Old El Paso Just Wasn’t His Dish

At the U.S. Open at Oak Hill, Lee Trevino stayed at the home of Paul and Barbara Kircher, prominent members of the Rochester (N.Y.) golfing community who had put Trevino up in 1968, the year he won his first U.S. Open.

“I remember when I got there, I went in and met Barbara,” Trevino told Jane Custred of the Houston Chronicle. “She was taking groceries out of a paper bag. And it was all Mexican food from Old El Paso.

“She said, ‘I didn’t know what you liked to eat. I got all this Mexican food.’ I told her I hated it. We never ate it.”

Stop the presses: From the Oakland Tribune: “Information they’d only dig up in a town with a long baseball tradition like Boston. Lowell (Mass.) Sun baseball writer Charlie Scoggins researched the number of major leaguers who have committed suicide. Scoggins found 69 cases, and discovered no left-handed pitchers in the group.”

Teacher, teacher: Is there a big difference between the grass of Wimbledon and the clay of Paris? Michael Chang thinks so. The 17-year-old French Open champion employs two coaches--Brian Gottfried for grass and Jose Higueras for clay.

Trivia time: What do Garry Templeton of the San Diego Padres and Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals have in common?

Add trivia: Former Dodger infielder John Kennedy, who participated in the old-timers’ game Sunday, is the answer to this trivia question: Who is the only major league player who had the same name as the president in office at the time he was playing?

Just coincidence: From Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal: “Ever pause to think how coincidental it is that the Baltimore Orioles trade Eddie Murray to the Dodgers, then move from last to first place, and the Dodgers move from champs to awful?”

Add Bisher: “I was wondering when we would hit the bottom in sports promos,” he said. “We just made it. A release came in bellowing about two bus drivers who’ll compete in a drive-off to see who becomes John Madden’s chauffeur next fall. Ugh & urch.”

Sugar, Sugar: If Sugar Ray Leonard takes the advice of another Sugar Ray, he’ll announce his retirement and this time make it stick.

After the Leonard-Hearns fight, Sugar Ray Seales, a 1972 Olympic champion who is blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other, told Harvey Araton of the New York Daily News: “All those jabs Hearns hit him with, I really thought Ray’s eye was hurt. I cringed watching him get hit.

“There’s no way he could beat Michael Nunn. The handwriting’s on the wall. He should get out.”

Trivia answer: They are the only players in major league history to get 100 hits from each side of the plate in one season. Templeton did it in 1979, when he was with the St. Louis Cardinals, and Wilson the next season.

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: The Frontier Hotel and Gambling Hall in Las Vegas already has posted a line on next season’s National Basketball Assn. race. Detroit is a 3-1 favorite to repeat. Then come the Lakers, Phoenix and Cleveland at 5-1, followed by Boston at 6-1. Minnesota and Orlando, the expansion teams, are 1,000-1.

Quotebook: Jose Canseco of the Oakland Athletics, baffled that Michael Keaton was chosen for the lead in “Batman,” the new movie coming out this week: “Can you believe they go get some scrawny, skinny guy? I could have played Batman.”