Cheap Seats

Cartoon pitch is serious stuff

One key to the Toronto Blue Jays recent spurt has been the pitching of Kelvim Escobar, who went 4-1 with a 1.57 ERA in his first seven starts since rejoining the team from the minors.

“He’s got Bugs Bunny stuff,” teammate Paul Quantrill said. “You know, the cartoon where Bugs strikes out three batters on one pitch, throws it up there and it stops, then takes off again.”

Careful what you wish for

With Toronto making a late surge in the American League wild-card race, Cleveland general manager John Hart has developed the ideal scenario for the Indians.

“Boston and Toronto go down to the last game of the season tied for the wild card,” Hart said. “And (Roger) Clemens and (Pedro) Martinez have got to pitch the last game against each other, so no matter who wins, he can only pitch against us once in the division series.”

A nice scenario, but the Seattle Mariners taught Hart that you can’t count on a sure thing.

“I was rooting for the same thing in 1995,” he said. “I’m sitting at home watching Game 5 between the Mariners and Yankees, waiting to see who we were going to play. Then Seattle brings in The Unit (Randy Johnson), and he goes four (innings)! So we’re riding out to Seattle, and I’m feeling great because Johnson can’t face us in Game 1. But then Bob Wolcott pitches that game and looks like Cy Young, and we lose.”

Wolcott, now in the Arizona organization, beat the Indians 3-2 in Game 1 of that A.L. Championship Series. Nonetheless, the Indians went on to take the series in six games.

Getting priorities straight

Denver Broncos fans are sensitive to the problems faced by President Clinton after the release last week of Kenneth Starr’s report about the Monica Lewinsky matter. One fan offered a solution, hanging a banner at Mile High Stadium that read, “Elway for President. A True Leader.”

And Denver Post columnist Woody Paige put things in perspective for his readers: “We interrupt another reporting of the Starr report with a much more consequential story: John Elway hurt his hamstring Sunday afternoon.”

Not-so-wild Cats

We’re back to the bad old days at Northwestern.

The team that made a Cinderella-like run to the Rose Bowl in January 1996 and to the Citrus Bowl a year later has become a pumpkin once again. The Wildcats were booed off the field at halftime of their 44-10 home loss to Duke on Saturday, and the stands were nearly empty by game’s end.

“Well, Northwestern’s football team still owns the yearly award for the highest graduation rate in the nation, the one Duke held to its chest like a favorite textbook the previous five years,” Rick Morrissey wrote in the Chicago Tribune. “The problem is that when the two schools met on the field Saturday, the Blue Devils looked like football players and the Wildcats looked like nutty professors.”

The last word …

“You can’t say we’re a bad team right now. We’re not that good. We’re awful.”

- Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine.