Cheap Seats
For the team that has everything …
As you may remember, Lakers motormouth Nick Van Exel promised each member of the Sonics a $100 gift if they overhauled the Lakers for the Pacific Division title - which is exactly what happened.
So Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times put together a shopping list. Some suggestions:
George Karl - A subscription to Mad magazine so he might study the words of Alfred E. Neuman, “What me, worry?”
Sam Perkins - Twenty pounds of gourmet coffee. It’d be great to see his eyes open before he retires.
Jim McIlvaine - For $35 million, let him buy his own gifts.
Shawn Kemp - An alarm clock.
The bucket brigade
Mariners manager Lou Piniella is a calmer man than he was in his playing days - for good reason.
Recently, someone mentioned a name from his past - Archie Wilson, one of Piniella’s minor league managers - and it led to a story.
“I was playing for Peninsula in the Class A Carolina League,” Piniella said. “We were down by a run in the ninth inning, and I came up with one out and men on first and third base. I grounded into a double play, ended the game.”
In the tiny clubhouse, Piniella silently steamed while teammates showered, until finally only he and Wilson were still in uniform. Piniella went into the shower and found there was no hot water, and - still in a rage - yanked the shower head and piping out of the wall.
“Water came pouring out of the wall and stopped coming out of all the other shower heads,” Piniella said.
Including the one manager Wilson was about to use.
“He made me get a bucket and bring hot water over from the other clubhouse to pour on him to get the soap off,” Piniella said. “Six trips - and I swear he kept soaping up.”
We miss you, Scooter
Phil Rizzuto is a Hall of Famer, if for no other reason than this excerpt from a 1992 Yankees broadcast:
“He hits one in the hole. They’re going to have to hurry. THEY’LL NEVER GET HIM! They got him. How do you like that? Holy cow! I changed my mind before he got there, so that doesn’t count as an error.”
Just aces
It’s getting so that 72-year-old Suzi Toft can produce a hole-in-one almost on demand.
Recently, Toft aced the 116-yard fourth hole at Trentham Golf Course in England. Seconds later, her opponent in the match-play tournament - 60-year-old Jill Dyke - duplicated it.
Bookmakers Ladbrokes at the time put the odds of back-to-back holes-in-one by such amateurs at 100 million-to-1.
A few days later, a TV crew went out to film the two women, and Toft did it again - knocking a 5-wood into the cup.
“It really is absolutely out of this world,” said Toft, who has a 20 handicap. “I feel absolutely brilliant.”
Dyke then stepped up and almost got another, driving to within 12 inches of the hole.
Choker.
The last word …
“It’s easy to make it into a putting green when I don’t feel like playing tennis anymore.”
- Thomas Muster, the world’s top clay-court player, on why he chose to build a grass tennis court at his home in Austria
, DataTimes