In Touch With Your Inner Lizard

It was a sense of journalistic adventure, humorist Dave Barry claims, that prompted him to don a giant lizard costume and play the Miami Fusion mascot for a night. Now, he knows better.

“It was going pretty well until I wandered into the stadium end zone, where a group of hard-core soccer fans hang out,” Barry wrote. “Going there was a bad idea for two reasons: 1. Serious soccer purists are not fond of the mascot concept; 2. The opposing team had just scored a goal. So the mood in the hard-core zone was unhappy.

“My first inkling of trouble came when a man stuck his face deep into my mouth opening and made a very uncomplimentary remark… . (Then) somebody grabbed me, and then somebody else yanked on my tail, and within seconds there were people all around me, shouting and grabbing and pounding on my head.

“The problem with being a mascot in this situation is that you have no way to indicate distress: Your mascot face keeps right on smiling happily. But believe me, the inner lizard was scared.”

Another town without pity

Writing in the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell spent several paragraphs venting on the paltry turnouts at Montreal Expos games, where crowds of 10,000 have become few and far between.

“What is this, some kind of sick joke?” Boswell asked. “When will baseball finally get the message? Montreal hates baseball, hates the Expos, couldn’t care less if the team leaves and doesn’t deserve to have a major league team. Half the time, Montreal even hates being in Canada.

“Putting a team in Montreal was a M-I-S-T-A-K-E. It will always be a sump hole for baseball.”

Something’s lost in translation

Florida Panthers coach Terry Murray wants his players speaking only English on the ice, on the bench and in the dressing room this hockey season.

The Panthers could have eight Europeans on the roster, and Murray said he’s just trying to make the team closer and make communication more efficient by using English only.

Lost beyond the big pond

John Hawkins, writing in Golf World magazine, on Britain’s Colin Montgomerie: “He is now winless in 57 career PGA Tour starts in America. A big fish on the other side of the pond, Monty is grilled flounder over here.”

If you’ve got it, he’ll stop it

The Rev. Gary Dantinne, eulogizing the late Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur: “Maybe he’s formulating God’s new defense against evil.”

Field of bad dreams

Pittsburgh pitcher Mike Williams, commenting on Coors Field, before learning Rockies manager Jim Leyland intends to retire at season’s end:

“I don’t know how anybody lasts here mentally for 80 days, especially the manager. If you don’t have gray hair when you get here, you will when you leave.”

The last word …

“Football is what we’re here for.”

-Chuck Esposito, sports book manager at the Las Vegas Hilton.