”

Saturday’s draft was different, with New York fans cheering the selection of Tyronne Wheatley.

The last word …

“I’ve had to get in the ring, believe me, with gas, indigestion and everything, but I’ve always shown up.”

- George Foreman, nearly shown up by Axel Shulz on Saturday