Gretzky Provides Fringe Benefits

How much is Wayne Gretzky going to mean to the Kings? That may be the $20-million question, which is about how much the King owner Bruce McNall will pay Gretzky for 8 years.

At any rate, it seems certain that Gretzky has breathed new life into the team. Whether Gretzky makes them a great one or just a mediocre one, his impact is already having a ripple effect:

The Kings’ season-ticket base has risen from 5,000 to 9,000, despite a $5.50 increase in their top price to $25.

The club hired a secretary to sort three boxes of letters and speaking engagement requests for Gretzky.

King merchandise is in demand from Portland, Ore., to San Diego and around the country. Many airport gift shops are brimming with King paraphernalia.

As his team enters the playoffs, the story of Boston Red Sox Manager Joe Morgan is sure to come up again. Remember it? The 57-year-old Morgan used to drive a snowplow in the off-season to supplement his minor league income.

For 15 years, Morgan was a minor league player. For 16 more, he was a minor league manager. For 1 year, he was both when the team he worked for offered him a raise from $7,000 to $10,000 if he would perform both duties.

If Morgan is a throwback to a bygone era, so are some of the words he uses. For instance, money is not money, but coin, jack, or scratch.

Here are a few others:

Cooked --A tired pitcher.

Peas-- Line drives.

Bricks --What home runs carry on the fly.

If UCLA were a nation, it would have done pretty well at the Olympics. In fact, UCLA would have finished 11th in the medal count.

There were 32 current or former UCLA athletes competing in Seoul, representing the United States and 6 other nations. They won 22 medals--17 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze.

Former UCLA track star Florence Griffith Joyner won three gold medals. Two gold-medal winners were current Bruin Steve Lewis in track and former UCLA stars Jackie Joyner-Kersee in track and Tom Jager in swimming.

USC, for its part, had 23 former, current and incoming athletes in Seoul, and they won 8 medals--3 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze. The gold-medal winners were Steve Timmons in men’s volleyball, Cynthia Cooper in women’s basketball and Bret Barberie in baseball.

For everybody on the George Steinbrenner watch, time is growing short. Here’s the latest: Steinbrenner postponed his meeting with New York Yankees Manager Lou Piniella that was scheduled for Tuesday in Tampa, Fla.

Piniella said that the meeting would be rescheduled for “later this week.”

Piniella is expected to be fired at that meeting and replaced by Dallas Green. If so, Green will be Steinbrenner’s 16th manager in 16 years of ownership.

Piniella, who just bought a house in the Tampa area, plans to fly to Florida on Thursday.

“I’m going to enjoy myself for a while,” he said.

Have yourself a nice time anyway, Lou.

Quotebook

New York Jets Coach Joe Walton, facing the media the day after his team’s 17-17 tie against Kansas City: “Do I have a choice to put a blindfold on or not? Or can I turn my back or something?”