A Triple Crown debate

WHICH IS HARDER TO WIN, the Triple Crown of baseball or the Triple Crown of horse racing?

In the past 117 years, there have been 17 Triple Crown winners in baseball. In the past 122 years, there have been 11 Triple Crown winners in horse racing.

The last Triple Crown winner in baseball was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. The last Triple Crown winner in horse racing was Affirmed in 1978.

Tom Durkin, who called Saturday’s Belmont Stakes for NBC, said on a conference call last week, “There’s no question that the Triple Crown of horse racing is more difficult. How many years did Willie Mays play? Twenty years? (Actually 22). He had 20 chances to do it. Smarty Jones has one. That’s it.”

Dissenting vote: Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News claims the Triple Crown debate is a walkover for baseball.

“Think about it,” he wrote. “To claim a spot in his sport’s pantheon, Smarty Jones has to be better than a dozen or so horses for just more than six minutes.

“To win baseball’s Triple Crown, a hitter must be at the top of his game for six grinding months . . . competing against hundreds of the best.”

Where’s the body buried?

Omaha, the 1935 Triple Crown winner, had no ties to the city of Omaha, Neb., but came there after he retired and was buried at a racetrack there in 1959.

The racetrack is now being torn down, but Omaha’s remains cannot be found. His grave was covered by a clubhouse expansion in 1974.

“I know they knew where to dig,” longtime track employee Leonard Larson said. “He was right where the clubhouse lobby was.”

Take that, Philadelphia!

One reason Philadelphia has gone so crazy over Smarty Jones is because the city hasn’t had a champion since 1983, when the 76ers won the NBA title.

That prompted Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post and aol.com to call Philadelphia “the City of Brotherly Losers.”

Public turns cold shoulder to NHL finals

The Washington Post recently conducted an online poll, asking which teams would be in the Stanley Cup finals. The largest response, 42 percent, was: “Didn’t realize the NHL playoffs were going on.”

That was no surprise to Post columnist Thomas Boswell, who wrote that the league is in jeopardy of losing its place as a major team sport:

“The NHL just doesn’t get it. The owners and players are living in a parallel universe of complete delusion. Because they love hockey, they think everybody cares about it. Because they can’t imagine a world without the NHL, they don’t realize the majority of sports fans care little whether the NHL even exists.”

Another dominating L.A. duo

The Lakers have Kobe and Shaq, but when it comes to a dominating duo, it is hard to beat beach volleyball’s Kerri Walsh and Misty May.

In the Manhattan Beach Open final today, they are expected to be going after their 16th consecutive tournament title. They went into the AVP tournament having won 85 consecutive matches.

Bruce Feldman of ESPN the Magazine notes that the pair practices in Playa del Rey, just outside Lakers coach Phil Jackson’s oceanfront porch.

Wrote Feldman: “Good morning, Coach. Whack!”