It’s Strictly Sink or Sink for This Caddy

Sam Snead, always looking for an edge, recalled a time he was playing the 16th hole at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, and asked his caddy what to use for his third shot.

Caddy: “Well, yesterday I caddied for Jay Hebert and he used an 8-iron.”

Snead proceeded to hit an 8-iron, only to see the ball disappear into the lake fronting the green.

Snead: “Do you mean to tell me Hebert hit an 8 here?”

Caddy: “Yes, sir, he did.”

Snead: “Where’d he hit it?”

Caddy: “Oh, Mr. Hebert hit it into the lake, too.”

Boomer Esiason of the Cincinnati Bengals and Frank Reich of the Buffalo Bills are both ex-Maryland quarterbacks who were best men at each other’s weddings.

And if they ever face each other on the field?

“May the best man win,” said Boomer.

Trivia Time: Has there ever been a pitcher who won the Cy Young Award with a last-place team? (Answer below.)

Boston reliever Joe Sambito, who earned a save in Tom Seaver’s first start with the Red Sox, said he was big fan of Tom Terrific when he was growing up in New York.

“I did a term paper on the amazing Mets in 1970, my senior year of high school,” said Sambito, a Long Island native. “My teacher gave me a C+. I guess he just didn’t want to read that. The paper didn’t go into too much depth. I think my mom still has it somewhere.”

When a St. Louis radio station had a promotion giving away radios at Busch Stadium, Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog said he wouldn’t blame fans if they just picked up their radios and went home.

“When I managed Texas, we had Panty Hose Night all the time,” Herzog said. “We were so horsefeathers, we never saw any women in the place. But they came and got those panty hose and went home.”

Add Herzog: “We could use a couple of shutouts,” he said. “But I’m not sure that would be good enough to win.”

Seattle Mariners Manager Dick Williams, on charges he can’t communicate with players: “Those stories are spread by .210 hitters.”

Miami basketball Coach Bill Foster told the Orlando Sentinel that Tito Horford, the 7-foot Dominican center, had close to a B average last semester.

Horford speaks four languages--English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole--and is working this summer as an interpreter at a Miami hospital.

Ray Floyd, a White House guest after his U.S. Open win, told the Hartford Courant: “President Reagan is quite an impressive fella. He’s bigger than me, about 6 feet 2, and knows a lot about golf. I gave him a putter and watched him hit a few putts, and he also has a putter with a fishing reel on it. I asked him if I could use it at the Masters in case one of my putts goes too far over one of the mounds.”

Mary Decker Slaney, asked to compare the pain involved in running with the pain of childbirth, told the Portland Oregonian: “Labor is the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, and I think I’ve been through some painful experiences in my time.”

Trivia Answer: Yes. Steve Carlton won the award in 1972 with a 27-10 record for a Philadelphia team that had a 59-97 record, the worst in the National League.

Quotebook

Irving Rudd, boxing publicist, when told by a friend that Howard Cosell was his own worst enemy: “Not while I’m alive.”