When It Came to Quotes, Harold Ballard Made His Mark

Harold Ballard, the cantankerous owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs who died Wednesday, was always good for a quote. Here are a few compiled by USA Today:

--On business: “I’ll propose anything where I can make a buck.”

--On a proposed NHL franchise in Saskatchewan: “Who the hell wants to go there. I don’t want to be taking dogsleds to get around.”

--On tax-evasion charges: “If you got a chance to screw the government out of a few bucks, you’d do it, too.”

--On NHL President John Ziegler: “A know-nothing shrimp.”

Trivia time: What daughter of an Olympic sprinter is the nation’s leading high school sprinter? Hint: She also was a Tournament of Roses princess. (Answer below.)

Take your choice: From Monte Poole of the Oakland Tribune, speculating on who will succeed Brent Musburger as the No. 1 voice at CBS Sports:

“Jim Nantz? CBS Sports President Neal Pilson evidently likes Nantz, who is a nice man though a bit simple.

“Greg Gumbel? He takes himself half as seriously as his driven brother, Bryant, but is about half as talented.”

No give: General Manager Andy MacPhail of the Minnesota Twins, on the physical condition of outfielder Kirby Puckett: “I patted him on the shoulder and it was like hitting a fire hydrant.”

Beware: Jack Haley of the New Jersey Nets, on the Boston Celtics: “I’ll tell you this much, they are back. (People) who doubt that and call them old men are a bunch of fools. They can run with the young guys any day.”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: Track & Field News reports that when Bulgaria’a Stefka Kostadinova, world record-holder in the women’s high jump, married her coach, Nikolai Petrov, the train on her wedding gown measured 2.09 meters. That’s 6 feet 10 1/4 inches, her world-record height.

Lucky she isn’t a long jumper.

Add track: In December, a London bookie offered 3-1 odds that Sebastian Coe would win the 1,500 meters in the Commonwealth Games, 7-1 that he will be a government minister before the end of the century and 66-1 that he will be prime minister of Britain by 2010.

Coe bombed out in the Commonwealth Games. Of politics, he says: “That’s a long way down the road. It’s very fanciful, very hypothetical.”

More track: Morocco’s Said Aouita, world record-holder in the 1,500 meters, had this to say about No. 1-ranked Abdi Bile of Somalia: “I can beat Abdi Bile any time I want. He’s a chocolate-box champion. He’s a sprinter, that’s all.”

Trivia answer: Inger Miller of Muir High. Her father, Lennox Miller of USC and Jamaica, was the Olympic 100-meter silver medalist in 1968. He’s now a dentist in Pasadena.

Quotebook: Manager Whitey Herzog of the St. Louis Cardinals, maintaining that spring training is too long: “You know why it’s so long? Because a lot of general managers like to play golf. I’m not kidding.”