The Trouble Is He’s Too Good for His Own Good

There are those in the media who never have been comfortable with the too-good-to-be-true persona of Steve Garvey, but Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe writes:

“I was in Vero Beach in 1978 to write a story on Garvey and could not believe any pro athlete could be so civil and decent. You couldn’t find anyone to say anything bad about him. Writing the story in Vero Beach’s open-air press box, I had to move to accommodate a maintenance man who was stringing cable. The guy was wearing new brand-name sneakers and I commented on them.

“ ‘Oh, Steve Garvey gave me these,’ said the man. ‘He’s always giving us stuff like this.’

“Hall of Fame? U.S. Senate? Call me a dope. I’d vote for Garvey.”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Larry Holmes, asked by Newsday’s Wallace Matthews who he thought could beat Mike Tyson, said only two fighters have a chance, and neither is Michael Spinks.

“Tim Witherspoon and George Foreman,” Holmes said. “Foreman is too big and strong. He’ll just walk right to him and bang him out.”

That’s what he said, scout’s honor.

Add Holmes: Of Tyson’s first knockdown punch Friday night, he said: “It was the one punch I didn’t see. He wouldn’t have knocked me down if I would have seen it. It wasn’t that hard a punch. I didn’t see no flashes. When Earnie Shavers hit me, I thought people were taking my picture.”

Trivia Time: What world heavyweight boxing champion never fought a title fight in the United States? (Answer below.)

They called him a franchise when he came out of Georgetown, but Patrick Ewing is averaging only 29 minutes a game with the the New York Knicks, and Jerry Sullivan of Newsday writes: “As franchises go, that’s not a very busy schedule. If Ewing were a McDonald’s, he wouldn’t be open after 6 p.m.”

Greg Winsperger, U.S. ski jumping coach, had this to say last week about three-time world champion Matti Nykaenen of Finland: “Some day, I expect to see Matti take off and never come down. He will just fly away.”

Meanwhile, gravity still rules. Nykaenen, in his next meet, finished fifth.

Said Mark May of the Washington Redskins when asked about the decline of the Chicago Bears: “This wasn’t the Bears’ team we saw a few years ago. That was a hungrier team. Now I hear every other Bear has a restaurant.”

From St. Louis quarterback Neil Lomax, endorsing the move of the Cardinals to Phoenix: “Let’s face it, Fredbird got more endorsement offers in St. Louis than the football players did.”

Fredbird is the mascot for the baseball Cardinals.

Trivia Answer: George Foreman. He won the title from Joe Frazier in Jamaica. He defended it against Joe Roman in Japan and Ken Norton in Venezuela. He lost it to Muhammad Ali in Zaire.

Quotebook

Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, noting that the Washington Redskins are going for their second Super Bowl title in a strike year: “Their championship rings should have little picket signs on them.”