Wait Till the Guys Hear This

It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people in the United States can’t relate to that 10.49 by Florence Griffith-Joyner. They became lost when track and field went to the metric system and started timing races electronically in hundredths of seconds.

Even football hasn’t caught up. “He’s got 9.6 speed,” a coach will say. He’s talking about a hand-timed 100-yard dash. Griffith-Joyner ran an electronically timed 100 meters.

The difference between 100 yards and 100 meters is about 10 yards, or eight-tenths of a second. The difference between hand-timed and electronically timed is between two-tenths and three-tenths of a second. When Houston McTear became the first high school sprinter to run 9-flat for 100 yards, he was timed electronically in 9.3.

Applying those formulas, Griffith-Joyner would have run a hand-timed 100-yard dash in 9.4.

How fast is that? Ask O.J. Simpson. That was his best time at USC.

Trivia Time: Who was the first sprinter to run 100 yards in 9 seconds flat? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Former Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Joe Brown told the Pittsburgh Press about a dinner he attended in Los Angeles where UCLA basketball Coach John Wooden was seated at the same table.

“He didn’t want to talk basketball,” Brown said. “All he wanted to talk was baseball.”

Brown said he was so impressed that he later approached Wooden and asked him if he would consider managing the Pirates. Wooden said no.

If he had said yes?

“I would have hired him,” Brown said. “He could handle any job.”

From the Associated Press: “If Joe Morgan doesn’t make it in Boston, the Red Sox are still interested in talking to Joe Torre. Torre, who is a broadcaster, could have had the San Diego Padre job but turned it down.”

11 Years Ago Today: On July 19, 1977, Joe Morgan led off with a homer and Greg Luzinski also homered in the first inning off Jim Palmer as the National League won the All-Star game, 7-5, at Yankee Stadium. Don Sutton of the Dodgers pitched three shutout innings and was named MVP.

Note: Morgan and Palmer were rejoined 11 years later on the ABC announcing team for this year’s All-Star game.

How-times-have-changed dept.: Peter Mitchell, the 71st and last-place finisher in the British Open, earned $3,400. When Sam Snead won the tournament in 1946, he earned $500.

Of course, they’ll tell you, “Sam still has the $500.”

Kevin Young of UCLA is scheduled to take a sociology test today, but after he made the Olympic team in the 400-meter hurdles at Indianapolis, he said: “I don’t know if I’ll be able to take the test. I want to go home and tell everyone I’m in the Olympics. Hopefully, my professor was watching this on television and will take it into consideration.”

From Angel Manager Cookie Rojas, explaining pitcher Terry Clark’s success after 10 years of struggling in the minors: “Sometimes, you take a guy and put him in a big ballpark with good defense behind him and he’ll do better than in the minors. There are a lot of small ballparks in triple A.”

Trivia Answer: Ivory Crockett.

Quotebook

Baltimore third baseman Rick Schu, spotting Tom Selleck as the actor took batting practice with the Orioles: “Is he the player to be named later?”