Notes on a Scorecard - June 5, 1990

Every once in a while--well, really, too often--we are reminded that the most dangerous job in sports belongs to the jockey. . . .

He weighs about 115 pounds and rides 1,200-pound animals who are racing at speeds up to 50 m.p.h. on fragile legs in heavy traffic. No wonder jockeys’ fatality rate is the highest among all athletes. And many jockeys say they fear paralysis even more than death. . . .

Chris McCarron was lucky Sunday afternoon at Hollywood Park. He came out of the fourth race with only two broken legs and a broken forearm. A horse in front of him fell, he went down, and then he was trampled by a horse coming from behind. The spill could have cost him his life or most of his body functions. . . .

McCarron should be back riding well before next summer’s Hollywood Park meeting. By then, track publicist Jack Disney will have enlarged his biography in the media guide. Another couple of sentences under the “major injuries” section that is included in nearly every jockey bio. . . .

Manager Tom Lasorda’s new salary--reportedly $557,500 a year--is lower than that of 12 players on the current 25-man Dodger roster. . . .

Despite reports to the contrary, 6-foot-10 Randy (No Hit) Johnson never played intercollegiate basketball at USC. Only intramurals. However, he did write a couple of stories for the Daily Trojan sports section. And he’s still in the USC baseball record book--for most walks in a season. He walked 104 batters in 1985 when the rest of the pitching staff walked 187. . . .

The Milwaukee Brewers are lavish in their praise of new hitting coach Don Baylor. He’s actually on leave from the front office, where he was supposed to be an administrative assistant to General Manager Harry Dalton. . . .

New York trade rumor has pitcher Ron Darling going from the Mets to the Yankees for catcher Bob Geren and minor league outfielder Bernie Williams. . . .

Barry Larkin got two hits at Dodger Stadium Sunday, raising his average to .356, and then read in the paper the next morning that he was 57 points behind National League leader Lenny Dykstra. . . .

Old-timers must laugh at the quality start statistic, which rewards pitchers for completing as few as six innings. . . .

Roger Clemens is showing that 1989, when he went 17-11, was an off-year. . . .

San Francisco could get some much-needed pitching help by trading third baseman Matt Williams, but General Manager Al Rosen is saying, “No, thank you.” . . .

Nobody in the National League has a more nonchalant batting stance than Eric Davis. . . .

Is it too much to expect a million-dollar ballplayer to run hard to first base after hitting a ground ball? . . .

CBS analyst Hubie Brown on NBA finalists Detroit and Portland: “Neither team has played to its potential in the playoffs. Both have played sporadically.” . . .

Brown says the Trail Blazers match up well with the Pistons everywhere except down low against Bill Laimbeer and James Edwards. . . .

You wouldn’t think the playoff performance of such a fundamentally sound, defensive oriented team as the Pistons would vary so much depending on the site of the game. . . .

UCLA shotputter-discus thrower Tracie Millett accomplished something former Bruins Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Florence Griffith Joyner couldn’t when she won two events in the NCAA track and field meet. . . .

The next Flo Jo could be Marion Jones, the 14-year-old ninth-grader from Rio Mesa High in Oxnard who won the 100 and 200 meters in the State meet last weekend. . . .

Where do you think Penn State will finish in the 1995 Big Eleven football race? . . .

Sunday Silence’s unspectacular three-quarter-length victory over Stylish Winner in the Californian Sunday at Hollywood Park shouldn’t have scared off any potential starters in the Gold Cup June 24. . . .

Upbeat Tom Durkin, the voice of the Breeders’ Cup, will replace low-key Marshall Cassidy as track announcer at Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga in New York. . . .

Paul Gonzales, who was voted the outstanding boxer of the 1984 Olympic Games, finally gets his chance at a world professional title Sunday when he challenges International Boxing Federation bantamweight champion Orlando Canizales in El Paso on NBC. . . .

I wonder how Mel Kiper Jr. analyzed the baseball draft. . . .

Whatever happened to Robin Givens? . . .

A couple of hours before Mexico and the Soviet Union kicked off the 1970 World Cup, a fan stood outside Azteca Stadium holding up a sign that translated to “Mexico wins, or I kill myself.” The Mexicans and Soviets then played to a 0-0 tie, leaving the guy with a hell of a decision to make.