Showing His Support for the World Cup

Viewers of WMAQ-TV, the Chicago NBC affiliate, got a surprise Tuesday night when the graphic behind sports anchorman Mark Giangreco displayed a globe with a protective jockstrap attached.

World Cup, get it?

“We did have 15 or 20 calls saying it was in bad taste,” Giangreco said. “A few of them were hard-core soccer fans.”

Giangreco said the graphic was used only once, and a mug shot of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet, superimposed on a globe, replaced it.

Did Giangreco think the original graphic was in poor taste? “We were just having fun with it, that’s all,” he said. “I do that with any sport. I guess you have to know my style.”

Trivia time: What do San Francisco Giants’ first baseman Will Clark and New York Yankees’ second baseman Steve Sax have in common?

Hang a right at Cairo, Ill.: In case you were planning to spend your 1991 summer vacation at the College Football Hall of Fame in Kings Island, Ohio, here’s a SigAlert:

It won’t be there.

They’re moving it to the Great American Pyramid in Memphis, Tenn. Scheduled to open next June, the $200-million, 32-story complex also will house a 20,000-seat, all-purpose arena and the American Music Awards Hall of Fame, among other attractions.

Check it out. According to the latest Pyramid news release, you’ll also enjoy the Memphis Music Experience, the Egyptian Experience and a thing called the Pinnacle of the Pyramid/Inclinator Ride.

And don’t forget the Iowa Hawkeyes’ 1939 Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick.

Weight of the world: From Wallace Matthews of Newsday: “If the proposed George Foreman-Francesco Damiani fight falls apart, Foreman is prepared to take on Cameroon.”

A franchise in itself: The 1984 U.S. Olympic baseball team had 18 first-round draft choices on its 20-man roster. The 1990 update on that group is equally impressive. Thirteen are playing in the major leagues: Scott Bankhead, Will Clark, Mike Dunne, Chris Gwynn, Barry Larkin, Shane Mack, John Marzano, Oddibe McDowell, Mark McGwire, Cory Snyder, B.J. Surhoff, Bill Swift and Bobby Witt.

Revised game plan: Bill McCartney, University of Colorado football coach, has a new book, “From Ashes to Glory,” coming out in August. Recalling the Buffaloes’ rise to national recognition in 1989, McCartney discusses his battle with alcoholism, his belligerence under the influence and his religious awakening.

When a Denver alternative newspaper revealed that in April 1989, McCartney’s daughter, Kristyn, had given birth to the son of Sal Aunese, the Colorado quarterback who died of cancer shortly afterward, the coach said he was angry enough to murder the reporter.

But a stranger approached him one afternoon and handed him three 3-by-5 index cards with a verse of Scripture written on each. McCartney said he did not read the cards until after his wife showed his daughter the alternative paper’s story.

“Looking back from this point in time,” McCartney wrote, “I have very little doubt about one thing: Those three cards arrived just in time to save two lives. They saved mine from a possible death penalty or life sentence in prison. And they saved the life of the man I would surely have tried to kill.”

Trivia answer: Both attended Jesuit High School--Clark in New Orleans, Sax in Sacramento.

Quotebook: Bo Jackson, on breaking bats over his knee: “What I really want to do is tear the whole stadium up, turn it upside down, run everybody out of the stands--just because I didn’t get a hit.”