Fearing Jordan Is All You Can Really Do

Being assigned to guard Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls can be injurious to your health.

Says Boston’s Dennis Johnson: “You don’t like to dwell on it, but I keep thinking, ‘What if this guy hits 92 on me?’ ”

When Jordan scored 61 points against the Atlanta Hawks, Randy Wittman was in such a funk that Jordan finally told him, “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing all you can.”

For What It’s Worth: Rickey Henderson of the New York Yankees is the first player to hit home runs off two 300-game winners in the same game. Against Cleveland Friday night, he hit a solo homer off 312-game winner Phil Niekro in the eighth inning and followed with a two-run homer off 325-game winner Steve Carlton in the ninth.

Trivia Time: San Diego pitcher Eric Show is the answer to what trivia question?

For the Record: In the trivia item on schools that have won NCAA titles in both basketball and baseball, no gender distinction was made. Tom Zylstra of Etiwanda points out that USC has won titles in women’s basketball and men’s baseball.

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Green Bay offensive line coach Jerry Wampfler told Gordon Forbes of USA Today that when he put USC linemen Jeff Bregel and Bruce Parks through a workout it got so intense that Parks broke his nose.

“I kept telling them to take it easy,” Wampfler said. “Bregel is a beautiful guy who really gets after it. He’s a tough son-of-a-gun, an overachiever.”

From Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson: “Eric Davis is the most exciting player, and Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete, but Don Mattingly is head and shoulders the class of this game. If he puts five more years together like he’s had, you’ll have to compare him to Lou Gehrig.”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Said Kansas City outfielder Danny Tartabull when asked what career he’d choose if he weren’t playing baseball: “Air traffic controller.”

Former NFL defensive back Beasley Reece, who played for Ray Perkins with the New York Giants and wound up his career with Tampa Bay, told the Orlando Sentinel: “When I first met him I thought he was the meanest, most complex person I had ever met. He scared me to death. He hired coaches who were crazy. He ran us to death. We knew the country club atmosphere was over.”

Reece then told of a time he awoke Perkins at 5:30 in the morning during training camp to say his son was about to be born.

“He paid for the flight home and gave me two days off,” Reece said. “That touched me, and I’ve been a Ray Perkins fan ever since. He could tell me to jump off the George Washington Bridge, and all I’d ask is, ‘What time?’ ”

Xavier McDaniel of the Seattle SuperSonics, on the drug scene: “Because I’m crazy on the court, people think I’m crazy off the court. But I have a lot more sense than people think. The first time I say ‘No, thanks.’ The second time I go to the police.”

Trivia Answer: He gave up Pete Rose’s record 4,192nd hit in 1985.

Quotebook

Pat Williams, former Philadelphia 76ers general manager, on Kiki Vandeweghe of the Portland Trail Blazers: “Kiki’s hobby is buying old clothes and wearing them.”