Odds Are Magazine Has Inside Story
News and views … but mostly views:
The magazine Inside Sports obviously took the name seriously in its October issue (already?). It goes inside a prison in Indiana and has ex-quarterback Art Schlichter, who has been incarcerated for about 10 months now, author a piece on his seemingly never-ending gambling problems, which started as a Baltimore Colts rookie in 1982.
Jim Brown was one of the men inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at its new digs in South Bend, Ind., over the weekend. It’s hard to believe he hasn’t been there for the last 35 years or so. Not only was the guy all but unstoppable when he ran the ball at Syracuse, he was terrific on defense, too.
Phil Rizzuto, done calling Yankees baseball games as of right now, said, “The best years of my life were spent here, playing and broadcasting.” One would hope so. Scooter, 77, has been showing up to work at Yankee Stadium for the last 55 years.
Maybe the United Baseball League, which is hoping to get started next season with eight teams, will never get off the launch pad. But a tentative television deal with Liberty Sports is a stride in the right direction. The men running the show say there are enough big-league players around to fill their rosters, all but proving they haven’t been paying attention to some of the teams masquerading as big league these days.
When Michigan eased by Virginia, 18-17, on the last play of the Pigskin Classic Saturday, it is said to have “eased the pain of last year’s nightmarish loss to Colorado on a last-play desperation pass.” A cease-and-desist order should be invoked on such foolish conjecture, because of different years, different players, different almost anything. A guy loses a Wimbledon final to a rival, beats him in an exhibition in Santa Fe, N.M., on a Tuesday night and someone invariably asks, “Does this make up for Wimbledon?”
Quarterback Dave Krieg gets 40 pages in the 1995 media guide of the Arizona Cardinals. Dave Krieg! It must go into great detail about his exploits in Pop Warner ball and high school, not to mention running photostats of all the exams he took while in college (Milton).
The famed Rucker basketball league and tournament, staged at a playground near Yankee Stadium in New York City, celebrated its 45th anniversary recently. NBA players galore have played there before and after their professional fame, but few are included among the legends. Probably the most heralded is a gent named Earl Manigault who, with a running start, is said to have jumped so high he could end up sitting on the rim. He was 6-1. Seating was often a problem, the crowds were so large at the tourney. Most inventive trick witnessed was a kid with his father’s suspenders looped over a branch sitting there as if on a swing, taking it all in.