Cheap Seats
No fans, either
Golden State Warriors guard Bimbo Coles on the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena: “They can blow it up if they want. It’s a depressing building. You come in here and there’s no energy in the building, kind of blah.”
Straight talk
Miami Heat coach Pat Riley joking about former Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson’s claim that this year’s NBA championship will be tainted because of the lockout:
“I think it’s the effect of that `window pane’ (LSD) he took in ‘70. Those synapses don’t fire like they used to. He should have no opinion about the NBA. He’s not in it.
“He would love it to be tainted because he’s the only one who tasted victory in the last (three) years.”
Straight talk II
Bennie Thompson, veteran safety and Pro Bowl special teams player, was irate last week when only 34 of his 58 Ravens teammates showed up to begin their 16-week off-season training program. He was most upset that the team’s highest-paid players - Ray Lewis, Jonathan Ogden, Tony Siragusa, and Rod Woodson - were absent and have made minimal appearances in the past.
“The same people who don’t attend workouts are the ones who run up to the media during the season and complain about how we’re losing and we don’t have enough commitment,” Thompson said.
“Football is not a six-month-a-year job. Football is year-round and it starts in the weight room. All those guys who make millions need to stop talking so much and show leadership.”
Not a lively bunch
New York Post sportswriter Fred Kerber: “To say the Nets were lifeless last night would be an insult to corpses everywhere.”
Nice fans
Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune:
“Turkey’s Interior Ministry ordered tougher security measures for the country’s soccer games to tame its crazy fans.
“Among the new measures is an order to confiscate loose change. Yes, loose change. Here’s why: Fans heat up coins with cigarette lighters, then throw the coins at players and officials. No lie.”
And money grows on trees
David Casstevens, writing in the Arizona Republic: “When a cheery TV reporter asked Garth Brooks how he will feel when spring training ends and Brooks is informed he made the opening-day roster and is a full-fledged Padre, the entertainer offered a reply as ridiculous as the question:
“`And they’ll also tell me we have world peace and we’re out of debt as a country.”’
The last word …
“I was only going three-quarters to 75 percent.”
- Philadelphia Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal who resumed running after suffering a pelvic injury