He’s Letter-Perfect for the Hall of Fame

Here’s looking at U: If he cares about such matters--and he undoubtedly does--Peter Ueberroth might be pleased to know that there’s at least one person who thinks that Ueberroth has already earned a spot in Cooperstown.

Of course, Joe Gergen of Newsday isn’t pushing Ueberroth’s candidacy for baseball’s Hall of Fame based on anything the commissioner has done. On the contrary. . . .

“It’s his surname,” Gergen wrote recently. “Consider the balance a Ueberroth will bring to a Hall that has no members beginning with the initial ‘U.’ Nor has this been an undersight. Truth is, players, managers, coaches and executives from the 21st letter of the English alphabet are few and far from famous. U has a particularly undistinguished history in baseball.”

Only four letters--X, Y and Z are the others--have been ignored by Cooperstown. Ueberroth’s induction would cut the number to three.

“On such a day,” Gergen wrote, “it is guaranteed someone in the crowd will wave at the man and utter that famous baseball cry: ‘Hey, U.’ ”

It might even be Bob Uecker.

Usher nonsense: It was just seven months ago that Harry Usher said this about the United States Football League: “I think the league has an awful lot of potential, and I think it has strong teams, strong stars and strong ownership.”

The coals are ready: University of Hawaii football Coach Dick Tomey has come up with a novel way to fire up his squad.

Tomey climaxed a six-hour seminar on personal development this week by having about 80 of his players walk across a 12-foot-long bed of glowing coals.

The fire-walking, Tomey said, “will help our players in the classroom, personal life and may even help us as a team, although we have no delusions it will make us a great football team.”

Said offensive guard Brian Derby, a 6-3, 245-pound senior from Pearl City, Hawaii: “The object is to look up, so you don’t see what you’re walking on. And you’re supposed to think of something cool. We kept repeating, ‘Cool moss, cool moss.’ ”

Or something like that.

Here, Spot: “Hillbilly Jim will be on hand to manage Uncle Elmer when he faces Moondog Spot.”

No, not something from the Twilight Zone, just a sentence from a pro wrestling release. What else?

How ‘bout them flies?: Since the start of football practice this week, the usually unflappable Georgia Coach Vince Dooley has been bugged.

The cause of his concern is thousands of tiny flying insects swarming in clouds around the Bulldog practice fields.

“They are a well-organized army,” Dooley said of the invaders. “They are broken down into several battalions.”

At first, Dooley tried to ignore the invaders, but pretty soon, he’d had enough and called in the university’s entomology department.

The experts identified the flies as midges and added that they are non-biting and pose no health hazard.

Didn’t it use to be Yellow Jackets that riled Georgia?

Perhaps it was a reign delay: The English and French went at it again last week, tilt for tilt, at a jousting tournament held at Canterbury, England.

Nothing odd about that, except that it was the first England-France tournament since Henry VIII’s day, or 1520, to be exact.

Fore!: Jack Pulford, a restaurant owner from Moline, Ill., staggered home with a 74-over-par 145 to finish eight strokes worse than Angelo Spagnolo in a rematch of the Worst Avid Golfer tournament.

Pulford called his round “erratic” on the 6,685-yard Seven Springs Golf Course at Champion, Pa. During the 6 1/2-hour round, Pulford hit a Mercedes-Benz on one hole and drove three balls out of bounds on another.

Defending champion Spagnolo had no excuse for his improvement, but Pulford offered him some hope:

“I could come back here tomorrow and shoot 120,” he said.

Quotebook

Steve Wray, quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, before he was waived Wednesday: “I’m going to change my name to Hoo, so when I go into a game the field announcer can say, ‘Now playing quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, Hoo Wray.’ ”