Bad-Guy Image Is for Oilers

The Houston Oilers have long enjoyed a bad-boy reputation, on and off the field.

When Ladd Herzeg resigned this week as the team’s general manager, it was probably just coincidence that only a few weeks before, he had slapped a Houston Chronicle columnist to culminate an embarrassing caviar-dipping, champagne-drinking spree at a Houston restaurant.

But it was Coach Jerry Glanville who may have set the tone. Twice upset at the tone of reports on him and his team during the season, he challenged Houston Chronicle writer John McLain to fight and then, outside the practice facility, bumped radio talk show host Barry Warner of KILT-AM and told him he wanted to fight.

“Jerry said, ‘Come on, let’s go to a hotel room and settle this thing,’ ” Warner said.

“I told him if I was going to a hotel room with somebody, it wouldn’t be with a broken-down football coach.”

The Lakers’ Feb. 19 game with the Celtics in the Forum has been sold out for five months. Josh Rosenfeld, the Lakers’ public relations director, said he has had more than 100 requests for credentials, including the City News Service.

So?

“From Willow Springs, Missouri ?” Rosenfeld asked.

Milwaukee Bucks Coach Del Harris sat one out Friday night. Actually, he lay one out. For the first time in his 30-year coaching career, Harris missed a game.

While his Bucks were playing the Indiana Pacers, Harris could only listen to the game on the radio in his Indianapolis hotel room after injuring his back while playing Good Samaritan in a restaurant the night before.

Harris said he saw an elderly gentleman with a walker fall onto a table, then land on his back. Harris rushed over to help. He bent over, got halfway up and felt “this thing in my back rip.”

Harris isn’t sure what is wrong, except that he can’t stand up because his back hurts.

After a night’s sleep, he felt good enough to order room service, but when his food was brought, Harris passed out on the floor. He told the waiter to call team trainer Jeff Snedeker.

“He was calling ‘Snecker, Snedler, Snooker,’ ” Harris said. “I thought I was going to pass out again, spelling Snedeker for the guy. I spelled it seven times.”

The moral? There are two, Harris said.

1) “I stepped out of character and tried to be a nice guy and look what happened to me.”

2) “My next trainer will be named Bill Jones.”

Numbers: The Pittsburgh Pirates, baseball’s worst-drawing team only four years ago, expect to sell 1 million tickets by Opening Day.

In 1985, when they finished last, the Pirates drew 735,900.

Quotebook

From Harry Caray, named to the Italian-American Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame: “I’ll bet I’m the first guy in history to go into two halls in one day.”