Anthology of Athletic Scofflaws

A rash of scuffed baseballs and corked bats has the baseball world furiously scratching itself these days. A pallet of asbestos shingles falls from Joe Niekro’s pockets. Howard Johnson of the New York Mets is accused of having everything but 31 flavors of ice cream inside his bat.

Where will the nonsense stop?

Will it spread to other sports?

And how are our young athletes, the scuffers and corkers of tomorrow, being affected by it all?

I don’t know. Yes. Adversely.

Here are some local stories likely to appear in newspapers during the next few months:

Two pitchers at Cal State Northridge are banned by the NCAA for operating power tools on the mound. Sophomore Sandy Colfax is caught grinding the side off a baseball with a Black & Decker variable-speed belt sander. The umpire says he grew suspicious when the shortstop tripped over an extension cord discreetly stretched from the dugout to the mound. The next day, junior Bret Sabersaw is ejected when a chain saw falls out of his jersey during his windup. The umpire says he knew something was up when Sabersaw’s first pitch came in with bark from an elm tree on it.

CSUN’s Manny (Outboard) Mota, ejected from a game two weeks earlier for using an aluminum bat filled with helium, is enraged when the umpire demands to examine another of his bats. Mota slams the bat to the ground and it bounces up and floats over the school’s engineering building a quarter of a mile away. He is ejected again.

Cal Lutheran place kicker Lou (The Schmo) Groza, who has made 212 consecutive field goals over the past three years, is suspended when officials discover he has planted powerful magnets on the goal posts and uses a football filled with metal shavings. His ploy is uncovered when a referee accidentally drops his car keys on the 50-yard line and they are sucked into the end zone.

Crespi High cross-country star Paul Bunions is thrown off the team when his urine test reveals traces of STP Gas Treatment. Bunions explains that he started using the octane booster a year earlier when he began hearing loud knocking noises coming from his chest when he ran up hills.

CSUN swimmer Mark Spits is pulled from the pool during a meet when an official spots a trail of bubbles following him. Spits tells the official the bubbles are the result of a medical problem. He refuses to give any details other than to say it involves a restaurant with two words in its name, the first of which is “ El .” The official doesn’t believe Spits, and moments later he pulls a nine-horsepower Evinrude motor from Spits’ trunks. It is still running.

Merl Anthony is disqualified from a Professional Bowlers Assn. tournament when an official spots a string connecting Anthony’s left hand to several pins. The sly trick is uncovered in the ninth frame when Anthony sneezes, jerks his hand up to cover his mouth and converts the always-difficult 3-7-10 spare without taking his bowling ball out of the rack.

CSUN miler Bigge Lungz of Sweden is dropped from the track team when a review of videotapes reveals he has left the starting line as much as 10 seconds earlier than his competitors in all of his races since 1984. Lungz admits guilt and says he distracted rivals by pointing toward the CSUN football field just before the start of the race and shouting, “Look, they’re holding another illegal tryout over there.”

The Master’s College, a Christian school, suspends pitcher Bill St. John when he admits breaking the team rule requiring pitchers to tell opposing batters what type of pitch they will throw. “I don’t know what happened,” St. John said. “I told that fine, fine young man I’d be delivering a fastball, and I honestly meant to. But it slipped off my fingers and curved. It was an honest mistake. I swear. I mean . . . I don’t swear. I never swear. Please believe me.”

Welterweight Sugar Fred Leonard is disqualified from a local Golden Gloves boxing tournament when he is caught flagrantly using the “No hitting below the belt” rule to his advantage by wearing boxing trunks that fasten around his neck. Leonard’s guise is discovered when his opponent lands a left hook that drives Leonard’s protective cup out of his trunks and over his eyes.