Pick on Someone Nets’ Size

After exchanging handslaps with Cleveland’s Ron Harper at an All-Star affair, Philadelphia’s Charles Barkley let him have it.

“Get a job, Harper!” he shouted as Harper was strolling away. “Excuse me, get a team.”

Barkley thought it over and said, “Wait a minute, they’re better than us. Times have gotten so bad, I can’t even talk about the Cavs anymore.”

From Pat Riley, telling Jerry Sullivan of Newsday that it no longer bothers him that he has never been voted NBA coach of the year: “Besides, I get more credit for not getting enough credit than any man in the history of the game. So what the hell?”

After marveling at the condition of the players in the National Basketball Assn. Legends game, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post wrote: “Not everyone, however, looked mah-velous. Oscar Robertson appeared to have spent the last 20 years chained to a refrigerator, and whatever Oscar didn’t eat, it seems Gail Goodrich did.”

Trivia Time: Tim Kurkjian of the Baltimore Sun asks this one: “Name the only four pitchers who have won at least 12 games in each of the last six years.” (Answer below.)

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller, named last week to the Basketball Hall of Fame, was a star player at the University of Kansas, but the only school record he holds is in football.

In 1938, he threw five touchdown passes in a game, which also was a Big Eight record. Steve Taylor tied it last September when Nebraska beat UCLA, 42-33.

Add Huskers: Defensive back Brian Washington, who worked out at a summer camp with Tim Brown of Notre Dame and Michael Irvin of Miami, rates Irvin the better receiver.

“Michael Irvin is nothing but the truth,” Washington said in the publication Huskers Illustrated. “Maybe Tim Brown had a better day, but Michael Irvin was better. Definitely better.”

Add Brown: From Peter King of Newsday: “The word around the NFL in January was that Brown was ducking scouts trying to get him timed in the 40-yard dash. Brown bristled at this, saying that before he ran for NFL scouts Saturday in Indianapolis he just didn’t want to be subjected to running the 40 time after time. ‘It’s all part of the NFL game,’ Brown said. ‘They build you up all year. Then, when it’s time to pay you the money, they look for something wrong.’ ”

Trivia Answer: Fernando Valenzuela, Jack Morris, Charlie Hough, Bill Gullickson.

Quotebook

Former heavyweight champion George Foreman, on his seven straight comeback victories: “It’s great being a celebrity again. I go home and my wife doesn’t make me take out the garbage. I don’t even have to pick up my clothes.”