If You Buy Team, Games Aren’t All You Might Lose

They say you can’t go wrong buying a major sports franchise, because they continue to appreciate in value and there are always plenty of prospective buyers.

Or is the honeymoon just about over? One owner, who asked to remain nameless, told Milton Richman of United Press International:

“You know how you go out and buy something sometimes and then realize you’ve overpaid for it when you get back home? The same thing holds true with buying and owning a franchise, especially a big-league one. After you buy the franchise and pay much more for it than what it’s worth, you hope some bigger fool than you will come along, pay you the price you’re asking and take it off your hands.”

He continued: “The NFL franchises in San Diego and Dallas were sold for unbelievably inflated prices, and the money paid for baseball franchises like Detroit and Minnesota was tremendous also.

“The Pittsburgh Pirates are up for sale for $40 million and they can’t get a buyer. No one wants to pay it. And how about the San Francisco Giants? Their owner, Bob Lurie, announced he wants to sell, but do you see anybody running to buy them? I don’t.”

Trivia Time: Walt Hazzard, the second member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic basketball team to become head coach at UCLA (the first was Larry Brown), was one of four Olympians coached by John Wooden at UCLA. But Hazzard was the only one of the four who played basketball in the Games. Name the other three Olympians. (Answer below.)

Add Wooden: When Georgetown’s 29-game streak was ended, Coach John Thompson said he didn’t see any good coming out of it, so Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post asked Wooden his thoughts about streaks.

Wooden: “In the 88-game streak, my players were never bothered until we got close to 60, which was then the record. Near 60, I sensed them getting a little tight. But once we tied the record--even before we broke it--they were no longer tight. There was no longer any pressure. I think the notion that a long winning streak puts more pressure on you is wrong. It puts more pressure on your opponent.

“I have always liked to be in the spot where teams that played us were ready to celebrate when they even came close to beating us. I told my players it was to our advantage that teams felt they had nothing to lose by playing us. That meant they put us on a little pedestal. I wanted to keep it that way.”

Add Streaks: St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca, asked about that garish sweater he wears, said it was given to him by a friend who bought it in Italy. Carnesecca wore it for the first time in a win over Pitt, and his team hasn’t lost since.

“I’ll keep wearing it until we lose,” he said of the sweater, a hideous combination of red, blue and brown.

And then?

“And then I’ll burn it,” he said.

How good a golfer was Bing Crosby? Says his old partner, Bob Hope: “Bing was an excellent player, with the slowest backswing I’ve ever seen. While he was taking the club back, you could fit him for a tailored suit.”

From San Francisco 49er tackle Keith Fahnhorst, who finally made the Pro Bowl in his 11th season and was featured in a national magazine: “It’s funny, I’ve gone from one of the most underrated tackles to one of the most overrated tackles in the league in one year.”

Trivia Answer: Keith Erickson, volleyball, 1964; Rafer Johnson, decathlon, 1956 and 1960, and George Stanich, high jump, 1948. Johnson won silver and gold medals; Stanich won a bronze.

Quotebook

Bill Walton of the Clippers, after appearing on a post-game show in Dallas: “They said they were gonna give me a dinner for four. I asked if I could have four dinners for one.”