Rose’s Daily Routine Has a Handicap

What is Pete Rose up to these days? Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Post writes:

“Most days, this is Pete Rose’s life: He leaves home in a golf cart at 8:45 a.m., and drives son Tyler the 10 minutes to a preschool in the Plant City, Fla., development where the Roses are spending the winter.

“From there, Rose putters over to the driving range, where he hits golf balls until 11:30. He has lunch, he plays 18 holes, he goes home.

“He could be Ward Cleaver, he could be an extra in the next ‘Cocoon’ sequel. He could be just about anybody, but the problem gambler he now freely admits to being. Which, of course, is precisely the point.

“ ‘The only time I think about gambling is when I talk to my doctor,’ Rose says. Quite an improvement for a guy who used to bust up his TVs making tackles during ‘Monday Night Football.’ ”

Trivia time: Lanny and Bobby Wadkins are the top money winners among brothers on the PGA Tour with $5,547,625. Which brothers are second?

Glasnost watch: Soviet wrestler Sergei Beloglazov has taken a coaching job at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Soviet musher Afanassi Mavkonev became the first Soviet sled dog racer to complete a race in the United States, finishing 13th in the 500-mile Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon event at Duluth, Minn.

Somewhat warmer relations were established when 10 Soviet teen-agers began a tour of the United States that will include two weeks at the PGA School in South Florida.

Add glasnost: New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, on the collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc: “They’re running away from communism toward our way of life because of television and basketball. You play basketball in this country for a month, you go back, you’re never going to be happy waiting in line for a potato.”

The loser cleans: Champion bass fisherman Rick Clunn went fishing with President and Mrs. Bush in Alabama New Year’s Day. Barbara Bush caught 11 bass; the President, 10. Clunn said of the President: “I expected him to sit back and relax, but his intensity increased all day. I don’t know if it had anything to do with Barbara Bush catching so many fish or not.”

Remembering when: Rookie Glen Rice, on playing for the woeful Miami Heat after being on Michigan’s NCAA championship team: “I think you really have to fight to keep your confidence up with all this.”

Trivia answer: Curtis and Allan Strange, with $5,023,174. Allan Strange has won $7,454.

Quotebook: Ken Behring, owner of the Seattle Seahawks, asked by a television reporter about life’s purpose: “You score the game by the money you make.”