Cheap Seats
A stranglehold on obscure statistics
Harvey Pollack, the longtime director of public relations for the Philadelphia Warriors and 76ers, has some obscure statistical gems in his annual yearbook. For example:
Michael Jordan got called for traveling only 18 times last season.
Shawn Kemp led the NBA by getting called for 3-second violations 38 times. There were seven games in which he twice committed the violation.
Shareef Abdur-Rahim led the league by having his shot rejected 161 times.
Pollack should have fun with Latrell Sprewell entries for next year’s book.
Welcome to cyber reality
It took the National Basketball Association about three days to get rid of Latrell Sprewell.
It took the league’s official Internet site two clicks of a mouse.
Moments after the league said it suspended the former Golden State Warriors guard for one year for assaulting coach P.J. Carlesimo, Sprewell’s player profile was removed from NBA.COM.
“When someone’s gone, they’re gone,” said Stefanie Scheer, the league’s director of Internet services.
While the site prides itself on readiness, Sprewell isn’t the norm.
“It doesn’t always happen that quickly,” said Daria DeBuono, one of the site’s programming coordinators. “We happened to be on top of that one.”
All it took was a two clicks of a computer mouse, she said.
Didn’t Sandra Bullock star in that movie?
Hey, two of those guys are from the Northwest
Dave Kindred in The Sporting News, on NFL quarterbacks: “If you doubt mediocrity’s arrival, let’s do a little test. Everyone please raise your hand if you’ve heard of Bobby Hoying, Craig Whelihan, Paul Justin, Glenn Foley, Billy Joe Hobert and Doug Nussmeier.
“Don’t feel bad. No one with a life knows these guys. They’re among the 64 anonymities, incompetents, cheap hires and other warm bodies, who have started NFL games at quarterback this season.”
He’s a big target
Shirley Povich of The Washington Post isn’t impressed with the current crop of heavyweight boxers.
“For years, the heavyweight boxing scene has been a jungle overgrown with losers,” he writes. “There is only one credible heavyweight among the list: (Evander) Holyfield. The others are a collection of recycled has-beens, pathetic wannabes, and a raft of vast wastelands …”
As for a unification title fight between Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 230 pounds, Povich says:
“Lewis could evoke the same reaction from Holyfield that Whitey Ford expressed when he first beheld the 6-7 Frank Howard taking batting practice.
“Mused the calculating Yankee pitcher Ford: ‘Geez, what a strike zone.”’
The last word …
“I was a little boy going to football camps and I knew all about Warren Moon. Now, I look at him and think, ‘Man, you’re older than my father!”’ - Shawn Springs, Seattle Seahawks rookie cornerback, on Moon, a 41-year-old veteran teammate.
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