Cheap Seats
Baseball is life
Joan Ryan in the Sporting News, countering Bryan Burwell’s 20 reasons why football is a much better spectator sport than baseball:
“I still love football, but now I see it for what it is - a splashy date. It shows up once a week, loud and cocky and exciting.
“You go steady with football.
“Baseball, you marry.”
Trojans spare no expense
For what it’s worth, the highest-paid coach in college football? According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which keeps track of such vital matters, it’s John Robinson of USC, who gets $484,250 in annual salary and $20,766 in benefits.
This season that works out to $161,417 per win.
Goal posts on endangered list
No one is busier these days than guys like Joel Rottman and Murray M. Goodman.
With fans tearing down goal posts all over the country, Rottman and Goodman are the ones who make sure they get replaced.
Rottman is president of National Goalpost Co., and Goodman runs Triman Tele-goal Inc., two of several outfits specializing in goal posts.
“I don’t like to see them brought down by a bunch of hooligans,” says Rottman. “It seems they are coming down more than usual this season.”
Galloping off with goal posts has become a weekly ritual. And it’s still October. Pittsburgh, Kentucky, LSU and others have all put the posts to shame.
The Purdue goal posts would have come down when the Boilermakers beat Notre Dame 28-17, but they were fortified with cement.
“Our maintenance guy was sitting there smiling the whole time,” a Purdue official said. “They were rockin’ all over it, and it wasn’t coming down.”
On Oct. 5, at State College, Pa., fans were unable to get back into Beaver Stadium after learning of LSU’s win over Florida a few hours after Penn State’s win over Ohio State. So happy about the prospect of being No. 1, they tore down the goal posts at a nearby intramural field.
Oilers’ well dries up
The Tennessee Oilers are suffering poor attendance in their temporary home in Memphis, but Thomas Harding of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that the Oilers are even less popular in their former home, Houston:
“The Houston Chronicle recently asked its readers if they wanted the newspaper to cover the Oilers this season.
“More than 30,000 responded and it was four to one against coverage. When the newspaper has printed stories, readers have flooded the phone lines to complain.”
Did he hold out for $2?
According to Variety, Woody Harrelson plans to star in the story of former major league pitcher Bill Lee, whose nickname was “Spaceman.”
Lee, known for his oddball comments, reportedly sold screenwriter Paul Tatara the rights to his life story. For $1.
Priorities, priorities
According to a poll in Boating magazine, more boat owners carry pictures of their boats in their wallets than pictures of their spouses or children. And 71 percent are more likely to remember the day they bought their boats than the day they met their spouses.
The picture of the boat in the wallet is to remind the boat owner of the reason the rest of his wallet is empty.
The last word …
“Tonya Harding had her truck stolen again. Boy, if anyone should know how to use The Club, it’s Tonya.”
- Jay Leno
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo