Another Ferdinand in Shoemaker’s Past

Neither man nor horse, it seems, can completely bury the past.

On May 20, 1964, Bill Shoemaker, 32, rode an undistinguished 3-year-old to a come-from-behind victory in a six-furlong allowance race at Hollywood Park. The colt’s name was Ferdinand.

On Saturday, almost 22 years later, Shoemaker guided another 3-year-old Ferdinand to victory, this one coming in the 112th running of the Kentucky Derby.

The original Ferdinand was the result of a match between the sire Yatasto and the mare Plumeria in 1962. The newer model is the product of the great English Triple Crown winner Nijinsky II and Banja Luka in 1983.

The first Ferdinand, owned by Mymy Barnes, granddaughter of Charles Howard, the owner of Seabiscuit, won 3 of 35 career starts, earning $12,900.

Does Shoemaker remember the 1964 race? “Honestly, I don’t,” he said Sunday.

Steve Fainaru of the Hartford Courant passes along these observations by Oakland’s Joaquin Andujar after the right-hander beat Boston Friday night:

On Fenway Park at first sight: “I thought we were going to play softball when I saw the left-field fence.”

On being traded to the A’s: “Baseball is just like the army. Sometimes you’re in Arizona and then you have to go to Libya and fight. You never know when you’re going to be traded.”

On pitching against the Red Sox: “I really don’t worry any more about who I’m pitching against. I think I just pitched like I did in the National League. Fastballs and sliders. Everybody knows I’m going to challenge you. If you hit it, you hit it. If you don’t, thank you very much.”

Trivia Time: Who is the only man to play for the Boston Braves, Milwaukee Braves and Atlanta Braves? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Between the first two games of the recent Boston-Chicago series, Danny Ainge of the Celtics and Michael Jordan of the Bulls joined up for a round of golf.

Said Ainge: “I tried to run over him a couple of times with the golf cart, but he kept jumping over it.”

Add Jordan: When Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman heard that Jordan had scored 63 points in the second game of that series, he said: “I couldn’t score 63 points in an empty gym.”

Just Asking: Wonder what Milwaukee’s Terry Cummings could have said to draw a technical foul in the second playoff game against Philadelphia? Cummings is a Pentecostal minister.

New York Jets personnel director Mike Hickey, on Ohio State’s Keith Byars, who was drafted first by the Philadelphia Eagles: “I personally liked him better than Bo Jackson, coming into the fall. Great personal qualities, outstanding leader, a faster Marion Motley. Then, he breaks a bone in his foot.”

Trivia Answer: Eddie Mathews.

Quotebook

Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan, on William (Refrigerator) Perry, whom he called a wasted draft choice last summer in Chicago: “He’s going to make so much money, he’ll buy his own team, hire me to be his own coach and fire me, so he can say I’m a wasted coach.”