While watching the Oakland A’s play the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday, Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted: “Getting past (Miguel) Cabrera and (Prince) Fielder like sneaking past Park Place and Boardwalk with hotels.” . . . Because I know you were wondering about this, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees will pocket US$28 million next season. And the four seasons after that call for $25 million, $21 million, $20 million and $20 million. This season? He put $29 million in his jeans. Please go back to enjoying your coffee. . . . Headline at SportsPickle.com: A-Rod exceeds fan expectations by fouling off pitch. . . .
Ron Judd, in the Seattle Times: “The Mariners have announced plans to move the outfield fences in Safeco Field closer to home plate. If that doesn’t achieve desired results, they plan to petition Major League Baseball to allow their batters to hit off a tee.” . . . Steve Simmons, in the Toronto Sun: “So if you’re Tim Thomas, are you locked out, taking the year off, or both?” . . . Here’s a tweet from Cardale Jones, the third-string quarterback with the Ohio State Buckeyes: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS.” . . . For some reason, the account has since disappeared from Twitter. . . .
Mike Riley, the head football coach with the Oregon State Beavers, used to coach in the CFL. He’s honest and knows that sports is sports and life is life. And in a sporting world where more and more coaches refuse to talk about injuries, Riley says: “Frankly I think it’s a waste of time to hide something that 50,000 people saw happen in a stadium.” . . . Riley knows of what he speaks because he lost his starting quarterback, Sean Mannion, to a knee injury last weekend. . . . Here’s Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News: “My old friend Liz Smith once asked this question about somebody else, but you have to ask it now about (Arnold) Schwarzenegger: Who gives HIM the creeps?” . . . And one more from Lupica: “Anybody who doesn’t think Miguel Cabrera should win the MVP award from Mike Trout in the American League should be sentenced to a lifetime of listening to Rush Limbaugh.” . . .
Tyson Gillies of Kamloops has headed south to play some winter ball. Gillies, an outfielder in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, will play in the Venezuelan league with the Lara Cardenales. He worked out with his new team for the first time on Wednesday. . . . One of the most amazing stats from MLB’s regular season is this: New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, at 38 years of age, led both leagues in infield hits, with 40. . . . Say what you want about him, Jeter plays the game the right way. . . . “After the Jets and Houston Texans played earlier this week — in the 666th edition of Monday Night Football,” writes Ian Hamilton of the Regina Leader-Post, “New York quarterback Mark Sanchez had a quarterback rating this season of 66.6. Yep, Sanchez is having one hell of a season.” . . . From Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatchewan Express: "I wonder if Lance Armstrong's pants are on fire?" . . .
Here’s a gem from Greg Cote of the Miami Herald: “I’m grappling with which is sadder: That financially strapped Curt Schilling might have to sell his famous bloody sock. Or that somebody out there will want to buy a bloody sock.” . . . When the Boise State football team plays on the road, its equipment travels in a big rig. Last week, en route to playing Southern Mississippi, that truck met a cow outside Albuquerque, N.M. As Dwight Perry notes in the Seattle Times: “The cow, to no one’s surprise, now sports an 0-1 road record.” . . . Tight end Michael Hoomanawanui of the New England Patriots missed one day of practice with concussion-like symptoms. “Talk about cruel and unusual,” writes Perry. “Doctors wouldn’t clear him until he could spell his last name.” . . .
“The Iowa Department of Public Health is warning people not to spend time around rabid bats,” writes Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald. “There go my plans for the weekend.” . . . Beano Cook, a longtime ESPN college football analyst, died on Thursday in Pittsburgh. He was 81. “When they list the great things of the 20th Century,” Cook once said, “they’ll say, penicillin, Sophia Loren, jet travel and ESPN.” . . . An ESPN obit pointed out that Cook had a fear of flying and “would often point out that the first word you see at an airport is ‘terminal.’ ”
(Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca, gdrinnan.blogspot.com and twitter.com/gdrinnan. Keeping Score appears Saturdays, except when it doesn’t.)
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