For Fun, If Not Games, Clippers Are Hard Act to Top

Cheap shots, deep thoughts and bon mots ...

Let’s check in on those zany, irrepressible Clippers, shall we?

Recently, the Clippers: demanded a new arena, used their lottery pick to draft a kid who is mad and says he’ll play in Italy because he didn’t get drafted by his father’s team, waived their most creative offensive player, continued to not have an official coach, and found out that center Benoit Benjamin’s new agent is Don King.

Then the Clippers ran a newspaper ad that boasted: “More excitement! More fun! Less money!”

I’ll give them the first two, but is a ticket to a Clipper game really cheaper than a ticket to a USC game?

A moment of silence, please, in memory of Mel Blanc, who was the heart, soul, humor and voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the cat and a number of other cartoon characters.

I only wish Mel could have stayed with us long enough to take the job for which he would have been perfect--radio and TV voice of the Clippers.

The crazy thing about Bo Jackson leading off in the All-Star game is that Kansas City Manager John Wathan didn’t think of it first.

Move Bo to leadoff and you give him 40 to 50 additional at-bats, and probably fewer strikeouts, since most pitchers won’t pitch around a leadoff batter.

If he does walk, you’ve got world-class sprint speed on base. And is a game-opening homer really a waste of power? Ask a pitcher.

The Mike Tyson story of the year is not Tyson’s love life or his vehicular follies. The Mike Tyson story of the year is Mike Tyson quoting Shakespeare.

Referring to a former friend who has written a not-too-flattering biography of Tyson, the champ said, “I think it was Shakespeare who said, ‘I love the act of treason, but I hate the traitor.’ ”

If Tyson really said that, this is a man who has turned a corner, revealing a whole new facet of his persona (whatever that means). And note the charming sophistication and modesty of the “I think” portion of the quote.

But did Tyson really say this, or was it something trumped up (no pun intended) by one of his bobos? We await confirmation.

You have to like the confidence of Jose Canseco, who batted .207 in double-A ball yet is miffed because he was not allowed to play in Tuesday night’s quadruple-A All-Star Game.

Please, no whining about how this was the fans’ game and they should be allowed to pick the teams. The teams should be picked by a one-man committee consisting of a sportswriter.

Fans, schmans. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who said, “Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority has at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread. . . . “

I guarantee you that no sportswriter would have had so little sense of baseball history and such disregard for the spectacle of it all to name anyone but Nolan Ryan the AL’s starting pitcher.

The baseball skills competition the day before the All-Star game was a nice touch, but not an original idea. Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and maybe before that, teams would stage similar competitions before a regular-season game. The early L.A. Dodgers did it once each season.

But the competition always included a cow-milking contest. This traditional favorite should not have been eliminated from Monday’s show. Cow milking might be something that the American League--with teams in rural Kansas City, Arlington and so forth--could dominate.

Glad to see there was a happy ending to that Cowboy Cheerleader flounce-out. My heart went out to the women. Where else could they make the kind of money ($15 per game) they make as Cowgirls? And you’d hate to see them out on the street, so to speak.

Besides, the ladies who walked out were the squad veterans, and you know how much their leadership and experience means to the squad. With the veterans returning, and some promising rookies, I look for the Cowgirls to regain their place at or near the top of the league, if they can avoid key injuries.

Pro basketball once again leads the way in the on-going integration of professional sports. The NBA continues to be an enlightened and ignored role model for pro baseball and football.

Latest news: The Denver Nuggets were purchased by two black businessmen. Or, as it might be headlined in Variety, “Two Blax With Stax of Jack Score Mile-Hile Hoop-Troupe Scoop”.

Pro wrestling is a great spectacle, especially for those of us who have always wondered what would happen if Jerry Lee Lewis took steroids.

But is it really sport?

It could be. How about one tournament each year, with a huge cash prize pool and real rules and referees? I don’t mean the boring college and amateur rules, I mean freestyle pro wrestling rules, only it would be illegal to hit your opponent with a spectator or to throw nuclear waste in his eyes.

The wrestlers would be allowed to wear their masks and funny hair, but would be required to check their boa constrictors, cudgels, lug wrenches, managers and other foreign objects before entering the ring.

Legit competitors may apply here.

Honk if you’ve made an offer to Al Davis.