Cheap Seats

They’d make Dennis proud

David Letterman on the McCaughey septuplets: “Here’s how they came out: boy, girl, girl, girl, girl, boy, boy. Sounds like Dennis Rodman selecting his wardrobe in the morning, doesn’t it?”

A blast from the past

Buck Leonard, who died recently at the age of 90, was known as the “Black Lou Gehrig” when he and Josh Gibson were a hard-hitting tandem for the Negro League Homestead Grays in the 1930s and ‘40s.

“Buck hit a home run so far off Bob Feller,” said fellow Negro League great Ted Radcliffe, “that it cleared the fence, the bleachers, a row of houses, and hit a big old water tower out there. It rained in that town for five weeks.”

Gee, thanks dad

New York Giant coach Jim Fassel is experimenting with a cordless headset. That means his son, Mike, 16, who had been holding the cord for him on the sideline, is out of a job for now.

Said Fassel: “His mother is mad at me.”

Don’t worry, Jim, by the end of the season you, too, will probably be out of a job.

He seems as if he’s just mailing it in

Carolina Hurricane forward Keith Primeau after scoring a goal on a weak wrist shot that eluded Calgary Flames goalie Rick Tabaracci: “It seemed like it was second-class mail.”

Thanks for the support, honey

Cecilia Thorner, whose husband, Jeff, had just played 50 golf courses in 50 states in 50 days: “This, I’m afraid, is the beginning of many more harebrained schemes.”

Some junk about Bonds

Michael Ventre of MSNBC on San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds having his marriage annulled: “Now that he has succeeded with that attempt, he is then expected to ask major league baseball to erase all his postseason stats.”

Till death (or a losing season) do you part

The shelf life for a Chicago White Sox manager in the last decade has been 2 years. So club chairman Jerry Reinsdorf was asked how long Jerry Manuel would be around?

“I’m like Elizabeth Taylor,” Reinsdorf replied. “Everyone I marry I think he’s going to be the last one.”

And it was love at first sight?

Not many White Sox fans know who their new manager is, and for that matter, Reinsdorf didn’t know who Manuel was until just before hiring him.

Sox general manager Ron Schueler called Reinsdorf at his winter home in Scottsdale, Ariz., the day before Thanksgiving to tell him he had found his man.

“I asked Schueler who he was,” Reinsdorf said. “He wouldn’t tell me. All he said was, ‘If someone rings your bell and there’s a guy at the door, interview him.”’

The last word …

“They have faced so many dogs their players should be chosen honorary judges for the Westminster Kennel Club’s best of show competition.”

- Art Spander in the Oakland Tribune on the San Francisco 49ers

, DataTimes