Cheap Seats
Be liked by Mike
Digital Pictures has released an interactive CD-ROM quarterback simulator titled “Quarterback Attack with Mike Ditka.”
Shot from the quarterback’s perspective, the simulator allows a player to call passes or runs, make audibles and even calculates efficiency ratings, while the former Bears coach provides strategy.
If the plays work, Ditka offers encouragement. If they don’t, he chews the quarterback out.
Look for the sequel, “Quarterback Anxiety Attack with Jim Harbaugh,” at computer stores near you.
Good thing it wasn’t a cast of thousands
Baseball’s ironman caused a run on baseballs when he attended a Broadway matinee of “Grease.”
Cast members got word that Cal Ripken Jr. would attend the Sunday show and began scrambling to find objects for the future Hall of Famer to sign.
Because her character, Cha Cha DiGregorio, doesn’t appear until the second act, actress Jennifer Cody led the search. Over the phone, she was able to persuade an assistant manager at Herman’s on 42nd Street to make a quick delivery of 30 baseballs, his entire stock, to the Eugene O’Neill Theater in return for a Ripken autograph.
The Baltimore Orioles shortstop, who in September surpassed Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, signed them all and even told the cast that “Grease” was his favorite show.
Gaylord Perry’s favorite, too.
War games
Forget the truce. Five years after the Pentagon ordered a halt to mascot-stealing, Army has gotten Navy’s goat again. A contingent of seniors from West Point staged a predawn raid on a Maryland farm and made off with three of the Naval Academy’s mascots.
“We knew Army cadets were involved,” Navy sports information director Tom Bates said, “because they cut through two fences to get to the goats and 15 feet away there was an unlocked gate.”
Navy wasn’t the only victim. Invaders stole the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy from the Air Force Academy trophy case, leaving the note: “We took it early ‘cause we’re going to win it anyway.”
An Air Force public affairs official likened the theft to a “tragedy … on the same level of shock and outrage a security guard at the Louvre would feel at the theft of the Mona Lisa” before the trophy was returned.
In other news, Iraq invaded Maine while American troops were preoccupied with mascot maneuvers …
Chief Yahoo
Subscribing to the sure-the-Braves-buried-us-but-we-still-beat-you theory is Joe Dirck of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“Remember, win or lose, we’ll still be Indians fans,” Dirck wrote. “But you just know the Seattle fans will lose interest in baseball soon enough and go back to the sport that’s really closest to their hearts. Professional log-rolling.”
Can’t do that on the Cuyahoga or you’ll catch fire.
The last word …
“Now we know what happens when an expansion team meets a contraction team.”
- San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler, on the 49ers losing to the Carolina Panthers
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo