This Might Be the Ultimate in Cheap Shots

Here’s a real-life quiz that may or may not appear on “You Make the Call” during the upcoming NFL season:

Chicago Bear defensive tackle Steve McMichael, trying to renegotiate his contract for 1990, tells Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dan Pompei that Virginia McCaskey, daughter of Bear founder George Halas and wife of chairman of the board Ed McCaskey, was present at his contract talks in 1989.

Says McMichael: “They even had the old lady come up and cry on my shoulder about how they didn’t have any money,” the Sun-Times reported.

So, will this improve his 1990 negotiating position?

Trivia time: What was the last National League team to have three players with at least 100 runs batted in?

Power to all fields: Going into Seattle’s game against the Twins in Minnesota Tuesday night, Mariner shortstop Omar Vizquel had two home runs in 430 major league at-bats.

Vizquel, a switch-hitter, got his first home run last season. He did it right-handed, and it bounced off the left-field foul pole.

Early this month, he hit his second home run, left-handed. It bounced off the right-field foul pole.

Tuesday night, he hit No. 3, right-handed, 371 feet to left center.

Those French: In its Monday edition, the Paris newspaper Le Figaro ran a story headlined, “LeMond, hero of the New World.”

It quoted USA Today’s lead: “ ‘An American in Paris’ is a 1951 movie musical starring Gene Kelly. ‘An American Owns Paris’ could be a 1990 blockbuster starring Greg LeMond.”

Le Figaro: “What chauvinists, these Americans!”

Those French (encore): The French paper closed with an excerpt from a story by Times Paris bureau chief Rone Tempest:

“ ‘(The Tour de France is) a cultural icon that defines France, both geographically and spiritually, in a way that few other events can. . . . The race is a mystical reassertion of French identity.’ ”

Le Figaro: “Thank you, America, for telling France that it still exists.”

Where are they now?: It seems like only yesterday, but three years ago today, the Salt Lake Trappers of the Pioneer League had their record 29-game winning streak snapped by a 7-5 loss to Billings.

Hostile confines: With his $23.5-million contract taken care of, you’d think Jose Canseco’s wish list would be empty.

But the Oakland A’s slugger recently complained to the San Francisco Examiner that the fences at the Oakland Coliseum are too deep. He said the dimensions--330 feet down the lines, 375 to the gaps and 400 in straightaway center--cost the A’s 10 to 15 games a year.

Said Canseco: “If you have a team with power, you should have shorter fences. This place is a dungeon.”

American League team home run totals through Wednesday’s games show the A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays tied for the lead with 117 each.

Trivia answer: The Atlanta Braves (Hank Aaron 118, Orlando Cepeda 111 and Rico Carty 101) and Chicago Cubs (Billy Williams 129, Jim Hickman 115 and Ron Santo 114), both in 1970.

Quotebook: Owner George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees, when asked about his last-place team: “The (Cleveland) Indians haven’t been to the World Series since 1954 and haven’t won one since 1948. Nobody says anything about them.”