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Lifestyles of the rich and ignorant

Further eroding the value of a Georgetown education, NBA union president Patrick Ewing, who was paid $20.5 million last season, said before the NBA lockout ended that if the season has to be lost, so be it because “we’re fighting for our livelihoods.”

Please come see our awful team

Florida Marlins players are working the phones in a bid to win back the goodwill of disgruntled fans and thank those who have renewed season tickets.

So far, surprised fans seem to appreciate the calls. At least, no one has hung up.

Marlins reliever Matt Mantei and newly acquired catcher Jorge Fabregas got the ball rolling on this unprecedented public relations move. Though it has been done at the minor league level, no one could recall a major leaguer calling up fans to sell tickets.

Mantei is better known to fans as “Ice-Man,” the name given to him by ex-Marlins pitcher Al Leiter.

“One guy said, `Who? Ice-Man, you kidding me, man?,”’ said Mantei.

Last season, the Marlins lost 108 games after the dismantling of the 1997 world championship team. They drew an average of 22,157 fans a game, ranking 21st of the 30 teams.

“Most fans are shocked at first and don’t believe I’m a ballplayer,” Mantei said. “Then, we’ll just talk like normal people … I hope the fans appreciate what we’re doing.”

We’re sure they appreciate you coming off down your mountain … er, mound … to talk to the common folk.

Good work if you can get it

There’s one NBA “owner” who wasn’t at the league meeting when the new labor agreement was approved.

It didn’t matter to him either way. Besides, no one cared what he thought anyway.

“They don’t ask me for my opinion,” Ozzie Silna, who with brother Don once owned the St. Louis Spirits of the ABA, recently told the Orange County Register.

The Silnas have perhaps the best ownership deal in the history of American sports and will continue to make money.

That’s because they receive one-seventh of all the TV revenues that go to the four ABA teams - Indiana, San Antonio, Denver and New Jersey - that were absorbed in the NBA-ABA merger of 1976.

Their share this season is about $13 million, which has been paid to all NBA teams, each of which has expenses for arenas and staff. Not the Silnas.

The NBA was willing to admit only four ABA teams, and the other owners accepted buyouts. To prevent a holdup of the merger, the Silnas were cut in as an equal partner for TV revenues among the seven existing ABA teams. No one then expected the NBA boom that led to a four-year, $2.6 billion deal last year. The Silnas’ first check, in 1980, was for $500,000.

Some fun at their expense

The Charlotte Hornets had an interesting advertising campaign during the lockout, with one ad last month saying, “Look at the bright side. It’s December, and we’re still tied with Chicago.”

The last word …

“We would be doing everybody a disservice by going to the playoffs.”

- Jerome Bettis, Pittsburgh Steelers running back, on the team’s collapse this season.