Cheap Seats

See, chivalry is not dead yet

U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller, has many memories of playing soccer for Millwall in England’s second division in 1992.

“Once, two fans were nice enough to usher my wife out of the stadium when they sensed a riot coming on. Of course, they then ran back in and started hammering people and ripping out seats.”

Well, he did say they were English soccer fans.

Outta the way, has-been

Tennis champion Steffi Graf, who hasn’t played extensively since undergoing knee surgery last year, has an added incentive to play well at Wimbledon.

For one thing, she wants to prove to younger players, especially Martina Hingis, the current top-rated player, that she still has what it takes.

Tennis Magazine quoted Hingis as saying of Graf, “It’s a faster, more athletic game now than when she played. She’s older now. Her time has passed.”

Graf, a seven-time Wimbledon winner, turned 29 Sunday. Hingis is 17.

Too bad the cat didn’t get her tongue.

But not a rinky-dink town either

Even though the Capitals are in the Stanley Cup finals, Tony Kornheiser of The Washington Post believes the nation’s capital is not a hockey town.

“You say forechecking here,” he writes, “and people automatically ask: ‘Is that interest-bearing?”’

Putting out the welcome mat

Not everybody in France, the host country, is enthusiastic about the World Cup.

According to The Washington Post, a poster spotted in the country advises: “Exploit an idiot, rent a room to a (soccer) fan.”

Man bites hand that feeds him

Jimmy Connors promotes and plays senior tennis, but the five-time U.S. Open champion is definitely not in the public relations side of the sport.

“I don’t watch any tennis,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s good or not. I still have a feeling in my heart for the game, but if somebody would call me now and say, ‘Look, the finals of the French (Open) are on TV or I have a good golf game for you,’ there wouldn’t even be a choice.”

Karl the Kontractor

In a taped interview that appeared during the NBA Finals, Utah Jazz star Karl Malone showed off his 27,000-square-foot mansion.

“After checking out his shooting in Games 1 and 2,” Clif Mayne said in a letter to Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, “at least we know what he’s doing with all the extra bricks,”

This is no trivial pursuit

Ernie Banks, whose “Let’s play two!” was a favorite saying while he was the Chicago Cubs’ Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman, recently shared the microphone with former White Sox player and coach Minnie Minoso in a guest rendition of the late Harry Caray’s seventh-inning songfest.

“We’re going to sing two today,” Banks said.

The last word …

“Don’t let Mike Tyson and those guys know it, but I was crying,” - George Foreman, at the Ethel Walker School, where his daughter, Natalie, graduated as student-body president