Guerrero Does Not Impress This Writer

Mike Hlas of the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette covered a series between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, and one player, in particular, made a lasting impression.

Hlas: “Besides being a mediocre first baseman, St. Louis slugger Pedro Guerrero is a jerk. A Chicago radio sportscaster named Bob Greenberg, who happens to be blind, asked a few questions. Pedro had brusque responses peppered with obscenities. And that was after a Cardinal victory.

“This is the same guy who blasted the Los Angeles Dodger organization after it traded him, although the Dodgers overpaid and coddled the injury-prone Guerrero for years. What a jerk.”

Will fame be fleeting? If anyone asks you if Pete Rose should go to the Hall of Fame, tell them he’s already there. On display at Cooperstown, N.Y., right next to displays of Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, are pictures of Rose getting the hit that broke Ty Cobb’s record.

Question: If baseball throws the book at him, will the display be removed?

Add Rose: With Cincinnati playing in Philadelphia, Rose reminisced about his playing days with the Phillies.

He told Claire Smith of the Hartford Courant: “I couldn’t wait to get to the ballpark and play Greg Luzinski in gin. I rode the subway. Sure, I did. It only cost 40 cents and I couldn’t get lost. This was the last stop.”

Trivia time: Lawrence Tero is the answer to what trivia question? (Answer below.)

No Czech mate: From a column on Ivan Lendl by Hubert Mizell of the St. Petersburg Times: “Except for Ivan’s domineering mom back in Czechoslovakia, there is no Mrs. Lendl. But five years ago, Samantha Frankel became the tennis tycoon’s live-in pal.

“She was 14 then.”

Welcome to the club: It doesn’t seem fair that Dodger pitcher Mike Morgan has a losing record when he leads the National League in earned-run average, but it’s actually par for the course. League ERA leaders Nolan Ryan of Houston in 1987 and Joe Magrane of St. Louis in 1988 both wound up with losing records.

A losing battle: Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics on baseball fights: “It doesn’t pay to get on the bottom of the pile. You can’t do anything and you’re eating grass the whole time.”

The Magic touch: There are those who thought Michael Jordan, not Magic Johnson, should have been named the NBA’s most valuable player, but Bill Musselman wasn’t among them.

Musselman, coach of the expansion Minnesota Timberwolves, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “It’s my personal feeling that Magic Johnson is the best player in the history of the NBA. I give all due respect Michael Jordan, who’s the greatest entertainer since Pete Maravich. But Magic has won a high school championship, an NCAA title, five NBA titles, and now he’s just as hungry as ever to win a sixth.”

Trivia answer: He is Mr. T, entertainer and one-time bodyguard for Leon Spinks. Wrote Ed Schuyler of the Associated Press: “If you cross Mr. T, he’ll dot both your eyes.”

Quotebook: Former light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, on how he came back from four knockdowns to beat Canada’s Yvon Durelle in their historic slugfest: “I was lying there and I was saying to myself, ‘This is no place to be resting. You’d better get up and get with it.’ Every time I looked up, I looked into the referee’s face. I got tired of looking at that man.”