Cheap Seats

Sportswriter can cover the entire team

Miami Dolphins cornerback Terrell Buckley vastly overestimated the number of cornerbacks when he addressed a group of sportswriters after a game:

“Half you guys have never played corner.”

But the other half could keep up with Joey Galloway on the football field if they didn’t prefer making a lot less money writing about not-so-quick corners.

Have sticks, will travel

Check out Mark O’Meara’s schedule, beginning next weekend: from his home in Florida to a tournament in Japan, to Hawaii for the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, to Florida for the player-of-the-year awards ceremony, to Palm Springs for the Skins Game, to South Africa for a tournament, then to Australia for the Presidents Cup.

What’s O’Meara doing next week before he starts the big trip? He’s going to Park City, Utah, to ski.

O’Meara’s golf for 1998 ends Dec. 14.

“I’m looking at the calendar,” he said. “I’m tired right now.”

Answering to the boss

David Casstevens, writing in the Arizona Republic on the NBA lockout: “The real issue, the most important question players may be asking themselves, or soon will, is how many paychecks their wives are willing to miss.

“It’s my belief that pro basketball’s labor strife won’t be settled by the commissioner or the owners or the union, but rather by the players’ spouses or significant others.

“A friend may have described many marriages when he said of his own, ‘I make all the big decisions. My wife makes the little ones. And she decides which ones are which.”’

Don’t forget to keep the beer cold

Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Art Thiel had this to say about Washington State’s dismal season:

“For a school that goes to the Rose Bowl every 67 years, expectations are less than enormous.

A few laughs, a few wins and low foam in the keg are usually sufficient features to satisfy most Cougar fans most of the time.”

Play the parakeet

Ron Borges of the Boston Globe, commenting on recently AWOL quarterback Tony Banks of the St. Louis Rams:

“Banks scored an 8 on the Wonderlic intelligence test coming out of college (Michigan State). My daughter has a parakeet who could score 8 by pecking the page.”

Who needs money?

When the Chicago Bears gave defensive tackle Jim Flanagan a $4 million signing bonus, he didn’t paint the town red.

“I really didn’t go out and buy anything,” Flanagan told Chicago Tribune writer Steve Rosenbloom. “I already had a dog. I had my computers. I went out and had a couple of beers with my friends.

“What more does a man need?”

The last word …

“Bleak as it seems, there is solace for the local sports fan this time of year. No Sonics-Mavericks games.”

- Seattle P-I columnist Art Thiel, trying to improve the mood of Northwest football fans.