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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

No apologies needed


Casper
 (The Spokesman-Review)
From wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Billy Casper may long be remembered for the unofficial 106 he shot during the first round of the Masters last week, and that’s unfortunate.

He ranks sixth on the PGA Tour’s all-time victory list with 51, won three majors and five Vardon Trophies – for lowest scoring average – and played on eight U.S. Ryder Cup teams.

The 73-year-old San Diego native also was the non-playing captain of the victorious 1979 U.S. Ryder Cup team and earned high praise for his performance.

Lee Trevino, a member of that team, said, “He fouled up just once. He never got the bar set up in the players’ lounge.”

Secretary of Speed

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell knows the Corvette convertible pace car he’ll drive at the Indianapolis 500 has a huge advantage over his own Corvette coupe.

And it has to do with speed.

“I got it up to 110, 115 (mph),” Powell said Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he tested the pace car alongside three-time Indy winner Johnny Rutherford. “My other car, my real car at home, I’ll never be able to do that with it. I’m just going to have to be content to keep it within the speed limit.”

“It’s going to be hard to get me off the track on the day of the race,” Powell said of the May 29 event. “But knowing what’s behind me … at 230 mph, you’ve got to get out of the way as fast as you can.”

She’s nobody’s fool

Paul Newman, co-owner of the winning car in last Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, first took an interest in racing while filming the 1969 movie “Winning,” in which he played an Indy 500 driver. Besides being a car owner, Newman is also a skilled sports car driver.

So what does Joanne Woodward think about her husband’s hobby?

“She doesn’t buy jewelry, she doesn’t buy dresses,” Newman told Jay Leno last week. “She buys insurance.”

Casey went 1 for 2

Former Houston Astros manager Larry Dierker, in a guest column in the Houston Chronicle, recalled this classic Casey Stengel quote about two 20-year-old New York Mets prospects in 1965:

“In 10 years, Ed Kranepool has a chance to be a star, and in 10 years, Greg Goossen has a chance to be 30.”

Kranepool never became a star, but Goossen, a brother of boxing’s Dan and Joe Goossen, did turn 30.

Beautiful logic

Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, regarding NBA superstars getting preferential calls from referees, told the Salt Lake Tribune: “That’s the way life is. Miss America gets all the good dates.”

Glossing it over

From “The Flip Side” column in the Baltimore Sun, on the Orioles staging a Lipstick Night: “And you thought you knew what a makeup game was.”

Scrubs in the crowd

TNT’s Kenny Smith, on how the Los Angeles Lakers attract a different kind of crowd now that they’ve been eliminated from the playoffs: “Denzel Washington isn’t here, but Billy Washington, his cousin, is.”