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Speak softly, but talk big stick

“I’ll probably be like one of those old guys on the History Channel,” said third baseman Gary Gaetti, who signed with the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 19 after having been released by the St. Louis Cardinals.

“They’ll say he was Mark McGwire’s and Sammy Sosa’s teammate, the only guy who played with both of them the year they broke the record. And I’ll say, ‘Yep, I told them how to do that.”’

A vote of little confidence

In an interview with David Casstevens of the Arizona Republic, former Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian told of the time he checked into a hospital for a few days of rest at the end of his last regular season as Irish coach in 1974.

Notre Dame had just lost to USC, 55-24.

Wrote Casstevens: “While recuperating, Ara expected some communication from the school’s athletic board, which was meeting behind closed doors to discuss his successor. As Parseghian tells it, the following telegram arrived at the hospital:

“‘Dear Coach: The Athletic Board of the University of Notre Dame wishes you a very speedy recovery, by a vote margin of four to three.”’

There’s a spoilsport in every crowd

John B. Holway, writing in the Washington Post on Josh Gibson, the legendary slugger of the Negro Leagues, who played in only 40 to 50 league games a year:

” … Josh and his chief rival, Mule Suttles, either or both, would probably have smashed Ruth’s 60-homer record between 1936 and 1939, only a decade after it was set.

“The average major league home run champ has come to bat 550 times. On that basis, Gibson would have hit 68 homers in 1936, 61 in 1938, 35 in 1938 and 62 in 1939 (Suttles, who played in a smaller park, Newark, would have hit 55, 70, 80 and 46).”

On that basis, Ruth might have hit 80 with sleep

Next time, try e-mail

Arizona’s Ortege Jenkins, whose goal-line, touchdown flip - a national TV highlight - beat Washington a week ago last Saturday, was besieged by interview requests during the past week.

“Man, the New York Times, that kind of blew me away,” he told the Arizona Daily Star. “But he told me to call back without giving me an 800 number. I can’t mess with him like that.”

So, no 800 number, no interview.

From the annals of the tangle-tongued

From San Diego Padres announcer Jerry Coleman: “Kevin Brown fires, and the bunt is taken by the pitcher for a strike.”

Next time, if we’re lucky, a word from Ralph Kiner.

No putting for show

PGA Tour pro Jeff Sluman, who stands only 5 foot 7 and weighs 140 pounds, on why he avoided bodybuilding in search of more distance: “I was afraid that maybe I’d hit my putter an extra 10 yards, and that wouldn’t be good.”

The last word …

”(When) the 0-5 Washington Redskins take on the 0-5 Philadelphia Eagles, it’s the NFL Game of the Weak.”- Comedy writer Jerry Perisho, looking ahead to last weekend’s schedule