As This Evidence Suggests, He Has Had Checkered Career

Pete Rose, always adept with the media, is learning to adjust to a new type of journalist these days.

Rose told Dave Kindred of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, “One reporter showed up and said, ‘I’m on the Pete Rose story,’ and I said, ‘That’s me.’

“He said he had been covering the Middle East for eight years and hadn’t seen a ballgame in 10 years. He’d interviewed Yasser Arafat. Yasser Arafat. And I’m thinking now, ‘He’s here doing me now? What the hell did I do?’

“The guy told me that when he met Arafat, they played chess.

“So I said to him, ‘I don’t play chess. You wanna play checkers?’ ”

Take-your-choice Dept.: After San Diego’s Bruce Hurst got out of an inning on a liner to third Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, Z Channel analyst Don Sutton said: “He got away with a bad pitch. You never follow an off-speed pitch with another off-speed pitch. You come with a hard one.”

The next day, in the New York Times, Dodger announcer Don Drysdale was quoted as saying: “They tell you that you shouldn’t throw two off-speed pitches in a row. But sometimes it’s the best thing to do. The hitter knows you’re not supposed to do it, so he doesn’t expect it. If you read him right, it’s a good pitch.”

Trivia time: When the Dodgers pitched to Jack Clark with first base open in that ill-fated playoff game in 1985, who was the on-deck batter for St. Louis?

Tinsel and black: Former Raider stars Daryle Lamonica and Jim Otto told the Sacramento Bee that the franchise has been hurt by the Hollywood influence.

Lamonica: “It took their aggressive personality away. They became country-club types rather than the tough guys I was accustomed to playing with.”

Otto: “Some of the players who normally would have played in Oakland with an injury or a little bruise don’t do that in Los Angeles because it might affect their movie careers. Now they all have insurance policies from Lloyd’s of London.”

Kinerism-of-the-week: According to Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia Inquirer, when New York Met announcer Ralph Kiner was explaining the earthquakes in California he called it the “Andrie’s fault.”

Ouch: Ferdie Pacheco, the fight doctor, on Sugar Ray Leonard, who lost trainer Angelo Dundee in a money dispute and recently fired five of his camp aides: “He’s got a cash register for a brain and a bank vault for a heart.”

You rang?: Detroit Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson, now using room service at hotels, told the New York Times:

“My wife has been on me to do it. I never did before and I’ll tell you why, even though my reason may sound silly. I wasn’t brought up as a wealthy boy, and just because I’m making good money, I didn’t want to be different from everybody else. But I couldn’t go down to breakfast in the morning without having people come up to me.”

Bad Scenario: Said Milwaukee Brewer catcher B.J. Surhoff when USA Today asked him what baseball situation he least liked to be in: “True story: Hitting .302 the last day of the season, then having to face Roger Clemens going for his 20th win in freezing, rainy weather, and trying to finish at .300 for the year.”

He went 0 for 3 and finished at .299.

Five years ago today: Andre David of the Minnesota Twins hit the first major league pitch he saw for a home run off Detroit’s Jack Morris. He never hit another and was out of the majors after 37 more games.

Trivia answer: Andy Van Slyke.

Quotebook: Arantxa Sanchez of Spain, winner of the women’s singles in the French Open, on why she is listed as Sanchez Vicario in the Wimbledon draw: “It’s my mother’s maiden name. I asked them to do it because my mother likes to have her name in the paper.”