Vitale’s Daughters Play Own Ratings Game

Terri and Sherri Vitale, daughters of basketball announcer Dick Vitale, are ranking players on the Florida junior tennis circuit.

They were asked by World Tennis magazine how their father would rate them.

Said Terri, 16: “He’d label me a Dow Jones player--sometimes I’m really hot and sometimes I’m not.”

Said Sherri, 14: “I’m a PT, a prime-time player.”

And how would they rate their dad’s game?

“He’s an M and M,” Sherri said.

M and M?

“A mismatch,” she said.

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: Ozzie Smith, Gary Carter, Jim Rice, Eddie Murray and Mike Schmidt, the five highest-paid players in baseball last season, had a combined batting average of .264. They averaged 14 home runs and 63 RBIs.

Frank Bruno, after arriving in Los Angeles to arrange a fight with Mike Tyson Feb. 25 in Las Vegas, said he wasn’t sure what the champion was up to but added, “I’m here for some serious business. I didn’t come here to get a suntan.”

He didn’t exactly get a royal welcome.

Said the Associated Press: “There was no limousine at the airport to meet him and promoter Jarvis Astaire, who accompanied him from London. The pair instead boarded a bus to head for the rental-car lot.”

For What It’s Worth: John Robinson and Bill Walsh, Sunday night’s coaching antagonists at Candlestick Park, each is responsible for the other’s worst defeat.

In 1977, Robinson’s USC Trojans beat Walsh’s Stanford Cardinal, 49-0. In 1987, Walsh’s San Francisco 49ers beat Robinson’s Rams, 48-0.

Trivia Time: What was Stanford’s nickname when it played Notre Dame in the 1925 Rose Bowl? (Answer to follow.)

How have the Texas Rangers fared at the trading table over the years? Said Denne H. Freeman of the Associated Press: “If big league baseball had a designated Santa Claus, the Rangers would wear whiskers.”

An Omen?: Breaking his maiden in the fourth race Wednesday at Hollywood Park was Raider Marcus.

Said Houston Coach Jerry Glanville, looking to Sunday’s game at Cleveland, where fans throw dog biscuits on the field for the Brown defensive backs, who call themselves the Dogs: “I’ve got this big shopping bag. I’ve got the best dog you’ve ever seen, a Labrador. His name is Bo. He’s 12 years old. He doesn’t hunt so well anymore, but he loves dog biscuits. I’m going out in the pregame, and all those biscuits they throw, I’m going to take back to my dog.”

From sportsman of the year Orel Hershiser: “I welcome Willie Randolph with open arms and definitely welcome Eddie Murray with open arms. He can stay at my house if he wants to.”

Said Billy Ripken, when the Baltimore Orioles unveiled new uniforms for 1989, including the replacement of a cartoon bird with an ornithologically correct Oriole on the caps: “I hope it flies better than the other one.”

Trivia Answer: Cardinals. They were later called the Indians, and then the Cardinal after a campus vote. Among the suggestions rejected was Robber Barons, a reference to the “Big Four” who controlled early San Francisco, including Leland Stanford.

Quotebook

Hugh Maley, FNN/SCORE boxing announcer, on George Foreman: “Some fighters telegraph their punches. Ol’ George has resorted to carrier pigeons.”