From The Daily News of Saturday, Dec. 22, 2007. . . .
Jerry Crowe, in the Los Angeles Times: “Remember in 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were hitting all those home runs and fans and media wondered whether the baseballs were juiced?” . . . Dalondo Moultrie of the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call reports on a recent happening: "A boy disrupted a high-school basketball game Tuesday night in South Whitehall Township by
storming the court wearing nothing but his shoes and three socks." . . . In a conversation with Golf Digest, Jack Nicholson recalls the time he hit a couple of bad golf shots, reached up, grabbed some vines and yanked. "They pulled me back," Nicholson said. "Lifted me straight up in the air. I was flying around for a few seconds before I came down. Now I can't play the
12th at Riviera without somebody calling it 'the Tarzan hole.’ ” . . . Those talking heads who keep referring to Chris Simon’s latest suspension as the longest in NHL history seem not to remember Don Gallinger and Billy (The Kid) Taylor. NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended them for life in 1948 due to gambling problems.
Don Wittman, a fixture at past Strauss Canada Cups, won’t be calling the play of the 2008 event on CBC-TV. He’s at home in Headingley, Man., fighting the good fight against the big C. “This could be the end of the line. They’ve told me the prognosis is not good,” Wittman told the Winnipeg Free Press. If you’d like to send him a card, mail it to him in care of CBC
Manitoba, 541 Portage Ave., Winnipeg MB, R3B 2G1. In the meantime, thing some good thoughts for Witt, one of the good guys. . . . In case you missed it, Daryl Katz, the king of Rexall, is back with a third -- or is it a fourth? -- bid to purchase the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. Geez, who does he think he is? Tom Gaglardi? . . . Frank Deford, at si.com: “The two sports are very
different, but it's the day-to-day grind that makes baseball and cycling so similar, and so seductive to drug use.”
Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News: “All the ballplayers who now say they only used drugs to help with their recovery time sound like members of the world's oldest profession saying they're only doing what they do to put themselves through college.” . . . One more from Lupica, this one on the head coaches of the New England Patriots and New York Jets: “After the season is over, Belichick and Mangini have agreed to try couples therapy. For now, tapes of them talking about each other and their videotape cameras are being used to make guys talk at Guantanamo.” . . . Bill Plaschke, in the Los Angeles Times: “Baseball will survive, but Roger Clemens will not. If Barry Bonds is going to be shunned from Cooperstown and our hearts, then so must Clemens, a Hall of Fame arm who will now forever be remembered for his butt.”
Jay Mariotti, in the Chicago Sun-Times: “The Mitchell report wasn’t exactly the ‘thorough, credible, comprehensive’ report on baseball’s most sordid era as promised by the former Senate Majority Leader, who had vowed to Oregain the confidence of fans, media and Congress.” If this was the mother of all investigations, there wouldn’t be hundreds of big-leaguers dropping to their knees today and breathing deep sighs of relief, giving thanks for not being named.” . . . “I've never used any drugs to enhance my performance in baseball. I don't know what to say except that it's embarrassing that my name would be out there." That was Andy Pettitte, then with the Houston Astros, after former pitcher Jason Grimsley named him as a user. And then Pettitte’s name shows up in the Mitchell Report and he issues a statement saying that he used HGH, uhh, for two days. . . . Do you believe him?
Dan Daly, in the Washington Times: “Congratulations to newly engaged Chris Evert, who’s ready to try her marital luck with golfer Greg Norman after previous splits with tennis player John Lloyd and skier Andy Mill. Vegas bookmakers have already posted odds on Chris’ next husband, by the way. She’s 4-to-1 to marry a soccer star, 12-to-1 to marry a Formula One driver and 100-to-1 to marry a skateboarder.” . . . Social note: U.S. tennis star James Blake and Victoria’s Secret model Selita Ebanks are an item. Yes, they are. . . . When the host Cleveland Browns got past the Buffalo Bills 8-0 in a snowstorm Sunday it was the first such score in the NFL since Nov. 10, 1929. On that date, the Chicago Cardinals beat the Minneapolis Red Jackets. . . . If the Browns and Bills played on a sunny day, you wouldn’t stop and watch. But throw in a blizzard and you can’t tear yourself away from it.
Longtime football GM and head coach Marv Levy, when asked what advice he would give the then-winless Miami Dolphins: “I keep quoting Winston Churchill: ‘When you're going through hell, keep on going.' “ . . . To which Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix noted: “Isn't that what people say about Regina?” . . . Obviously, Brent Barry of the San Antonio Spurs isn’t into numbers. As he told SI.com: "Statistics are like bikinis. They're nice to look at, but they don't tell you the whole story.'' . . . Check out the money being given by MLB owners to many of the players mentioned in the Mitchell Report and then try to convince yourself that cheaters never prosper. . . . After Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre underwent knee-replacement surgery, Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne (Ind.) News-Sentinel wrote: "It was his second procedure this offseason. Earlier, he had three Steinbrenners taken off his back."
The Tampa Bay Tribune has reported that George Steinbrenner High School will open in 2009 in Lutz, Fla., and that it was unanimously approved by the Hillsborough County School Board. Noted Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “The school principal, eager to get started, says he can't wait to fire his first baseball coach.” . . . Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “A discarded
cob of corn half-eaten by soccer star David Beckham has sold for $60. You might ask, ‘What idiot would buy that?’ But I plan to in turn auction off each kernel individually. So who's the idiot now?”
Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca. Keeping Score appears Saturdays.
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