Football Lottery Officials Had to Sweeten a Puny Pot

What kind of payoffs have there been in Oregon’s pro football lottery?

It works like a pari-mutuel pool in horse racing; the more upsets there are, the bigger the payoffs. Week 1 apparently was too predictable; when lottery officials realized that the payoff for four of four correct selections would be only $4.10, they added $70,000 to the overall pool--increasing the payoff to $7.20. Last Sunday, however, four of four paid $20.10. Five of five paid $58.20; six, $106.50; seven, $424.70, and eight, $668.40. One person selected 10 winners and received $8,222.50.

Don’t call me Wray: Marty Noble of Newsday quotes Fay Vincent, the new commissioner of baseball, on his given name: “Fay’s an Irish nickname for Francis. My father picked it up as an Irish kid in Torrington, Conn. He always told me there were other Fays, that it was an Irish name or a nickname used in the Irish communities. Why he wasn’t Frank, I don’t know.

“It’s not an easy name to deal with when you’re a kid. They’d call you, ‘Miss Fay Vincent.’ For me, it was a significant problem. I’d get in a lot of fights. I was always big. I had a number of tumults. It would cost you a swift kick in the you-know-what.

“The only redeeming grace was that my father was a great man, and I am proud to carry the name. But it ends with me. I don’t mean any disrespect to the ol’ man. But I have twin sons, and their names are Bill and Ted.”

Trivia time: What do major leaguers Phil Bradley, Rob Deer, Juan Samuel, Dale Murphy, Jim Presley and Jesse Barfield have in common?

It doesn’t compute: One problem with computers is that they are useless without information to process. Based on only one game, the University of Houston’s 69-0 victory over Nevada Las Vegas, USA Today’s college football computer rankings have the Cougars No. 1. They are ranked 17th by Associated Press and are unranked by United Press International.

A new experience: Greg Logan of Newsday, on the Dallas Cowboys’ inability to utilize running back Herschel Walker: “Maybe new Cowboy offensive coordinator David Shula has not yet grown accustomed to the idea of having Walker in the backfield after calling plays for Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins’ all-pass, no-run offense the past few years.”

Trivia answer: They have struck out at least 100 times in each of the last five seasons.

Quotebook: Commissioner David Stern of the National Basketball Assn., on bad feelings between teams that result from offer sheets: “It’s a natural state of things. Someone is trying to take a player from your team. And you don’t like that.”