Baseball Is Nothin’ in Texas

Only in Texas: Those bitter high school rivals, Midland Lee and Odessa Periman, met again Thursday night and nobody in West Texas missed it.

Midland’s 10,000-seat Miller Stadium was sold out, so the game was televised locally on NBC affiliate KTPX, which had to pre-empt part of the network’s prime-time schedule.

One of the shows not shown was Game 2 of the National League playoffs between the Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals.

Add Texas: Just to show how big this game is out in the badlands, Lee and Periman drew 35,000 fans for a playoff game in Lubbock, a 230-mile roundtrip from the Midland-Odessa area.

Permian, the defending Texas Class 5-A high school co-champion, and Lee battle annually for the championship of District 4-5-A, known as the “Little Southwest Conference.”

Since state regulations prohibit high school television broadcasts on Fridays, the Permian-Lee game was moved to Thursday so it could be telecast by KTPX.

“Surprisingly, NBC is not upset with us,” McIntosh said. “I guess some people outside Texas wouldn’t understand, but high school football is so big here.”

If you’re interested, Periman won, 13-7.

Coach Frank Layden of the Utah Jazz said he sees the same youngster every time the Jazz visits San Antonio.

“We come here three times a year, and this same kid is always at the back door asking for my autograph,” Layden said. “I asked him, ‘What are you doing with them? You must have 25 of them by now?’

“He says, ‘Please sign, sir. If I get 25 more, I can trade them for one Adrian Dantley.’ ”

Jim Valvano, North Carolina State basketball coach, was horsing around with former Wolfpack star Dereck Whittenburg at the coach’s basketball camp. While attempting to hand-check Whittenburg, Valvano broke two fingers on his right hand.

“My career is over,” Valvano said. “You can break an ankle and get it healed more quickly.

“I can’t eat lobster. I can’t play golf. I had a chance to play a round with Jack Nicklaus when I was speaking at West Palm Beach (Fla.) and had to turn Jack down. And I felt hot that day.”

Add Valvano: Whittenburg was asked if the coach is a good golfer. “Yeah, he can play,” Whittenburg said. “But he can’t do anything now but talk. That’s why he’s OK. If I had busted his lip . . . he probably would have sued me.”

The week after the Atlanta Falcons lost three defensive backs at San Francisco two weeks ago, running back Tim Tyrrell volunteered to play safety.

Defensive coordinator John Marshall said he would consider the idea.

Told this by Chris Mortensen of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Coach Dan Henning puffed on a cigarette and said: “I’m smoking Winston. What’s John smoking?”

Moses Malone of the Philadelphia 76ers was introduced by a mutual friend to a Denver sports writer recently, and the conversation went like this:

Malone: “So you’re a writer, huh?”

Reporter: “Yeah.”

Malone, acknowledging the newspaper strike in Philadelphia: “We ain’t got no writers in Philadelphia right now. That’s the way I like it.”

Quotebook

Center Rich Kelley, on his contract negotiations with the Sacramento Kings after becoming a free agent: “They only took about four seconds, but they were a bitter four seconds.”