Mondays With Murray: You Don't Know This Yet But . . .

From time to time, Jim Murray took to his column not with an appointed subject but rather as a chance to share with you his varied thoughts on things. These, over the years, became some of the most memorable columns.  

Today we share with you one of those gems from November of 1995.

ENJOY!

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NOVEMBER 26, 1995, SPORTS

Copyright 1995/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY  

JIM MURRAY

You Don't Know This Yet but . . .

Now I know why Jimmy Cannon invented the ‘Nobody asked me but . . .’ column.

He needed the day off.

So do I. So, here goes. I think I'll call mine, "You don't want to know but . . .”

It's easy to swallow your pride when that's all you've had to eat that day.

Trash talking is something eight-year-olds in a schoolyard do. So, what's the mental age of a millionaire who does it on the basketball court or the football field?

Australia wants to cut the women's tennis tournament $330,000 below the men's. Why? I'd rather watch Steffi Graf than Andre Agassi any old day.

Why is it that waiters who keep interrupting your pre-meal jokes are nowhere to be found when you want the check or some more cream for your coffee?

I throw in with the guy who says you know you've had it when your wife says, "We've got to talk.”

I've never known a guy who didn't think he was five strokes better than he was on the golf course.

Baseball needs a commissioner like the Mafia needs a godfather. To cut down on the free-lance larceny. All I know is, Bud Selig ain't it.

I wish Evander Holyfield would retire. Boxing needs another tragedy like baseball needs another strike.

Albert Belle scares me.

I wish my whole life were timed by those clocks they use to measure the final seconds of a basketball game. I'd be 11 years old now.

The way they let them travel in the NBA, they should put handles on the ball. The players look like more like bellhops than athletes.

Commercials are going to kill network TV.

If I ever get in trouble with the law, I want Don King's jury.
Why don't cars making a left turn move to the middle of the road so the car behind them can make one too?

Let me get this straight. Five and a half million people vote for a thing, then 15 elitists and one judge get to throw it out and they call it democracy? Give me another look at that dictionary.

If I've got a horse in the Derby, Chris McCarron gets the ride. He gets more out of a horse than anyone since Shoe.

You have to figure Corey Pavin came down with the dreaded U.S. Open disease. You win the Open, then disappear. Just ask Curtis Strange, Payne Stewart, Tom Kite and Ernie Els.

I make Citation the greatest race horse I ever saw because he won on three legs when he was five years old, but Affirmed was worse than second only twice in his career.

Am I the only one in the country who thinks naming teams after Native Americans is a compliment to them, not a denigration of them? Is calling a team the Cowboys meant to insult cattle wranglers?

How could they have left Ben Hogan's winning his first U.S. Open at Riviera in 1948 off the list of ‘100 Greatest Moments in L.A. Sports History?’ I made it no worse than second.

The University of Cincinnati graduated only 19% of its basketball player ‘students’. Stanford graduated 86%. But before I throw my hat in the air I have to see the subjects in which they graduated. Also, find out whether they were good enough for the pros to abort their pursuit of knowledge.

Read me where it says we have to have, like, 10 heavyweight ‘champions’ at a time. Till Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson fight, we don't have any.

I never understood why a city builds a $200-million stadium for a football team to come in and play seven or eight games there. Why not use the money to build a factory for GM or GE to come in and hire 20,000 workers? That's a lot of money to invest for 45 non-residents and a few peanut vendors to get employment.

I don't care if the Fiesta Bowl has the two greatest teams on the planet, it still ain't the Rose Bowl.

What's wrong with naming Carl Lewis the greatest athlete of the half-century? It's either he or Jackie Robinson.

That's a wrap.

Reprinted with permission by the Los Angeles Times.

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

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