Cheap Seats

Having fun chasing Maris

Florida Marlins journeyman Donn Pall gave up the home run with which Mark McGwire broke Hack Wilson’s National League record. “He’s like an 18-year-old with a fake birth certificate who’s playing in our Little League,” Pall said.

Sammy Sosa was asked if he uses nutritional supplements. “No, I take the Flintstone vitamins for kids, the Freds and the Barneys,” he said. Noted Reds catcher Eddie Taubensee: “I’ll bet he takes the Bam Bams.”

Prison Illustrated

It’s usually an honor for a player and his school to be pictured on the cover of a national football publication. But Athlon preseason magazines committed a couple faux pas.

One regional cover includes a picture of WSU’s Steve Gleason, but identifies him as Steve Denison.

And then there’s San Diego State.

SDSU representatives are pained having to explain why running back Tyrone Evans was pictured in some Athlon Western region preseason magazines.

It’s one thing that Evans was only the Aztecs’ third-leading rusher last year. But it’s quite another that Evans has only a jail yard to run around for the next three years - his recent sentence after pleading no contest to 13 misdemeanor assault charges.

But he knows good cheesesteak when he tastes it

Mariners catcher John Marzano, on communicating with Japanese pitcher Makoto Suzuki: “We had no trouble understanding one another. I talked to him and he kept nodding. I wasn’t worried, though. I’m from South Philly. The kid speaks better English than I do.”

Stocker taking stock

Tampa Devil Rays shortstop Kevin Stocker, from Spokane, on the disappointment of having his season ended by a fractured left hand Saturday, even though he was batting .208 at the time: “If I’m going to stink all year, at least I should finish it out.”

Math made simple

Cincinnati Bengals coach Bruce Coslet on Neil O’Donnell’s beating out Jeff Blake as starting quarterback:

“It was a clear win. You know how I feel about Jeff Blake. It had to be a clear win.”

In the first three exhibition games, O’Donnell’s QB rating was 104.5 to Blake’s 21.8.

He has his reasons

Anyone who signs quarterback Rick Mirer is immediately suspect. But someone has to sit next to Brett Favre on the team bus and laugh at his jokes.

“I guess it goes back to when he came out of college,” Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren said. “I really liked Rick as a player, I remember the report I wrote up. If you have a chance to get a quarterback you liked at some point and then get him with you and see for yourself what the problem is, and see if you can fix it, I think you’ve got to take the shot.”

Good luck.

The last word …

“We were at a king’s feast and only got a piece of bread and then we were asked to leave.”- Warren Sapp of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the team’s two-game playoff experience last season