Cheap Seats
Not that kind of sun block
Think someone might be watching over Cielene Glavin? A soccer player at Hollins College, Glavin was sunbathing in her Scottsville, N.Y., yard when a 125-year-old tree weighing some 8,000 pounds fell over her, driving branches 2-1/2 feet into the ground.
One branch - three inches in diameter - entered the earth four inches from her abdomen, but Glavin wasn’t even scratched.
“It sounded like a gunshot when it started to fall,” Glavin said. “I looked up and saw it coming down on me. I just closed my eyes and waited.”
Tree surgeons determined that the age of the tree and a storm the day before had triggered the fall, but Glavin’s friends had a different version.
“They said, ‘You know that tanning thing is just going to kill you faster than you thought,’ ” she said.
No longer the best man
If Team USA makes the finals of the World Cup of Hockey, Chris Chelios might not have to go home to Chicago for two more weeks. That’s a powerful incentive, since right now his father would like to punch him in the nose.
The younger and elder Chelioses (Chelii?) parted company Saturday afternoon, shortly after the wedding of Chris’ sister. Chelios had to hurry to O’Hare Airport for a flight that would get him to Philadelphia for Team USA’s historic, 5-3 victory over Canada.
Chelios made it with minutes to spare. He got a police escort up I-95 from the airport, missed the pregame skate but tossed on his equipment in time for the opening faceoff.
The toughest part of the trip, though, was leaving the wedding. It seems Chelios hadn’t told his dad he would be ducking out. He broke the news as he was heading for the door.
“Mom had to hold him back,” Chris said. “My sister and her husband are going to understand, because they’re younger.”
As Chelios spoke, incredulous reporters scribbled furiously. “This is great,” one of them said.
“Great for you, maybe,” Chelios said as headed for the shower. “You don’t have to face my dad.”
A Giant void in broadcasting
Good seasons or bad, big games or boring ones, San Francisco Giants broadcaster Hank Greenwald has always left his audiences laughing. Now he’s just leaving - he’s retiring after the current season - and San Francisco Chronicle writer Tom FitzGerald has collected some of the best Greenwald lines.
Like the time Greenwald opened his pregame show by saying, “Hello, everybody, and welcome to Three Rivers Stadium, where tonight… “
When he was done, Greenwald was informed by his director that he had run long. The segment would have to be redone, shaving off a few seconds.
“Hello, everybody,” said an obliging Greenwald, “and welcome to Two Rivers Stadium… “
When error-prone Jose Offerman, then of the Dodgers, once hit a foul ball caught by Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda’s daughter, Laura, Greenwald commented, “It made me wonder. If the situation had been reversed, would Offerman have caught it?”
The last word …
“The Western Athletic Conference would be better off having one team 16 people cared about instead of 16 teams no one cares about.”
- John Smallwood, Philadelphia Daily News
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo