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She’ll never wash those cuffs again

Judge Wapner never had this kind of trouble with Rusty the bailiff. A security officer hired to keep order at the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts Building in Dallas was fired after she asked for, and received, an autograph from troubled Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin.

“I should have let him kiss my paper, he’s so fine,” Vanessa Green said, as reporters took note and cameras rolled.

Green’s bosses weren’t amused. “We sent someone to the showers over that,” said Dallas County facilities manager Tom Means, in charge of security.

Green claimed her comments were “only for the girls” - co-workers and friends who were at the courthouse, but the paper said at least two reporters were present when she made the statements, and she provided her name.

Maybe she could have Irvin kiss her pink slip.

Insector Closecall

When a swarm of bees swooped down over a California Angels’ exhibition game this spring, it somehow figured Rex Hudler would be targeted. Hudler, after all, is a guy who won bets by eating a June bug and by gobbling down a worm.

The arrival of the bees in Tempe, Ariz., signaled a hasty departure to the dugout for Hudler. “I had just watched a special on ‘Animal Kingdom’ about killer bees the night before,” Hudler said. “I saw what they did to a dog. Here I am, 210 pounds, scared of a bee. No one called time, and I could tell people in the stands were laughing at me, trying to figure out what I was doing running off the field. They didn’t see the bees at first. But then the swarm headed for the bleachers. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.”

Hudler won a $600 wager with St. Louis teammates when he consumed a June bug a few years ago, and earned $600 more by downing a worm when he was playing for - gulp - the Yakult Swallows.

Hey, throw some water on those smokin’ pants!

The U.S. Olympic men’s field hockey coach isn’t quite what he claimed to be, as the London Daily Telegraph reveals. According to the newspaper, Jon Clark, an Englishman appointed as U.S. coach for the Atlanta Games, falsely claimed on his resume that he won a bronze medal with the British team in ‘84 Games.

“It was deemed necessary to talk up my playing record to impress the players and I sort of went along with it,” Clark said. “In my mad scramble to do my best for the players, I didn’t think things through.”

Suppose he wants a mulligan on his claim that he’s been sleeping with Princess Di, too.

It’s better to be lucky than good

“A big winner in the hotel casino visited by the Florida Marlins during their stay in Puerto Rico was reliever Yorkis Perez,” writes Rick Hummel in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “His teammates were in awe that Perez, while playing blackjack, took a hit on 19 - and drew a two.”

The last word …

“Shannon Briggs knows what it will take to become a champion: Discipline. A cool head. Focus. … (Briggs) seems now on the brink of going to the highest level.”

- New York Times columnist Ira Berkow, days before Briggs was knocked out by unheralded heavyweight Darroll Wilson

, DataTimes