These Two Scholarly Debaters Had Minor League Vocabulary

There were times during the baseball talks when things got a bit testy, but nothing like 10 years ago when pitcher Mike Marshall represented the players and labor negotiator Ray Grebey the owners.

Reported Larry Guest of the Orlando Sentinel: “When Grebey made what Marshall considered a ludicrous point, the pitcher with the Ph.D. reached into his advanced educational background and shouted across the table, ‘Bullbleep!’

“Momentarily taken aback, Grebey regrouped, summoned his years of experience in rational labor debate and returned serve. ‘Bullbleep!’ he shouted.

“ ‘Bullbleep,’ Marshall echoed.

“Before this warm dialogue ended--when Grebey stalked angrily out of the room--he and Marshall reportedly had fired off six consecutive bullbleeps, believed to be a major league record.”

Ouch: From Terry Boers of the Chicago Sun-Times: “It doesn’t bother me that Japanese interests bought baseball’s Birmingham Barons. Hell, I would have sold them Birmingham, a city where a coat of grime just comes with the territory.”

Trivia time: John Smith, assistant track coach at UCLA, holds a world record that may never be broken. What is it?

Add Smith: During Saturday’s UCLA-USC meet at the Coliseum, he will run in a legends relay race featuring former Bruin and Trojan runners. The Trojans will be led by Don Quarrie, former Olympic 200-meter champion.

Said former miler Sid Wing, captain of the Trojans: “If experience counts for anything, we’re a cinch. We’ve got Payton Jordan.”

Jordan, former USC captain and coach at Occidental and Stanford, is 73.

Big stakes: Before a roast of Mike Ditka in Las Vegas, he played golf with Paul Hornung, who said, “We bet more money than I did when I got suspended in 1963.”

Note: In 1963, with Hornung out, the Green Bay Packers were overthrown as NFL champions by the Chicago Bears, who had Ditka at tight end.

Add 1963: Also suspended that year for gambling was Alex Karras of the Detroit Lions. Said Karras the next year when an official asked him to call a coin at midfield before a game: “I can’t do that, sir. I’m not allowed to gamble.”

Add Karras: Of his golf game, he said, “My best score is 103, but I’ve only been playing 15 years.”

Trivia answer: The record of 44.5 seconds for the 440-yard dash, an event that was discontinued when track and field went to the metric system.

Quotebook: Frank Layden, former coach of the Utah Jazz, on HBO’s “The History of the NBA,” recalling his encounter with Morganna the kissing bandit: “When I saw her coming, I hollered for the police. I thought someone stole the ball bag.”