A New Meaning for ‘Joined in Progress’

Now it can be told. The cable channel that shows the New York Yankees’ games in the afternoon replays them at 7:30 that night.

When the Yankees and the Detroit Tigers played that 18-inning game that lasted 6 hours 1 minute, it was still going at 7:28 p.m.

Said cable TV broadcaster Bobby Murcer: “Well, in a minute or 2, we’ll be joining ourselves in progress.”

Montreal Expos infielder Jeff Huson, who spent most of the season at Jacksonville in the Southern League, had this to say when they gave him the ball after his first major league hit: “I’m going to put it on the mantle in my house--when I can afford a house.”

Trivia Time: What did Vedie Himsl, Harry Craft, Elvin Tappe and Lou Klein have in common in 1961? (Answer below.)

Lee Byrd of the Associated Press, on 105-pound U.S. swimmer Janet Evans, whom he has dubbed Junkfood Janet: “She wolfs down more than 5,000 calories a day, from a menu that would make the Pritikin folks gag. We’re talking breakfast of buttered rolls, chocolate cream pie, doughnuts, blueberry muffins and Cap’n Crunch. Lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, pudding and cookies. Between-meal snacks of burritos and chocolate milk shakes. Stuff like that.”

Norman Chad of the Washington Post, on NBC’s Olympic coverage: “The studio hosts have been solid, but the other announcers apparently are convinced that since they are halfway around the world, they must shout to be heard back home. Dick Enberg has gushed so much he ought to be shipped to Yellowstone Park and declared a national monument.”

Add NBC: Stan Isaacs of Newsday reports that Marv Albert’s wife, Benita, has been enjoying the Itaewon shopping district so much that Marv says “The American ambassador is considering giving her a citation for helping the Korean economy. In fact, all the shopkeepers in Itaewon have signs out that say, ‘Welcome, Benita.’ ”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: Wrote Steve Jacobson of Newsday from Seoul: “Boris Becker couldn’t enter the tennis competition because of a lingering foot injury, but he wanted so much to be here that he asked permission to march and live in the (Olympic) Village with the West German team. He was dissuaded after some West German athletes complained he would be getting all the attention.”

Jimmy Connors a lawyer? He says that’s what he would have been if he hadn’t left Belleville, Ill., to play tennis for UCLA.

He told David Aldridge of the Washington Post: “Where I’m from, you were lucky to make it to 19 years old. That’s why I got the hell out of there. It was a rough area and I was glad to have tennis as an opportunity to get out of there, to get to California, where there was a little more casual living.

“But my No. 1 aim was to be a lawyer, a defense lawyer. Because of the area that I was from. And that was something that I wanted to do my whole life. It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it, but I still think about it.”

Trivia Answer: They were the four rotating coaches named by Philip K. Wrigley to manage the Chicago Cubs. Under the revolutionary concept, the Cubs finished seventh in the National League with a 64-90 record.

Quotebook

John Valenti of Newsday, on Columbia’s 41-7 loss to Harvard, the 41st straight defeat for the Lions: “The bright spot was that Columbia held Harvard to 6 quarterbacks, 2 fewer than the 8 who appeared in a 49-17 victory over the Lions in the opening game of 1985.”