Cheap Seats

Memorabilia 101

Phoenix Suns guard Kevin Johnson is willing to sign autographs for kids, but he wants to make it an educational experience. Sometimes he refuses unless they first answer a math problem.

OK, kids, if I defer $3 million of my salary until 1999, what’s my taxable income not including incentive bonuses and my shoe deal?

Reds take the cure: hair of the dog

Remember Billy Ball? Well, the Cincinnati Reds played Hairball last Saturday. After watching her club lose eight of its first nine games, owner Marge Schott pulled out all the motivational stops - and the Reds responded with an improbable win over the Mets.

Marge’s magic? She walked onto the field during batting practice with current mascot Schottzie 02 in tow and a plastic sandwich bag in hand containing clumps of light brown hair from the original Schottzie, a St. Bernard that died in 1991.

Then Schott proceeded to rub the dog hair on her players’ chests and legs - and put clumps in the pockets of manager Davey Johnson and coach Ray Knight.

“You just think, what can you do?” she said.

During the ‘90 season, Marge would rub some dog hair on the chest of manager Lou Piniella every day, right up through the World Series.

On Saturday, Schott rubbed the hair on the chest of Hal Morris and soon afterward, Morris hit a ball over the wall - and then homered in his first at-bat during the game and scored the winning run. Schott headed for the dugout when it was over to kiss her players.

All in all, they’d rather stick with dog hair.

How not to make the team

Ferric Collons, one of the first players signed by the NFL expansion Jacksonville Jaguars, was also the first cut. Seems he got into a fight during a minicamp practice, pulled off a teammate’s helmet and threw it 50 yards downfield. When coach Tom Coughlin asked him to retrieve it, Collons barked, “No!”

These boots are made for banking

Manny Ramirez has a curious concept of automatic deposit. The Cleveland outfielder, after the Indians’ final game in Texas last week, left a pair of boots in the visiting clubhouse at The Ballpark at Arlington - and didn’t notice until the team was halfway to Detroit. Inside those boots, Ramirez had left his paycheck.

It might be a lot of dough to you, but to Manny it’s just walking-around money.

Bring back Ralph

We don’t even get WWOR here, but we miss “Kiner’s Korner” - canceled by the Mets flagship station - anyway. We didn’t know how much until Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia Inquirer reminded fans of Ralph Kiner about the time he tried to explain why Jesse Orosco did not get a save: “He did not pitch three innings. And he came in without the on-deck batter being a batter that he would face in his next approach to pitching to the hitter.”

The last word …

“He reminds me of a fishing lure.”

- TNT play-by-play announcer Ron Thulin, on Dennis Rodman’s 15 tattoos and dyed-in ribbon in his blond hair