Cheap Seats

Problem was, Monica cornered the market

Miami Heat’s Dan Majerle despaired that he wasn’t offered a repeat appearance in this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Offered Majerle: “I could have worn a thong.”

Caddy left not holding the bag

Tiger Woods uses the Match Play Championship as a chance to help a friend pay for medical school even if that means leaving Fluff Cowan off the bag this week with a $1 million first prize on the line.

For the second time in three weeks, Woods’ popular and proven caddie will be staying home. In his place is Bryon Bell, a 23-year-old college graduate and longtime friend of Woods who is trying to get into medical school.

“It’s a chance to help put a guy through medical school,” Woods said Wednesday. “I feel pretty good about having a chance to do that.”

Cowan was the longtime caddie for Peter Jacobsen, then took Woods’ bag when he turned pro after winning his third straight U.S. Amateur. Woods won twice in just eight starts, then soared to the top of golf by winning the Masters and three other tournaments.

Woods said he’s not having any problems with Cowan, and said Cowan didn’t mind taking the week off.

“He’s been taken pretty good care of,” Woods said.

We guess so.

Woods has won nearly $6 million alone in the PGA Tour, meaning Cowan has probably earned close to $600,000 in less than three years as his caddie.

Hirsute pursuit

The Reds’ decision to drop a 30-year ban on facial hair was welcomed by different players for different reasons. Perhaps the most legitimate reason belonged to outfielder Dmitri Young, who said, “Some people are real ugly without facial hair and I’m one of them. We can hide behind beards and mustaches.”

Pitcher Danny Graves is apparently not one of them. “It would take me 10 years to grow (a beard),” he said, “and all you’d see are some wild hairs. Maybe when I reach puberty.”

You have to strive for ignominy

Chicago Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome has decided the once-untouchable Bulls might as well be awful as opposed to just mediocre, as an occasional win “changes the Bulls from the unique and tragic into the dreary and ordinary.”

So, Lincicome has set out some goals for the Bulls:

“Scoring the fewest points of any Bulls team ever is, of course, a start, but they can do better. …

“Worst Bulls team of all time? Trying to find anyone to argue that is harder than finding someone who cares. That is why it is important to have goals, to give this season a frame before it floats off into Clipperville.

“We know the Bulls are the worst ever already, though authentication is needed to make it permanent. The Bulls require a number.”

Lincicome has decided 14 is that number.

The 1975-76 Bulls won 24 games out of 82 for a percentage of .293. If this team can go 14-36 in the shortened season, it will be at .280.

Concludes Lincicome:“The Bulls can be the highest compost heap in the NBA’s half century or so of piling up such stuff.”

The last word …

“I must have killed somebody in a past life.”

- Cleveland Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas after learning his season was over with a broken foot.