Jordan: Pippen The Glue
Michael Jordan told the Portland Oregonian that his former Chicago Bulls teammate, Scottie Pippen, will be the key to the Portland Trail Blazers’ success in the NBA playoffs:
“He’s going to give them knowledge they need to excel as a team… . His defensive presence and versatility is something they definitely needed, and it will be one of their strong points.
“Scottie will not let them lose their focus during the playoffs. He knows what it takes to win.”
Of course, he was best with Jordan at his side.
Bobby, Bobby, he’s our man
Joel Sherman in the New York Post on outspoken New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine, once a darling of the bobby-soxers and the Pacific Coast League MVP for the Spokane Indians:
“All that protects (Valentine) now is winning. His ally list within the Mets organization, no multivolume set to begin with, has become shorter than the list of Perry Como’s greatest rap songs.
“There is no other refuge left for him except winning.”
Minutiae R Us
According to Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “No sport is as obsessed with statistics as baseball. If you see an armored truck pull up outside the ballpark, it’s not bringing cash, it’s bringing boxes of decimal points.”
This is tough to swallow
Steve Hummer in the Atlanta Journal-Constituion:
“From a videotape so fuzzy that the scene must have been captured by a passing miliary satellite, it appears that Bobby Knight was: a) grabbing a player as if he were a long-neck beer; b) checking him for swollen glands; or c) recreating what his team does every year now in the NCAA Tournament.”
Minutiae Still R Us
Can you name the only three shortstops to start a game in the major leagues at age 18?
The answer to that obscure bit of trivia is Alex Rodriguez, Robin Yount and Tony La Russa, currently manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
“That’s one of those real trivia ones,” La Russa said. “Two stars and a bum.”
The last word …
“Have they considered running the Boston Marathon through the streets of Nairobi? To cut down on travel costs, I mean.”
- Ron Rapoport, Chicago Sun-Times.