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Stuff this in your crust

The Giants may have lost to Dallas on Sunday, but New York quarterback Dave Brown got in the last word.

In the second quarter of the Cowboys’ 21-20 win, Brown scrambled past a flailing Deion Sanders, who has earned far more notoriety - if not money - for his Pizza Hut commercials with owner Jerry Jones than for his willingness to tackle.

Afterward, Brown was asked if he ran over Deion or around him.

“Both,” he answered.

His loving cup runneth over

Alberto Tomba sure knows how to celebrate. After receiving a crystal trophy cup for a third-place finish in a World Cup race at Alta Badia, Italy, the Italian skier threw it at photographer Aldo Martinuzzi.

“I was trying to throw the cup to my sister to avoid it being stolen,” Tomba alibied. “I received a push from the Austrian trainer and the cup accidentally fell on the photographer. I apologize, but I want to add he was probably punished, inadvertently, for his misbehavior.”

Martinuzzi and Tomba have been on the outs since last summer, when the photographer circulated nude photos of the World Cup champion taken in a sauna in 1988.

Martinuzzi said the 5-1/2-pound cup cut his right forefinger and bruised his shoulder. In Milan, he filed a deliberate assault suit.

“It’s absurd that the image of a great athlete can be obscured by such a useless episode.” said Carlo Valentino of the Italian ski federation. “I’m embittered as a man and as a president.”

Martinuzzi claimed Tomba also tried to hit him with a champagne bottle, but missed.

Not true. Actually, Tomba was only trying to christen Martinuzzi, “The Good Ship Sleazy Paparazzi.”

A little dab’ll doom ya

Apparently, not everyone got the news about Converse recalling those leaky RAW Energy sneakers. A basketball game between Poplar Bluff and Dexter high schools in Missouri had to be halted in the third period because of too much fluid on the floor. When Dexter’s Mike Schaefer skidded on some gel and landed on his back, referees declared Poplar Bluff a 54-33 winner.

“Once at Clearwater we had to call a game because the Tartan floor was sweating,” said Poplar Bluff coach Larry Morgan, “But I’ve never heard of a game being halted because of shoes.”

J. Edgar Hoopster

Todd Sandstedt resigned as assistant coach at Appalachian State this week in a career move that has nothing to do with basketball.

Sandstedt, an assistant for the Mountaineers since 1988, reported to Quantico, Va., to start 16 weeks of training to become an FBI agent.

“I am sorry about the timing of this entire thing,” he said. “I wanted to stay throughout the season, but was unable to get an extension and my date to report was out of my control.”

Now, if he’d wanted to become a CIA agent, he’d have disappeared without a trace.

The last word …

“Boxers like Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr. should be prohibited from wearing the logo “Everlast” on their trunks.”

- Los Angeles Daily News columnist Michael Ventre

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo