Boston’s Lee Smith Taking Some Tips From Wade Boggs

If it has made Wade Boggs a four-time batting champion, Lee Smith figures it’s worth a try as a pitcher. Chicken, that is.

Smith, Boston’s new reliever, told the Boston Globe he has a copy of “Wade Boggs’ Fowl Tips,” a recipe book for preparing chicken.

“I’ve been eating chicken three times a week,” Smith said. “It helps to keep my weight where I want it. Chicken cacciatore is my favorite.”

Has he talked it over with Boggs?

“Well, yes, yeah,” he said. “But you know something? I don’t like to talk to hitters too much. They only want to talk about when they got a hit off you. I don’t like to talk to hitters too much.”

Add Smith: He told the Chicago Tribune that he’s appreciated much more in Boston than he was in Chicago and that he now hopes to realize his ambition of playing in the World Series.

Said Tribune columnist Jerome Holtzman: “If he hadn’t given up that home run to Steve Garvey in San Diego, he already would have had his wish.”

Add Red Sox: Slugger Sam Horn still is making like Dick Stuart at first base, so they asked his minor league manager, Ed Nottle of Pawtucket (R.I.), what should be done.

“You hit him a million ground balls,” Nottle said. “I’ve hit him my million.”

In-case-you-wondered Dept.: From USA Today, on how Richmond got the nickname Spiders: “It dates back to the 1890s. Richmond played as the Colts then but had a baseball pitcher, Buss Ellyson, who was all arms and legs. Sportswriter Ragland Chesterman dubbed the club the Spiders after Ellyson’s delivery, and it stuck.”

Ragland Chesterman?

Trivia Time: What athlete competed in a Final Four, the Rose Bowl and the Olympic Games? (Answer below.)

For What It’s Worth: Mike Tyson and wife Robin Givens have paid more than $4 million for an 18,000 square-foot mansion on 14 acres in Bernardsville, N.J.

Among their neighbors will be Jacqueline Onassis, Malcolm Forbes, John De Lorean and King Hassan II of Morocco.

After reading that Providence players forced the resignation of basketball coach Gordon Chiesa, NBC’s Al McGuire told USA Today: “If my Marquette players took a vote on me, I wouldn’t have lasted a long weekend.”

Trivia Answer: Dwight (Dike) Eddleman of Illinois. He was an All-Big Ten forward on the Illini team that finished third in the 1948-49 National Collegiate Athletic Assn tournament. He was a halfback and a punting specialist on the Illinois team that beat UCLA, 45-14, in the 1947 Rose Bowl. In the 1948 Olympic Games, he finished fourth in the high jump.

Note: In 1947, he set a school record with a 92-yard punt return, no small feat at a school that has boasted the likes of Red Grange and Buddy Young.

Quotebook

University of Texas women’s basketball Coach Jody Conradt, who has an 18-year record of 501-115, to those who are championing her for the men’s job: “I don’t need a demotion.”