Some Names in Golf Have a Better Look

Roger McDowell of the New York Mets put on a golf tournament for charity in Florida, but according to USA Today, it wasn’t easy.

Looking for participants, the pitcher put an announcement on the clubhouse bulletin board, leaving space for sign-ups.

Unfortunately, nobody signed up. So, as a gag, McDowell wrote in the names of Seve Ballesteros, Bob Tway and Mac O’Grady, hoping to stir some interest.

Still, no go. Undaunted, McDowell decided to write in the name of Jan Stephenson.

Problem solved.

John Candelaria isn’t the first to question the managerial ability of Gene Mauch.

Leo Durocher once was quoted as saying: “I can’t pick up a newspaper anymore without reading what a great strategist Gene Mauch is, but what has he ever won?”

Don Riley of the St. Paul Pioneer Press once wrote: “Gene Mauch couldn’t win a flag with Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio and Willie Mays. He gives more signals and signs than the Coast Guard. Any day now, Carew and Jackson will be looking into the dugout to see if they should swing on a 3-and-1 pitch.”

Trivia Time: As players, what did coaches Lenny Wilkens of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Bill Russell of the Sacramento Kings and Willis Reed of the New Jersey Nets have in common? (Answer below.)

How long have amateur athletes been running for money? TV announcer Dwight Stones doesn’t know, but at the USA Indoor Championships, where old-time athletes were honored, he said that former mile king Glenn Cunningham told him, “I got paid a lot better the last time I was here.”

Cunningham, winner of the 1,500 meters 50 years before, competed for the New York Curb Exchange.

From USA Today: “Said Mickey Hatcher after wearing ankle weights around the Dodger complex: ‘I put weights on so when I run sprints I can see what it’s like to be Mike Scioscia.’ ”

Carol Heiss, Olympic figure skating winner in 1960, went into acting but wasn’t exactly the next Sonja Henie. She made one movie, “Snow White and the Three Stooges.”

“Yes, those Three Stooges,” she told the Boston Globe.

Nevertheless, in Akron, Ohio, where she settled down with husband Hayes Jenkins, the 1956 figure skating champion, the movie earned her more recognition than the gold medal.

“I’d be in the house and hear the neighborhood kids go by on their bikes,” she said. “There I am, an Olympic champion, and the kids would go by, their voices lowered, saying, ‘Hey, that’s where the lady lives who made the movie with the Three Stooges.”

Said the Globe: “Gold, silver or bronze, it didn’t stack up to Moe, Larry and Curly.”

From Kansas City’s George Brett, who hopes to shake the injury jinx this year: “I used to be mentioned as one of the game’s best players, a franchise player. I was mentioned as one of the four or five best players in the game. Now I’m like an also-ran. Now it’s Don Mattingly, George Bell, Wade Boggs and Eric Davis. I want to get back in that category. I want to be in that same paragraph, not two paragraphs below.”

Trivia Answer: All three were left-handed.

Quotebook

Marv Throneberry, former New York Mets first baseman: “You know, it used to take 43 Marv Throneberry cards to get one Carl Furillo.”