They Should Be Called ‘Team Earth’

Team America: Any anthem will do for Len Roitman’s Brooklyn College soccer team.

“Whatever the current immigration policy of the United States, that’s reflected by my team,” Roitman told Newsday. “Players from the Caribbean, or Central or South America, and now a crop of African players. Not as many Europeans as in the past, but a few.”

Roitman, who will be the assistant coach on the U.S. Olympic team, says only a few are U.S.-born players.

As far as that goes, Roitman was born in the Soviet Union; Lothar Osiander, the U.S. head coach, was born in Germany, and the executive director of the U.S. Soccer Federation, Werner Fricker, was born in Yugoslavia.

The joy of golf: Tom Kite, reminiscing about his glory years in the early 1980s, told Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post: “I was boring. I was so damn good it was monotonous. God, that was fun.”

Add Kite: His golf game got more exciting, beginning in 1983, and he fell to 9th, 5th, 14th, 7th and 8th places on the annual money lists. Nevertheless, he remains the third-leading money winner in the history of golf. His $3,686,029 puts him behind Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson.

Mary Decker Slaney, back in training for the Olympic 3,000-meter event, is being kept fit by 2-year-old Ashley, her daughter.

“I spend my spare time playing ring-around-the-rosy and running back and forth and playing hide-and-seek,” she says.

The last female to dog her like that was Zola Budd, who contributed to her spill in the 1984 Olympics.

Now it can be told: Red Barber wonders what the old Brooklyn Dodgers might have been like with Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Mickey Mantle in the same outfield. He points out that it could have happened.

Barber: “First, Mays. Brooklyn General Manager Branch Rickey heard of this young kid, playing for the Birmingham Barons. He dispatched a scout there to take a look and soon fielded this report: ‘Can’t hit a curve.’

“The New York Giants sent down their own scout. As far as he could tell, Mays hit the curve fine.

“Next, Mantle. Tom Greenwade scouted for Rickey for many years, primarily mining the Oklahoma territory. He claimed to be the first to recommend Jackie Robinson. He was the first to recommend Mantle, but by then Larry MacPhail had offered him more money, and he was scouting for the Yankees.”

At least they had the Duke.

Mac Wilkins, who won a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics, is throwing the discus again, hoping to make the 1988 team. Christine Brennan of the Washington Post caught up with him at his home in San Jose where he is getting his life together in “reverse order.”

He and his wife Fran moved in together in 1985, had a son in 1986, married in 1987 and bought a house in 1988.

“And now I’m looking for a job,” he said. “Most people do these things the other way around, starting with finding a job.”

Add Wilkins: Where do you think he keeps his gold and silver medals? Stuffed in old sweat socks.

“I’m not hiding them as much as I don’t want to get them scratched,” he said. “I once did hide them and couldn’t find them for four months. I did a big house cleaning and was afraid I threw them out.”

Quotebook

Dave LaPoint, Chicago White Sox pitcher, declaring that his lack of a fastball works to his advantage: “Teams can’t prepare for me in batting practice. They can’t find anyone who throws as slow as I do.”