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Democracy in action

Phoenix Suns forward Wayman Tisdale, formerly of the University of Oklahoma, was named the best Big Eight basketball player in history by a 7-5 media vote by the Salina, Kan., newspaper.

Former Kansas star Danny Manning was not convinced. “There’s only one newspaper in Salina,” he sniffed. “How do they get a 7-5 vote?”

Assistant sports editor Scoop Tisdale must have voted more than once.

She didn’t pick a stable boy

Austrian tennis star Thomas Muster denies he is having an affair with the Duchess of York and said he hopes Sarah Ferguson will get back with her estranged husband, Prince Andrew.

“I know her well and sometimes we talk on the phone, but it’s purely platonic and nothing more than a friendship,” Muster said after winning the Estoril Open in Lisbon.

Three weeks ago, Muster’s former girlfriend, Mariella Theiner, told a British tabloid the Austrian had left her for the duchess, who separated from Queen Elizabeth II’s second son in 1992. Muster called Theiner’s version a “mistake.”

But Muster, one of the world’s top-ranked tennis players, joked that media reports of his romance with the duchess have spread his fame. “Now I’m even known at the hairdressers,” Muster said.

Big deal. Andre Agassi’s been known there for years.

No football team, but they do have a chain gang

George Junior Republic won the Pennsylvania Class AA high school basketball championship. Nothing remarkable about that, except that it’s a reform school.

And it seems some people in the state are bothered by George Jr.’s victory, saying the school shouldn’t be allowed in the tournament because it has players from in state and out of state.

To say nothing of their nasty ice pick-and-roll play.

If there’s an ark, game’s over

Just before a recent rainout, Cleveland Indians coaches told manager Mike Hargrove they thought the game had been called - and he told them not to tell his players just yet.

“When I played with the (Texas) Rangers, Bert Blyleven was on the team,” Hargrove said. “We were playing (Minnesota). It was raining and Blyleven, who started his career with the Twins, hated (former owner) Calvin Griffith. So he called their clubhouse, disguised his voice, and told them the game had been called off.

“The Twins started taking showers, drinking beer. Gene Mauch was the manager and he threw a fit - the game wasn’t called. We beat them bad that day.”

Does your husband play, too?

Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza went into last weekend hitting .413 - on 19 consecutive singles. So teammate Delino DeShields told him: “OK, your average is up there. Now it’s time to get airborne.”

The last word …

“Where did people think I was at? Did they think I was hanging out with Cedric Ceballos, water skiing?” - Shaquille O’Neal, on Orlando management’s grumbling they didn’t know his whereabouts after his grandmother’s funeral

, DataTimes