Cheap Seats
Trickle, trickle, little Starr?
The roof over the Arizona Diamondbacks’ $354-million Bank One Ballpark leaks, prompting comedy writer Jerry Perisho’s comment to Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Around the league it’s known as the Kenneth Starr of domed stadiums.”
Studying up for the NFL
Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella awakened sore Thursday - a reminder of his hat-kicking antics of the night before - and then got the message he’d expected.
Call home.
Anita Piniella was less than enthralled with her husband, who turned 54 Friday, but most everyone else thought it was memorable.
Pitching coach Stan Williams said he was worried Piniella was “one kick short of a heart attack.”
Chagrined, Piniella admitted once he realized umpire Larry Barnett had tossed him, “I got about three months of frustration out.
“If I’d been on that supplemental thing that Mark McGwire is taking, I’d probably have kicked the cap out of the stadium.”
All those Cowboys are slipping
Nate Newton can smile again.
After three years being ranked by Muscle & Fitness magazine as the player with the worst physique in the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys lineman was supplanted as No. 1 by Gilbert Brown, the 6-foot-2, 350-pound defensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers.
Enough, already
A New York clubhouse attendant, monitoring the television account of a recent New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals game, counted 269 times that Mark McGwire’s name was mentioned.
Well, almost enough
Blake Stein, the Oakland Athletics pitcher who was part of the trade that sent McGwire to the St. Louis Cardinals last summer, is cheering for McGwire to break Roger Maris’ home run record.
“I hope the guy hits 70,” said Stein. “I know I will always be linked with Mac because of the trade. And I wouldn’t mind being known as the guy who was traded for the man who hit the most home runs in a season.”
Another NFL gourmet report
St. Louis Rams coach Dick Vermeil was not impressed when disgruntled fullback Craig “Ironhead” Heyward asked to be released.
“You’ve got to sell a lot of Zest to make his kind of money,” Vermeil said of Heyward, who has done several TV commercials for the soap.
Earlier, when Heyward showed up at mini-camp weighing nearly 300 pounds, Vermeil suggested he “cut the teeth off his fork.”
At last, an explanation
John McHale, Detroit Tigers president, has figured out why his last-place team has not measured up to expectations this season.
“We accidentally won too many games last year,” explained McHale. “We really weren’t fundamentally a .500 club last year.”
Yeah. Now, they’re fundamentally crummy.
The last word …
“I’m a proven so-so player.”
- Cleveland infielder Jeff Manto, doing a self-appraisal