This Bird-Watcher Prefers Cardinals

Larry Bird, back home in Indiana, didn’t catch much of Michael Jordan’s act in the playoffs, but he figures he didn’t miss much.

Of Jordan’s performances against New York, Cleveland and Detroit, Bird said: “He wasn’t doing anything to them he hasn’t already done to me.” (Jordan once torched the Celtics with 63 points in the playoffs.)

Bird told Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe that he watches little basketball, but a lot of baseball, especially when the St. Louis Cardinals are playing.

He watches them on the satellite dish and listens to them on radio. He has AM 1340 punched up on the radio in his truck so he can catch the broadcasts. That’s not the extent of his support.

“The reason I drink Bud Light is so I can help pay Ozzie Smith’s salary,” he said.

Add Bird: Looking to next season, he said: “We’ve got a chance to have a great team. I mean that. Look at our assets. There is no one in the middle that can shoot or defend better than Robert Parish, and there’s still nobody who can stop Kevin McHale one on one.”

A real big fella: Mychal Thompson, on the retirement of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: “I’ll be back, but they have to get another big man to start. It’s my style to come off the bench. They ought to sign Tony Mandarich. Nobody can block out like that, and I’m sure he’d rather play for the Lakers than the Green Bay Packers.”

Trivia time: Ray Corio of the New York Times asks this one: “What player holds the record for most home runs hit lifetime in one stadium?”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: You’ve heard of players who were older than their managers, but Texas pitchers Nolan Ryan and Charlie Hough are older than their manager and general manager.

Ryan is 42. Hough is 41, as is General Manager Tom Grieve, but Hough will be 42 next January, ahead of Grieve next March. Manager Bobby Valentine is 39.

It-had-to-happen Dept.: Praising the mechanics of Dodger pitcher Mike Morgan Monday night, Z Channel analyst Don Sutton said as Morgan started to deliver, “Watch his follow-through.”

Morgan delivered a high, high, high hard one that hit the screen. Manute Bol couldn’t have touched it.

No energy crisis: Dennis Rodman, the Detroit Piston showboat, told the New York Times: “I’m always called hotdog, but I’m not. I’m just hyper. I’m hyper in everything. I eat fast, I drive fast, I just always have to be doing something fast. When I was a boy, my mother took me to a doctor. She thought maybe there was something wrong with me.

“ ‘No,’ the doctor told her, ‘he’s just got a lot of energy.’ ”

Trivia answer: Mel Ott of the New York Giants, with 324 home runs in the Polo Grounds.

Quotebook: Coach Buddy Ryan of the Philadelphia Eagles, stressing leadership to his players, has this sign on his desk: “If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”