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Grout expectations

You had to figure the bickering Portland Trail Blazers would resort to throwing things at each other eventually. With Rod Strickland and coach P.J. Carlesimo, it’s verbal darts. With Clifford and James Robinson, it’s mortars. Er, mortar.

The two Robinsons scuffled after practice last week. Both told each other when separated, “This isn’t over,” but joked about it later.

Not laughing quite so hard was Ken Vance, a sports writer for The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Wash., who innocently wandered into the fracas and got hit with a bucket of grout thrown by James Robinson.

It was Robinson’s first bucket in two weeks.

Chief Waaanhoo!

It wasn’t too much pitching or too much hitting by the Atlanta Braves that threw off the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. It was too much media.

At a meeting with Major League Baseball officials, the Indians contended the crush of reporters disrupted their pregame workouts.

Oh, so now we know why Albert Belle lit into NBC’s Hannah Storm - she was interfering with him shagging fly balls.

“We don’t want this in any way perceived as an alibi or an excuse for what happened,” said assistant general manager Dan O’Dowd.

Of particular worry to the Indians: with so many media members in the dugout, around the batting cage and in foul territory before games, Cleveland players had trouble preparing to play.

Media members, though, were not the only ones on the field before games. Some players had their children on the sidelines.

“If it were possible for a human being to withdraw words, that is what I suggest Dan do,” said Braves GM John Schuerholz. “I seriously doubt what impact a lot of writers and TV cameras on the playing field have on performance. The bigger impact on performance for some is the first-time appearance in that gala event.”

Self-inflicted wound

The Washington Bullets have narrowed down 3,000 suggestions for a new nickname to five dumb possibilities: Dragons, Express, Sea Dogs, Stallions and Wizards.

Team officials sifted through 500,000 entries in a Rename the Bullets contest launched in order to drop a that critics say brings to mind the gun violence on Washington streets.

Right. A grand old D.C. tradition.

They could have called Showboat Hall

A judge has upheld an $8,650 judgment against former Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon for canceling a speaking engagement at a Pasco church.

Lemon, who has been on the Christian lecture circuit since his Globetrotters retirement in 1979, canceled a scheduled March 15, 1993, talk before the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission six days before it was to occur.

Just curious - does he throw a bucket of confetti into the congregation?

The last word …

“Today a peacock, tomorrow a feather duster.”

-Nets forward Jayson Williams, on the fleeting nature of fame

, DataTimes