Lights, Camera . . . Too Much Action

The hottest video in Europe this week shows the Olympic torch being snatched from a paunchy runner and used to light a terrorist bomb and a marijuana cigarette.

After the terrorist throws his bomb, the film cuts to news film footage of a blazing streetcar set on fire during a 1983 riot involving squatters.

During his troublesome jog, the torchbearer slaloms through a huge traffic jam, stumbles through streets blocked by public works crews, and argues with a policeman who doesn’t notice a car radio and a bicycle being stolen behind his back.

Something put out by the National Lampoon?

No, but parody is the weapon being used by Amsterdam’s No Olympic Games Committee, which claims the Dutch city of 676,000 is unsuitable for the Summer Games because of its small size, lack of existing facilities and social and economic problems.

The committee, made up of local sports and citizens’ groups, plans to show the 10-minute video in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee Friday will choose the site for the 1992 Summer and Winter Games.

Don’t look for Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC president, to be at the screening.

Trivia Time: What do Jay Schroeder of the Washington Redskins, Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins and John Elway of the Denver Broncos have in common? (Answer below.)

Ethics 101: The New York Mets believe Houston Astro pitcher Mike Scott marks the ball in some surreptitious manner and claim that’s why he’s been able to beat them twice in the playoffs.

“He cheats,” Darryl Strawberry said. “He’s a cheap cheater. You know he cheats. I know it. They (the Astros) know he does. I think the umpires know it, too. But they don’t want to do anything about it.”

Met Manager Davey Johnson, showing some curious logic, thinks otherwise.

“If we caught him, then I’d call him a cheater,” Johnson said. “But if you don’t get caught, you’re not a cheater.”

Oh yeah?

Add Scott: Demonstrating that he has as good a grasp on mathematics as he does on his split-fingered fastball, Scott had this to say about his three-hit victory over the Mets Sunday: “I’m not unbeatable. If we hadn’t scored any runs, we’d have lost.”

Cold-shouldered: Taking a break from baseball, Charlie Kerfeld, the Astros’ answer to Terry Forster, went to the Meadowlands Arena to see the New Jersey Devils and Boston Bruins last Saturday night.

According to Newsday’s Joe Gergen, Kerfeld was not impressed by the NHL game.

“I was kind of teed off because they didn’t have any brawls,” Kerfeld said. “I wanted to see blood on the ice. The only hockey players I’ve ever really liked are the Hanson brothers in ‘Slapshot.’ ”

Trivia answer: All three quarterbacks were taken in the 1979 baseball draft--Schroeder by the Toronto Blue Jays and Marino and Elway by the Kansas City Royals.

Quotebook

The New York Mets’ love of Houston goes back a ways. In 1962, outfielder Richie Ashburn said of the city: “This is the only town where women wear insect repellent instead of perfume.”