‘Knowledged’ Master Gives Kerfeld Lessons

Yogi Berra is the acknowledged Master of Malaprop, but Houston reporters will tell you that Astro relief pitcher Charlie Kerfeld, with his own brand of scrambled syntax, is gaining on the master.

Charlie protests.

“I don’t know if I’m in Yogi’s league,” Kerfeld said of Berra, an Astro coach. “Compared to him, I’m just junior varsity. But I don’t think about it much. If I did, I’d probably get massive brain cramps.”

Kerfeld says he has taken a shining to Yogi.

“We get along so good,” he said. “It’s amazing. He was playing before I was even hatched. Now that I’ve met him, he’s really something else. If he ever decides to run for President, Reagan’s in trouble.”

It-had-to-happen Dept.: Said CBS analyst Pat Haden, endorsing Arizona’s strategy of putting the ball in the air with an 18-0 lead: “Too many times, teams try to sit on a lead and lose it.” Suddenly, the ball was going 54 yards the other way in the hands of Darryl Henley. The Bruins were back in business.

Noting that Vinny Testaverde was preceded by Jim Kelly and Bernie Kosar at Miami, Sports Illustrated asked, “Has any other team had as much quarterbacking talent as the Hurricanes did in ‘82, when all three were on the squad?”

BYU might stake a claim. In 1977, the Cougars had Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson and Jim McMahon. Then there’s Alabama. In 1964, the Tide had Joe Namath, Steve Sloan and Ken Stabler. Alabama won national championships under Namath in 1964 and Sloan in 1965 and had a perfect record under Stabler in 1966.

Trivia Time: Who was the first player from the Big Ten to win the Heisman Trophy? (Answer below.)

Quiz Time: Before Len Dykstra, who was the last player to win a championship series game with a homer in the bottom of the ninth inning? (Answer below.)

63 Years Ago Today: On Oct. 12, 1923, Casey Stengel hit a home run in the seventh inning to give the New York Giants a 1-0 victory over the New York Yankees in the third game of the World Series. Stengel hit an inside-the-park homer to win another game, the only two the Giants won.

On this date in 1964, Tim McCarver hit a three-run homer in the 10th inning to give the St. Louis Cardinals a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees in the fifth game of the World Series. The Cardinals won in seven games, and one day later Yogi Berra was fired as the Yankee manager.

Said Akron football Coach Gerry Faust, before the season: “We’re taking a program from 1-AA to 1-A, going big time. Hey, this is a sleeping giant.”

Saturday, the giant was slain by Middle Tennessee, 24-12.

Trivia Answer: Jay Berwanger of Chicago in 1935. At that time, the school was a member of the Big Ten.

Quiz Answer: Ozzie Smith, off Tom Niedenfuer, to give St. Louis a 3-2 win over the Dodgers in Game 5 last year.

Quotebook

Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, on Boston pitcher Oil Can Boyd: “He’s 144 pounds of nerve ends.”