Cold Decisions, Hot Lines, Bad Timing and Those Laker Girls

A stroll down memo lane . . .

Memo to all sports agents, re: Suffering. Fellas, I can imagine how devastating it must be to lose a salary arbitration hearing. Hey, I would hate to be the one having to break the news to Orel Hershiser and his family that they’ll have to get by on $800,000 over the next six months.

However. . . . There has been entirely too much public whimpering and sobbing over money. Example: When Gary Pettis lost his arbitration and was awarded $400,000 instead of $550,000 for ‘87, his agent said, “We’re gravely disappointed,” and “(We’re) still dealing with the shock.”

Please, gentlemen, have some perspective, some sensitivity of the plight of the common man. Times are tough. There are baseball fans out there who can’t even afford a live-in Mercedes mechanic. Personally, I think Pettis’ glove and wheels make him worth $550,000 to the Angels, even if he didn’t make all the big plays last October. But life is so very unfair.

When the Dodgers cut Ken Howell $20,000, to $155,000, his agent whimpered: “If they (the Dodgers) want to play hardball, they have to deal with the outcome. You get what you pay for.”

I infer from this that the level of Mr. Howell’s effort on the field will be based on the level of his salary. What will Howell do? Take 10 m.p.h. off his fastball?

Go Dodger Green. Have mercy.

Memo to Ole Miss athletic department, re: Phone sex. Sports hotlines will never be the same. Usually, the caller gets a five-minute tape loop of Coach Sweatsock discussing key injuries and crucial turnovers. But folks who phoned your football hotline number recently got a tape of a young lady describing an imaginary sexual encounter with the caller.

At last, a hotline that lives up to its name! Football’s version of baseball’s traditional hot-stove league! Great concept, fellas! Avant-garde. A statement. Shake up the old order, issue a challenge to other schools to break out of the hotline-formula rut. I loved the part where you guys pretended to be embarrassed and apologetic about the “mix up” in phone numbers.

Hey, I don’t condone pornography, but this took guts. When I read about your daring move, I respected you. And I respected you the next morning, too.

Memo to Laker management, re: Overexposure of Laker Girls. Nice legs, bad timing. Sunday, the Lakers fight back from 17 points down against the dreaded Celtics. At the third quarter buzzer, Magic Johnson buries a 45 footer. Instant bedlam! It is the moment of the Laker season. The fans are going berserk! Screaming, howling, frothing at the collective mouth.

Cue the Laker Girls and PA disco backup, stopping dead the celebration. Why do I have to keep telling you people? At certain magic moments like this, let the crowd go, let the fervor build, keep the Laker girls off the court!

If we don’t get enough of the Laker Girls from their other 37 appearances on the court during the course of the game, we’ll run home and phone the Ole Miss football hotline.

Memo to New York mayor Edward I. Koch, re: Parades. Wise moves, Ed, nixing the downtown parade for the Super Bowl champion Giants but giving your blessing to a parade for the America’s Cup crew.

A Giant parade would have been messy, what with thousands of office workers along the parade route leaning out their skyscraper windows and pouring down wastebaskets full of Gatorade.

The Am-Cuppers, on the other hand, really needed a parade. This is the only sport where the ticker-tape parade is more exciting and faster paced than the actual event.

Memo to Pete Rozelle, re: Save the replay. Your instant-replay officiating system was a disaster, and you’re thinking of junking it. Golf, on the other hand, has a replay system that works beautifully. The difference: Reaction time of the replay evaluator.

Your officials, Pete, took too long to hand down judgments on controversial calls. Autopsies are quicker. Your officials are still deliberating that one Super Bowl call, and it’s almost March.

But did you see what happened over the weekend? On the Sunday telecast of the golf tournament from San Diego, the TV people showed taped highlights of the previous day’s play. They showed Craig Stadler kneeling on a towel to execute a shot. TV viewers immediately called the PGA switchboard to inform officials that Stadler had broken an obscure rule. The callers didn’t need to look at six different camera angles of the towel. Stadler was immediately stripped of his $37,333.33 purse, although he did save himself the price of dry-cleaning those pants.

Do I have to spell it out for you, Pete? Round up a crew of TV golf fans and let them rule on your football replays. They could do it from their living rooms, saving you travel costs. They wouldn’t even call collect. They’d do it for free, their reward being the satisfaction of seeing justice done.

Then when these folks have cleaned up the National Football League, we’ll turn ‘em loose on pro wrestling.