Truth Is, You Have to See It to Believe It

Were the Dean brothers as zany as their nicknames, Dizzy and Daffy? Some say they weren’t, but Grantland Rice told of a time Daffy was swigging on a soda pop as a train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals entered a long tunnel.

Rice said he overheard this exchange between the brothers:

Daffy: “Diz, you tried any of this stuff?”

Dizzy: “Just fixin’ to. Why?”

Daffy: “Don’t! I did, and I’ve gone plumb blind.”

Fair or foul?: Wrote Mike Littwin of the Baltimore Sun after Baltimore’s Mike Devereaux hit the disputed homer that beat the Angels Saturday night: “Home Team Sports showed the replay at least nine times. Slo-mo. Reverse angle. Center-field camera. Underlined. Circled. Minicam. Late-night thrill cam. It still looked foul.”

Say what?: From Pete Rose, making like Norm Crosby: “All I want is for the case to be heard in front of a impractical decision-maker.”

Shame, shame: From Tom Powers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch: “How dumb are the radio guys? When a Los Angeles radio station got word over the wires that Bo Jackson of the Royals had to leave a game early with a strained thigh muscle, its representative called the K.C. press box to ask if Jackson would be able to return to the game later. Obviously a football-oriented station.”

Trivia time: What do Pedro Guerrero, Rick Dempsey and Ray Knight have in common? (Answer below.)

Power outage: Deion Sanders is hitting only .239 at triple-A Columbus and has been fined more than once by Manager Bucky Dent for being late and not running out ground balls.

Said Marty Noble of Newsday: “We’ve all seen storefronts with flawed neon signs--you know, with a letter or two missing. Could it be that Neon Deion is suffering from that problem?”

For all seasons: Headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer after the Cavaliers drafted Seton Hall guard John Morton: “Cavaliers Think Morton Worth His Salt.”

Tunnel vision: The subject was concentration and Orel Hershiser told John McGrath of the Denver Post: “Last year during the seventh game of the National League playoffs, when I came out to pitch the top of the ninth, I got all caught up in the scene instead of the batter. I mean, there was a standing ovation for me and everything. So what’d I do? I threw the first pitch and hit the batter, Lee Mazzilli. That taught me a lesson. Always keep your game face on.”

Are you ready?: The latest from Chris Berman, ESPN’s dispenser of nicknames: Greg (Life Is A) Cadaret.

Trivia answer: All three were World Series most valuable players. Guerrero shared the honor with Dodger teammates Ron Cey and Steve Yeager.

Quotebook Chi Chi Rodriguez, senior golfer, to a partner who landed an approach shot below a steep ridge: “If you dig deep enough there, you might find Jimmy Hoffa.”