Cheap Seats

Don’t dare to compare

Red-hot Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs has been on a tear, hitting three home runs in the weekend sweep over the crosstown White Sox. Sosa now has 11 home runs in the last ten games, all of them Cubs wins.

Sosa had 10 home runs in a 13-game span last year. The only other Cubs player to hit 10 home runs in 13 games was Hack Wilson, who did it in 1928.

So, Sosa was asked, can you catch Mark McGwire?

“No, no, no, no,” Sosa said, and then repeated himself for emphasis: “No, no, no no. I mean, no, no, no.”

Mitch helped define weird

Many of the Anaheim Angels said the ninth inning of Sunday’s victory over the Colorado Rockies was one of the weirdest innings they’ve ever seen or played in.

In the top half, played in twilight, the Rockies tied the game with two out when Darin Erstad lost a potential game-ending fly ball in the lights. In the bottom half, Anaheim’s Dave Hollins was out at the plate in a collision that left a severe cut on the face of Colorado catcher Jeff Reed. A few minutes later, the Angels won the game after a wild pitch eluded emergency receiver Neifi Perez, normally the Rockies shortstop.

Nonetheless, it didn’t seem too strange to Hollins, the former Spokane Indians third baseman, who played for the Philadelphia Phillies in the early 1990s.

“It was a crazy inning,” Hollins admitted. “I haven’t seen anything like that since I was in Philly and Mitch (Williams, another ex-Indian) was pitching. It was every other night.”

Now this is economic impact

Michael Jordan has had a $10 billion economic impact since his arrival in the NBA in 1984, according to estimates in the June 22 issue of Fortune Magazine.

“Jordan is so omnipresent, he creates a following which is principally his - rather than the team’s or the NBA’s,” said Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association.

“If we had somebody with that kind of presence,” Fehr added, “I’d do everything I could to prevent him from retiring.”

And for a change, Fehr’s got it right.

Maybe he’d prefer a pasta box

CART drivers Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi have been named to appear on Wheaties cereal boxes, joining NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt as the only race drivers so honored.

“It’s a big honor for me,” Vasser said. “When this first came up, Alex asked ‘What is this Wheaties?’ But he grew up in Italy.”

No mainstream deals for him

The Cleveland Indians sold out 4 million shares of common stock in about an hour at $15 a share last week, but when told investors had to buy at least 100 shares, it scared off Joe Charboneau, a zany fan favorite when he played with the Indians from 1980-82.

“I think it’s a great deal, but it’s out of my price range,” said Charboneau, who now runs baseball camps.

Obviously, Charboneau wasn’t still playing in the ‘90s.

The last word …

“This is actually the score? I thought they scored 196.”

- Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan following Sunday’s walloping by the Chicago Bulls