Six rings but no wheelie
Michael Jordan has mastered basketball, dabbled in golf, even attempted a career in baseball. Now he has his eyes set on motorcycles.
Jordan took a 230-horsepower Ducati Desmosedici for a spin around the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, Spain, last Saturday. He was invited by Carmelo Ezpeleta, the CEO of Dorna Sports, rights holders to the MotoGP World Championship.
“That was fun, but I only got it up to fourth gear,” Jordan said. “I can’t imagine what these things are like wide open.”
Jordan took the track with MotoGP riders Sete Gibernau, Colin Edwards, Kurtis Roberts and Kenny Roberts Jr.
“These things have so much power, I was trying to pull a wheelie,” Jordan said. “In the end, I was a bit too afraid, so I just started waving.”
Jordan professed a lifelong love for motorcycles and hinted he might be interested in owning a team.
“I’ve been into bikes pretty much all my life,” Jordan said. “I started riding dirt bikes when I was 5. And I really like this MotoGP thing. Maybe I’d like to have a team one day, but I’m only learning this whole deal right now.”
Time for infusion of youth
Ralph Wilson, owner of the Buffalo Bills, recently celebrated his 86th birthday.
“At 86, I’m like the football team,” he said. “I’m rebuilding.”
Hitting the jackpot
So how does Miami Heat President Pat Riley feel about acquiring Shaquille O’Neal? “It’s like somebody hitting the lottery,” Riley told reporters. “For years and years and years, you’ve been going down to the corner 7-Eleven store and buying lottery tickets, and then one day you get a call that you won.”
Guess he can do everything
When Phil Jackson was on Jay Leno’s show recently to promote his book, Ben Affleck was also a guest.
Affleck said, “I’ve heard Shaq wants to be a cop, or a sheriff. He said he didn’t think he could stop all crime, but probably most of it.”
Before the Heat even played a game, O’Neal is touting his impact in Miami.
“We’re going to get our 20 games on (national) TV,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of marketing. There’s going to be a lot of sold-out games. We will become the new basketball mecca.”
Well, maybe not everything
O’Neal recently taped a Spike Lee-produced TNT promo in which he teaches Spanish to young kids.
Afterward, doing a promotional interview with a TNT producer, O’Neal said that he’d like to be a teacher or a principal. O’Neal, out of character for him, said, “But I don’t think I would be very good at it.”
Salt Lake in their wounds
“Just another average, ordinary Saturday of college football,” wrote Jim Armstrong in his AOL.com column. “Florida lost, Florida State lost and Miami lost, prompting Sunshine State officials to concede that Utah is the new college football capital of the universe.”
The right prescription
In a basketball survey involving some 1,000 participants, 38.2 percent thought the United States would fare better at the next Olympics if the NBA sent the league championship team rather than a group of all-stars, reports the Los Angeles Times.
There was this suggestion: Tell all players that they will be exempt from league drug tests if they win a gold medal.
Keeping up their spirits
Was Boston Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar, during a recent appearance on FSN’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” really kidding when he said his teammates did Jack Daniels and Crown Royal shots to keep warm, beginning with Game 6 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium? Well, consider this: Of pitcher Curt Schilling’s blood-stained sock, Millar said, “It was a red sharpie; I actually colored it in.”