He Finds Big-City Life Expensive

When tight end Wesley Walls of Mississippi arrived at LaGuardia Airport for the taping of the Bob Hope All-American special in New York, he didn’t know who was supposed to pick him up.

Walls, who left Pontotoc, Miss., with $200 in his pocket, said, “A guy asked me if I needed transportation and I said, ‘Yes, sir, I sure do.’ So he hauls my bags and puts me in the back of a Buick Century and takes me to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and charges me $85.

“I told him I knew it didn’t cost $85, so he pulls out a book of limousine rates and says it’s really $92, he was giving me a $7 discount.

“I told him in Mississippi we didn’t consider a Buick Century a limousine. I gave him a $100 bill and he gave me back $9. He wanted a tip. I told him I wasn’t going to give him a tip after I’d already given him what amounted to an $85 tip.”

That left Walls with $115. That didn’t last long, either. A pickpocket snatched it.

Said Walls: “I’m like Crocodile Dundee. I came here and learned a couple of lessons.”

Oops Dept.: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at the farewell ceremony in Milwaukee, told Buck fans, “The high point, of course, was winning the championship in 1972.”

It was 1970-71. The Lakers won in 1971-72. That season, the Lakers had a 33-game winning streak that ended in Milwaukee. Happy Hairston would remember. Abdul-Jabbar slugged him after a skirmish under the basket.

Trivia Time: Name the only active National Basketball Assn. player who has been with the team that originally drafted him for more than 10 years. (Answer below.)

If the bowls can take on corporate sponsorship, like the Mobil Cotton Bowl and Mazda Gator Bowl, why not sportswriters?.

Said Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post: “My friend Mike Littwin of the Baltimore Sun said he’s willing to wear an Amana hat in his column picture. My position on the matter echoes Andy Warhol, who said, ‘I’ll sell anything for money.’

“The notion of selling out reminds me that Vic Ziegel once wrote in the New York Post about an alleged tradition among PR men of rewarding sports columnists for mentioning their product by sending them free samples. Hopeful that the tradition survived, Ziegel ended his column with these words: Chivas Regal. Chivas Regal. Chivas Regal.”

Said Jose Canseco when asked if his next goal would be to win the Triple Crown: “No way. Wade Boggs would have to retire. So would Kirby Puckett and a few other guys.”

Gordie Howe, asked to compare Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky, told the New York Times: “The big guy from Pittsburgh is coming along, but he’s not there yet.

“Mario can win a game for you in 5 minutes, but I don’t know if he’s got the leader type of personality Wayne has. And Wayne’s the quicker thinker. He’s light years ahead of everybody else. Whoever would have thought nobody could catch the guy who skates like a wet noodle?”

5 Years Ago Today: On Dec. 13, 1983, Detroit beat Denver, 186-184, in triple overtime in the highest- scoring game in NBA history. Isiah Thomas scored 47 points and John Long added 41 for the Pistons. Denver’s Kiki Vandeweghe led all scorers with 51 points and Alex English had 47.

Trivia Answer: Maurice Cheeks of Philadelphia.

Quotebook

Golden State Warriors Coach Don Nelson, told that the word around the league is that Manute Bol lacks stamina: “I don’t believe that. Back in Sudan, he used to walk 10 miles a day to visit his girlfriend who belonged to another tribe.”