How About Gretzky to the Chargers for a Rabbit to Be Named?

Questions I’ve been pondering . . .

Why didn’t San Diego acquire Wayne Gretzky?

I know, San Diego doesn’t have a hockey team. But had local hockey fans known he was available, they might have been able to pool their pennies and buy him outright for maybe $30 million.

With a player such as Gretzky in our possession, the National Hockey League would have been forced to send us a franchise to go with him.

Any better ideas on how to bring the NHL to San Diego?

Why don’t the Chargers hire Roger Rabbit?

To do what?

Silly, to play quarterback.

After watching Babe Laufenberg, Mark Malone and Mark Vlasic run for their lives Saturday night against the Rams, it occurred to me that it matters little who plays quarterback. Wyatt Earp would not have had time to pull the trigger under that kind of pressure.

If their offensive line is going to continue to be as porous as it was against the Rams, the Chargers might consider letting their quarterback play on horseback . . . with a sword.

As it is, they will be neck deep in the National Football League’s Cossacks.

Is it true that Joan Kroc is planning to open a new franchise operation?

She should be.

Call it Catchers R Us.

Her little baseball organization has this problem.

The big guy on the varsity, Benito Santiago, was All-Everything as a rookie a year ago. Still a baby of 23, he is coveted by any franchise who does not have a catcher like him . . . and that is darned near every franchise that doesn’t have him.

But controversy and conversation have been rampant because the Padres’ No. 1 minor league catcher, 22-year-old Sandy Alomar Jr., also happens to be the No. 1 minor league catcher, period. He too is coveted elsewhere . . . and everywhere.

What to do?

A resolution of this delightful dilemma might be delayed a bit by the fact that Alomar has been sidelined, probably for the remainder of the season, by arthroscopic knee surgery. But it won’t go away, and an answer ultimately must be found.

And so what happens when Santiago is given a day of rest Sunday in Houston?

Mark Parent hits two mammoth home runs and drives in five runs in a 6-1 victory.

Naturally, Parent is a catcher . . . and he would like to go someplace where he might play a bit more than he does behind Santiago.

Would you say that the Chargers were rather shamelessly hyping their exhibition and season-ticket sales during the telecast Saturday night?

Not at all.

Shamelessly was hardly the word. Foolishly was the word.

This was like a used-car dealer trying to peddle a car with a bumper missing, the fender dented and the transmission on the ground.

Who in the world would have wanted to buy what they were watching?

What did the Seagram’s Cooler All-Star basketball game do to enhance San Diego’s chances of getting a National Basketball Assn. franchise?

Nothing.

The organizers of such games are always billing them as barometers of interest, hoping to build crowds beyond what the events themselves merit. Let’s call this one what it was, an exercise in worthwhile charity that probably brought in some bucks from a crowd of 8,123.

The point here is that the game did nothing in terms of getting the NBA’s attention . . . one way or the other.

What is happening with Stadium Authority member Mike Gotch’s proposal that San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium be designated a no-smoking stadium?

Maybe it will be delayed until Gotch can get back on the City Council and spearhead a move to make Mission Valley a no-smoking valley.

In the meantime, the cannon that fires every time the Chargers score is safe. Of course, given what I have seen of the Chargers’ offense, it may be a no-smoking cannon.

How might Michael Fay’s Gallup poll on America’s attitudes toward the upcoming America’s Cup regatta be interpreted?

What the Kiwis stressed was that 53% of the American public felt it was unfair that Sail America would defend in a catamaran against Fay’s monohull.

Fay also applauded the American public’s sense of fair play.

However, given 30 minutes with nothing to do and a long distance calling card, I discovered that much of what happens in sports hereabouts is unfair.

A sampling:

-- 72% thought it was unfair that San Diego State should have to open its football season against UCLA at the Rose Bowl.

-- 95% thought it was unfair that the Padres should ever have to face Mike Scott in the Astrodome.

-- 81% thought it was unfair that San Diego has neither professional hockey nor professional basketball.

-- 100% thought it was unfair that the Chargers charge regular-season prices for exhibition games and then make them mandatory in season-ticket packages.

See? All’s fair in love and sports, and Fay knew that when he startled the world with his original challenge.