A Lasting Memory

In an era of athletes demanding multimillion-dollar salaries, well beyond the comprehension of the day-to-day working stiff, stock car champion Bobby Labonte offers a refreshing thought about winning.

Labonte’s NASCAR Winston Cup championship will pay him $3 million. But this is what he told Sandra McKee of the Baltimore Sun:

“I wanted (the title) for the trophy. As corny as it might sound, that trophy means I have accomplished a goal. It means, even when the money is gone and none of us have any idea where it went, the trophy will be sitting there in my living room, letting me know that in the year 2000, we were the best and at the top.”

Leader in head games> Jason Giambi, the Oakland A’s American League most valuable player, acknowledges to consulting a psychic, Azra Shafi-Scagliarini, once or twice a day during the season.

“Azra clears my mind before the game and my career has really taken off,” Giambi told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. “So far, everything she’s told me has been right.”

Azra, however, acknowledges she does not know much about baseball.

“It’s only been in the last two years that I stopped calling the bullpen `the pigpen.”’ she said.

Get yer souvenir

A little monkey business has meant big business for the Indianapolis Colts.

The “Touchdown Monkey” started as nothing more than a prop in a TV commercial for the Colts. Then came the phone calls. Team officials were swamped with calls from fans wanting to know where to get the stuffed creature.

The only problem was, they didn’t exist.

“We couldn’t believe the response,” said Ray Compton, Colts vice president of sales and marketing. “People were calling us and writing us asking, ‘How can we get a `Touchdown Monkey?’ We quickly found a way to get them developed.”

The blue-and-white stuffed animals have their arms raised, as if signaling a touchdown or extra point. The larger “Touchdown Monkey” is about 2 feet long, the smaller “Extra Point Monkey” about a foot.

Fans went wild over the first shipment of 1,000 monkeys, which quickly sold out. So another 15,000 were made, and at last count more than 9,000 of each had been sold. The “Touchdown Monkey” retails for $24.95 and the “Extra Point Monkey” for $14.95. They’re available on the Internet at colts.com.

The last word …

“They’re probably the best team in basketball early in the season. They’ve been together so long and they’ve been running the same stuff and they really make you pay the price.”

- Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson, on Utah Jazz’s fast start.