Cheap Seats

All iron, even the cranium

A limping and sore Ricky Williams is getting little sympathy from Saints coach Mike Ditka. Williams is playing with a bad ankle and now a hyperextended elbow, but when Ditka was asked about Williams’ health, he said: “I dislocated a shoulder and I played the next week. And it got dislocated the next week, and I played the next week with it, and it got dislocated again. Then I played the next week, and it got dislocated again. Then I got tired of it dislocating, so I put a brace on it and I played the rest of the season and caught the highest amount of passes I’ve ever ever caught in football. But then, I’m Iron Mike.”

Hit the gas

One of the questions on the personality test the Chicago Bulls gave Duke’s Elton Brand was: “When you see a yellow light, do you slow down or speed up?” His response: “It depends if my mother is in the car.”

Let him eat gruel

Mitch Albom in the Detroit Free Press: “Speaking of money, 37-year-old Derek Harper said in snubbing the Pistons: `There isn’t enough icing you can put on that cake.’

“I say at his age, Derek should be happy anyone is offering him dessert.”

A whale of a bad time

Migrating whales could create chaos for Olympic sailing events in Sydney Harbour, an Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service official said.

NPWS Olympic operations coordinator Robert Bird said up to 3,000 whales could migrate through the harbor during September as they return to Antarctica from their warmer breeding grounds off Queensland state.

Bird said while most whales pass through relatively unnoticed, some, like a whale nicknamed Alex who recently spent several weeks frolicking in the harbor, could cause problems for Olympic sailing events.

Bird said whales had the right of way and their presence in the harbor could mean some Olympic sailing events are delayed or even canceled.

In your field of dreams

Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller was doubtful when he learned of Kevin Costner’s claim to a Boston Globe movie critic that he had thrown 88 mph when he was warming up to shoot “For Love of the Game.”

“Anybody who believes that believes in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus,” Feller said. “There’s just one word for that: Horsemuffins.”

The last word …

“Vermeil … has taken crying to a high-water mark. He will bawl at the retirement of a blocking sled.”

- Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated, commenting on emotional Dick Vermeil, coach of the St. Louis Rams