Cheap Seats
Looking good counts for a lot
It’s not often a baseball manager can smile when his team is shut down, but San Francisco’s Dusty Baker admits he was impressed when Cincinnati’s Lenny Harris, normally an infielder, pitched a 1-2-3 inning against his team.
“I like the way he handled himself, the way he walked around the mound, went to the rosin bag, pulled his hat down low over his eyes,” Baker said.
Former NBA coach Bob Hill hired a public relations agency to promote his bid for another coaching job. Faxed to various teams, along with his basketball resume, was an item noting, “In addition to all that, he’s a snappy dresser.”
Hard Copy at the NBA Finals
Dennis Rodman, who will be playing a soldier of fortune in “S.O.F.: Special Ops Force,” a TV action series, has said he expects to be “a black Arnold Schwarzenegger.” To which Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Sun-Times recommended a new nickname for the Bulls forward: “The Worminator.”
Special delivery
Utah Jazz star Karl “The Mailman” Malone visited Comiskey Park last week while in Chicago for the NBA Finals, eager to see St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire’s batting practice spectacle. Malone recalled his own baseball career lasted but one day during high school in Louisiana.
“I came to bat against a kid named Johnny Phillips,” Malone said. “I’ll never forget his name. He didn’t play basketball and he wanted to. I don’t think he liked me. He threw one right here (near Malone’s eyes). That was the end. I put my bat down, started walking and never turned around.”
Cheaters never prosper
Sylvester Carmouche, suspended for 10 years after taking a fog-shrouded shortcut to win a race at Delta Downs in New Orleans, has been given the go-ahead to seek reinstatement as a jockey.
Carmouche, 38, of Opelousas, had been banned from racing since April 1990. He served 8-1/2 years of a 10-year suspension, “longer than any other,” Burgess said.
Carmouche admitted he didn’t ride the entire one-mile distance aboard Landing Officer on a foggy night in January 1990 at the threequarter mile track in southwestern Louisiana.
He said he pulled his horse up soon after the start of the race, waited on the rest of the field to round the track, then started riding toward the wire when he heard the other horses coming.
Obviously, Huskies coach Jim Lambright wasn’t there
The Miami of Ohio football team that won the Sun Bowl in 1948 wasn’t the best football team of all time, but it certainly must have been one of the smartest. On coach Sid Gillman’s roster were future coaches Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, Carmen Cozza and Paul Dietzel, plus future NFL general manager Jack Faulkner.
The last word …
“Vacation was great. The fact is that they’re disappointed that I wasn’t here. I understand why. This was a voluntary-mandatory workout and I forgot the mandatory at the end of it.”
- San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau, explaining his absence from the first two days of a voluntary mini-camp at which all players were expected.