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The Spaceman was probably there
“For the last 79 years,” Jayson Stark writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “the Curse of the Bambino (the Boston Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees) has been more powerful than El Nino, more powerful than a special prosecutor and more powerful even than Mark McGwire. Which isn’t easy.”
He is referring to the fact the Red Sox have not won a World Series since 1918.
Despite the Red Sox’s promising 23-11 start, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the former Boston pitcher, doubts the curse has been lifted.
He did concede it could be lifted some day: “They pulled Excalibur out of the rock, didn’t they?”
Bulletin: Penn State to go 0-11
On the final day of spring football practice at Penn State, coach Joe Paterno was asked to assess his team. “If we had to play tomorrow, we probably couldn’t beat anybody,” Paterno told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Writes Mal Florence of the Los Angeles Times: “Wouldn’t it be refreshing for a coach to say, ‘We have a hell of a team and we should beat everybody we play’? Of course, that will never happen.”
He sings, he acts, he reads
Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal agreed to a publishing contract to create a collection of children’s stories called “Shaq and the Beanstalk and Six Other Very Tall Tales.”
The group of seven take-offs of popular fairy tales, which are intended for children ages 6-9, is scheduled for release by Scholastic Inc. in the fall of 1999.
O’Neal said the idea came from doing a public service announcement for “Reading is Fundamental” a few years ago.
“I know a lot of kids look up to me,” O’Neal said. “I tell them how important it is to read, and hope they listen.”
The book is the most recent off-court entertainment venture for the 7-foot-1, 300-pound O’Neal.
The four-time All-Star center has released three rap albums and has appeared in several motion pictures, including “Blue Chips” and “Kazaam.”
Is there a fairy tale about a giant who is a bricklayer?
He’ll never win an Oscar
Oakland Athletics catcher A.J. Hinch recently lofted a ball down the third-base line at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., where it hit a hanging light standard, raining glass on the field, much like Robert Redford’s climactic homer in the film, “The Natural.”
But Redford “got to circle the bases after he hit the lights,” Hinch said. “I got to stand there for 10 minutes and then strike out.”
It’s raining cats and hot dogs
David Letterman can’t understand the furor over falling concrete in the Bronx. “Most of the time when you go to Yankee Stadium, if you get hit with something that weighs 500 pounds that feels like cement, it’s a hot dog.”
The last word …
“One thing we know about Shawn Kemp: He wasn’t sleepless in Seattle.”
- Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons