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He won’t be answering to Rep. Pitino
Rick Pitino says his fans in Kentucky shouldn’t wait to see his name on the ballot.
The Kentucky coach said if he had to leave basketball, he “could pick 100 professions I would consider noble and would enjoy learning about.”
But that doesn’t include politics.
Pitino said 4th District U.S. Rep. Jim Bunning, R-Southgate, had a lot to do with souring him on politics. Bunning fired off a scathing fax to Pitino after the coach introduced President Clinton during an election-eve rally last year on the Kentucky campus.
“That (anyone) would change their vote because the basketball coach is introducing the president, to me, is insulting the intelligence of the Kentucky people,” Pitino said on radio.
“He said some other things I won’t forget along the way, because I respect and treat everyone with great dignity. And he did not treat me with great dignity, so I was highly insulted.”
A politician’s pitch
When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright threw out the first pitch in Baltimore on opening day, Baltimore catcher Chris Hoiles gave her a sign and moved to within 20 feet of the 5-foot-3 woman.
Albright shook it off. He gave her another sign.
“He wanted me to throw a curveball, but I wasn’t up for a curveball,” she said, laughing after her overhand pitch had bounced into Hoiles’ glove, about 15 feet away.
It might have been the first time a politician didn’t throw a curveball.
Heads up, Marlins fans
It’s never good to lose your head. But it was really a bad thing for the Marlins on opening day.
The team hired a Navy parachutist to dress up as team mascot Billy the Marlin and jump out of an airplane over the stadium, only to have his fish head fly away in midair. At last check, the head still hadn’t turned up.
“Suppose somebody finds it,” said Cubs witticist Mark Grace. “He’d say, ‘Uh-oh. Billy must have got drunk and left it here.’ Or what if it washes up on shore 100 years from now? They’ll say, ‘Look at this nasty fish they had back then.”’
The Marlins offered a reward of four season tickets for anyone who returned the head.
“It will only be two season tickets if it comes back as smoked Marlin dip,” team president Don Smiley told the Miami Herald.
A cool dig in the desert
Utah men’s basketball coach Rick Majerus was overwhelmed by the locker rooms at the University of Arizona for the NCAA West Regional.
“I don’t care about those things, but I never lived in a house as nice as that locker room,” Majerus said. “It has carpeting and leather in there and a nice big television.”
That was before Surroundsound and La-Z-Boys were ordered for the NCAA champs.
The two-year plan
Why will Charles Barkley of the Houston Rockets remain in the NBA?
“He’ll need a year to win (a championship) and a year to brag about it,’ explained Phoenix Suns forward Cedric Ceballos.
The last word …
“If they lose, what’s our magic number?”
- Cleveland’s Kevin Seitzer, watching the White Sox’s opening-day game on the clubhouse TV
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo