OK, Santa! The Ball Is in Your Court

And a ho-ho-ho and a rump-a-pum-pum to you, too.

Look, Santa, while you’re about it, would you put some powder on that nose of yours and drop off the following for some friends of ours?

--Give Fernando Valenzuela back his fastball. Or see Doc Jobe about getting him a new arm. Tommy John’s would be nice.

--Give Mike Tyson a girl who’ll stay home and do the dishes.

--Give Mario Andretti a car that can take as much punishment as he can.

--Give golf a new Hogan or Snead or Nicklaus or Palmer. Or a Tommy Bolt. Take back all those “flippy wristed college kids” Tommy abhors.

--Give Kirk Gibson a shave.

--Give Steve Sax a bulletproof vest and an armored car.

--Give Dwight Gooden back that fastball he threw to Mike Scioscia in Game 5 of the league playoffs.

--Give Gene Autry a World Series.

--Give George Steinbrenner a book titled “Pitchers Win Pennants, Not Managers,” or “This Ain’t Football.”

--Give the Lakers a center, you don’t win in that league without one. I don’t care how brilliant Magic is.

--Give tennis a guy who’ll say “Lovely shot!” of an opponent’s winner instead of “How could you call that in, you cretin! You’re the pits!”

--Give guys who do sack dances over fallen foes the Iron Cross. If we want bullies, we’ll go look at Hitler movies.

--Give that “prevent defense” the pros use in the closing minutes of a football game back to the Indians. On second thought, it was Custer who first used it.

--Give the Chicago Cubs a pennant, for heaven’s sake! Nobody should be hanging by his thumbs for 44 years. Unless it’s the guy who sold me the pile of needles I thought was a Christmas tree.

--Give somebody an old-fashioned 4-man pass rush like Merlin Olsen-Deacon Jones-Lamar Lundy-Rosey Grier and watch them sweep Super Bowls. Take that 3-4 front to beach volleyball.

--Give UCLA basketball some players half as aggressive and vindictive as their fans.

--Give Bo Schembechler a better break in a Rose bowl. A guy who goes to the Rose Bowl every other year, loses only his first two games of the year, to Notre Dame by 2 points and Miami by 1, and has never been on probation, deserves a break.

--Give Bill Shoemaker a horse he can ride with a field tiring in front of him and a hole on the rail.

--Give Lafitt Pincay a Triple Crown winner. Give Chris McCarron another Alysheba.

--Give Tom Landry a quarterback. He’ll take care of the rest. It doesn’t even have to be another Staubach. Although that would be nice.

--Give Ozzie Smith a double-play ball he has to do a swan dive to get to with one out, the bases loaded and the pennant on the line.

--Give us a Super Bowl somebody doesn’t win 40-0 or thereabouts.

--Give Nolie Ryan one more afternoon where he’s got control of his curveball, the sky is darkening and the umps are giving him the corners.

--Give Larry Bird an open shot and a standing pick with the score tied and 10 seconds on the clock.

And, for us old-timers . . .

--Give us once more a Willie Mays running out from under his hat as he hauls down a 3-base hit with his back to home plate, whirls and doubles the guy off second.

--Give us Babe Ruth pointing, give us Pete Rose coming home head-first with the winning run and the catcher blocking home plate.

--Give us Bob Cousy coming down court with the ball with a clumsy defender and a clear lane to the basket.

--Give us Jerry West shooting from mid-court at the buzzer, Elgin Baylor drawing the foul on purpose in a driving layup for his 71st point.

--Give us Joe Louis shuffling in on an opponent who’s caught in the ring ropes, cut over the eyes and have Joe end it quickly and then say “Another lucky night!’

Give us that and we’ll all win the pennant every year, every day will be a Super Bowl and a partridge in a pear tree. And a Merry Christmas to all.