Cheap Seats

The unfriendly skies

The air up there has been cruel to Tyrone Hill. The Cavaliers forward took a sedative to help him cope with the flight home from New York over the weekend after turbulence rocked the team’s flight from Charlotte at the end of the regular season.

That hairy flight had prompted Hill to hire a limousine to take him on the 9-hour, 475-mile drive to New York for the opening of the playoffs.

“The plane dipped and everything was thrown all over the place,” Hill said of the flight from Charlotte. After that incident, Hill and teammate John Williams sought counseling, but Hill still needed medication to face the plane. Then Williams drove him home from the airport.

Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder

Maybe that’s what Ann Moeller was trying to tell her husband, Gary, before the Michigan football coach was arrested Friday night for punching a police officer in the chest outside a Southfield, Mich., restaurant - after he had harassed waitresses and patrons and tried to pick a fight.

Ann Moeller told police she argued with her husband when he wouldn’t stop drinking and then went to sit in their car. Moeller remained at the bar and drank until he was cut off.

Some lowlights from the evening, according to police: Moeller used profane language, including several remarks about his wife. One customer told police she wanted to leave “before the shooting starts.”

Moeller grabbed the sports jacket of one man upset over the coach’s behavior. The manager broke up that row, but when he told Moeller he would no longer be served, the coach responded by throwing a lamp shade at the manager’s head and challenging him to fight.

Police say Moeller was so intoxicated that jail officials refused to admit him, suggesting he be taken to the hospital to check for alcohol poisoning. At Providence Hospital, Moeller screamed profanities at patients and officers until he was isolated.

The band at the restaurant cut its set short because of Moeller. “He tried to dance, came up to people he was not with and tried to dance with them but kept almost falling down,” a singer told police.

“His behavior was completely out of character,” said his lawyer, David DuMouchel, “and is a source of personal embarrassment.”

Especially since he’s normally a great dancer.

A team that really needs to pass Rush

Radio’s Baron of Bombast, Rush Limbaugh, is anything but conservative when it comes to predicting success for the Denver Broncos this fall.

“Nineteen-and-oh,” Limbaugh offered as he watched the Broncos conclude a three-day mini-camp - a visit he arranged for his wife, Marta, who is “a huge Broncos fan, particularly a John Elway fan.”

At the close of practice, owner Pat Bowlen introduced the Limbaughs to the entire team.

“We’re just here exploiting being fans,” said Rush. “I played the game a little bit in high school, but I only did it to get girls, and that didn’t work.”

Perhaps if he’d kept the mouthpiece in and helmet on.