She Has Become the Bag Lady of Professional Golf Circuit

Patty Sheehan, known on the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. tour for her knickers, her jokes and her easy smile, has a new trademark.

She’s become the M&Ms; lady.

Sheehan, who two months ago signed a sponsorship deal with M&M; Mars Inc., the maker of the colorful chocolate candies, has become a sort of sugary pied piper.

“All the kids love me,” she said.

Lest anyone miss the point, Sheehan’s golf bag is dark-brown and carries the M&Ms; logo. And she carries bags of the candy to hand out.

“I probably have 10 bags in my bag, but I’ve probably got 400 bags in the locker room,” Sheehan said. “I get all the M&Ms; I could possibly want.”

Just so she’s fair to all tastes, Sheehan said she’ll soon have another eye-catching bag: a yellow one that will look like an M&Ms; peanut bag.

“My caddy (John Killeen) had a dream that the M&Ms; peanut bag ate him. I said, ‘John, you’re not well,’ ” Sheehan said.

Add (literally) Sheehan: Although Sheehan enjoys the attention the M&Ms; sponsorship brings her, there is an adverse side-effect to the relationship.

“I’m gaining weight,” she said. “Everyone keeps telling me I’m going to be sponsored by Nutri/System (weight-loss program) next year. That’s not true.”

You know the saying, “Melts in your mouth, not on your hips.”

Trivia time: The College World Series will start this weekend in Omaha. Which team won the first National Collegiate Athletic Assn. baseball title?

Place your order/bets: Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda recalled the first time he took Steve Sax to Santa Anita.

“After five races we’d never cashed in a ticket, but there were two guys who came back after each race and they were dividing up stacks of $20 bills,” Lasorda said.

“So right before the sixth race these two guys get up and I gave Sax $10 and said to him, ‘Stay on these guys like a new suit.’ When you get in the line, take the same thing they do.

“He came back 15 minutes later with three roast beef sandwiches.”

What a way to go: Mike Schmidt’s final official big league at-bat won’t be a treasured memory for the newly retired third baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies.

In his final game Sunday against the San Francisco Giants, Schmidt hit a slow roller to shortstop Jose Uribe, who charged the ball and booted it. The official scorer, Mike Lefkow, scored it a hit.

Later, Lefkow, a sportswriter for the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times, changed the play to an error.

The Phillies, through publicity director Vince Nauss, asked if the decision could be reversed a second time, back to a hit. Lefkow said he was sticking with the error call.

“I’m in my first year of scoring,” Lefkow said. “But because it was Mike Schmidt, I talked to a few people who had more experience scoring games, and they said you don’t change a decision for that reason. I do understand the historical essence, though.”

Schmidt later walked in his final plate appearance.

Trivia answer: California won the NCAA’s first baseball title in 1947 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich., beating Yale, 8-7, in the title game.

Quotebook: Fred Lynn of the Detroit Tigers, when he fouled a ball off his knee recently: “Best ball I’ve hit in five weeks.”