He Couldn’t Always Play It, but He Could Talk Good Game

Bob Uecker, who was a catcher in the major leagues, said he tried his hand at pitching in high school and recalled a game in which he ran into trouble, bringing his coach to the mound.

Uecker: “I didn’t want to come out of there. I said, ‘Why don’t you let me pitch to one more guy. I struck him out the last time.’

“The coach said, ‘I know, but it’s the same inning.’ ”

Lethal weapon: Legend has it that Warrior center Manute Bol killed a lion with a spear in his native Sudan, but Peter Vecsey of the New York Post, after watching Bol in action, wrote, “Now, I’m certain he killed that lion with a free throw.”

No sympathy: Manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Stan Williams of the Cincinnati Reds were talking about the old days, and Williams said, “There are utility players sitting on the bench today who make more money in one year than I have in my 35-year career--including coaching, World Series shares, everything.”

Piniella thought about it, looked at Williams and said, “And you were still overpaid.”

Trivia time: What do Lou Holtz and John Johnson, manager of Buster Douglas, have in common?

No problem: Chi Chi Rodriguez, playing in a pro-am with a couple of automobile dealers, noticed that they were nervous, so he said, “Relax, guys, I’m not going to steal your hubcaps.”

Word of warning: From NBC’s Al McGuire, on the Olympic Games: “Doesn’t anybody realize how complicated this adding the pros can become? With Magic, Bird and Michael Jordan, we could start World War III just over the shoes.”

Add McGuire: Of his old friend Rick Majerus, the corpulent University of Utah coach who underwent heart surgery in December, he said: “Rick told me he had lost 35 pounds. For Rick, that’s like losing an earlobe.”

Add Majerus: Of his own eating habits, he said, “I’m a cured man. I’m never going to that Choo-Choo Train and eat a bucket of ribs again.”

Where they are now: Keith Smart, the Indiana guard whose last-second shot beat Syracuse in the 1987 NCAA basketball final, is playing in the Philippines after striking out with the Warriors and kicking around the Continental Basketball Assn.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: The team that held the NCAA tournament scoring record before Loyola Marymount broke it Sunday was later found guilty of game-fixing.

St. Joseph’s, which beat Utah, 127-120, in four overtimes in 1960-61, was stripped of its third-place finish by the NCAA after three players admitted to point-shaving.

The coach was Jack Ramsay, later an NBA coach, and the squad included Paul Westhead, Loyola coach, and Jim Lynam, the Philadelphia 76er coach. None of them were implicated.

Happy postscript: The three point-shavers--Jack Egan, Vince Kempton and Frank Majewski--all returned to school and got their degrees.

Trivia answer: Both were assistant coaches with Woody Hayes at Ohio State.

Quotebook: Former Bruin Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on former Kansas Jayhawk Wilt Chamberlain: “Something I should point out to Wilt is Kansas still hasn’t beaten UCLA.”