Cheap Seats

Is there such a thing as franchise tampering?

Perhaps honesty is not always the best policy. Take the case of Khalil Azmi, the Moroccan goalkeeper for the Charleston Battery of soccer’s A-League.

After the Montreal Impact defeated the Battery 2-0 recently despite some acrobatic saves by Khalil, the goalkeeper said he’d rather play for Montreal.

“The Impact players know how to organize their play,” he said. “We play American-style - without intelligence, only roughness.

“I’d like to play for the Impact. I hope they give me a call next winter.”

Five Hail Marys and … touchdown!

Comedian Bob Newhart shared a secret with graduates of The Catholic University of America during graduation: Go to confession during Notre Dame football games.

“Growing up in Chicago, the best time to go to confession was during the Notre Dame-SMU game,” Newhart said in a commencement speech. “You could tell that priest anything - ‘I just killed my family’ … ‘Well don’t do it again, my son’ - and you could hear the game on in the background.”

The comedian said the hardest part of being Catholic was learning the Ten Commandments. He poked fun at the first one: “Thou shalt not worship false idols.”

“I don’t know about D.C., but you could drive around Chicago for 10-12 miles and never even see a false idol,” Newhart said. “Even if you do, the last thing you are going to do is stop your car and worship it. Maybe turn to your wife and say: ‘Lock your door, honey, I’m pretty sure that’s a … yeah, that’s a false idol over there.”’ That would be passing Mike Ditka’s house, we presume.

It’s worth 70 cents on the dollar

With the signing of backup Andre Ware, the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League claim to be the first team in pro football history to have two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks concurrently - the other being starter Doug Flutie.

That they’re playing in the CFL pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Heisman Trophy, eh?

Treasure of the Sierra hard way

Ruben Sierra may be the poster child for the ‘90s version of the over-the-hill-yet-still-unbelievably-overpaid player.

Cut recently by the Reds, Sierra signed a minor-league contract with Toronto and is now being paid by four teams: the Reds, Blue Jays, Yankees and Tigers. In the trade from New York last July for Detroit’s Cecil Fielder, the Yankees included $1 million to soften the blow of taking Sierra off their hands. After Sierra wore out his welcome in record time in Detroit, the hapless Reds agreed to take him in and pay him $625,000. Now the Blue Jays will be defraying what the Reds owe him by pro-rating the major-league minimum salary of $150,000. The poor Tigers are still paying him more than $4 million.

Only a few years ago, Tony La Russa referred to Sierra as “the village idiot.”

So what does that make George Steinbrenner, Marge Schott, Mike Ilitch and Paul Beeston?

The last word …

“Dennis Rodman is to nasty what mascara is to Tammy Faye. Or to Rodman himself, come to think of it.”

- Chicago Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome

, DataTimes