You Make the Call, and Pay the Bill

The Michigan State athletic department has given new meaning to the term “Spartan existence.”

Until now it meant simple, frugal living.

Now you need a telephone and $36.

Beginning Sept. 15, fans will be able to dial an 900 number and listen to the rebroadcast of a Spartan football, basketball or hockey game.

Football Coach George Perles said the aim is to raise money for non-revenue-producing sports.

Said MSU sports information director Ken Hoffman: “We envision this being a situation where a lot of alumni associations and individual fans across the country get together at a home or an office, call the 900 number and listen to the game, with everyone possibly contributing to the cost.”

Add Michigan State: No word yet from ABC, CBS, or ESPN as to whether they will warn viewers before announcing results: “If you’re planning to call Michigan State’s 900 number and listen to the rebroadcast. . . . “

Trivia time: In baseball, what is the significance of the number 01832061?

Misfortune teller: Oakland Athletics’ outfielder Dave Henderson sat with teammate Carney Lansford in the dugout at Comiskey Park before Monday night’s game against the Chicago White Sox.

They talked about the rain-soaked field. Lansford recalled: “He said an outfielder was going to get hurt out there.”

In the first inning, Henderson attempted a sliding catch and sprained his knee. Pending test results, he has been placed on the 15-day disabled list.

Mammoth moral victory: Veteran Southland tennis player Hal Zajic, beaten soundly in last week’s Mammoth Open by 16-year-old Allen Grant of Riverside, said afterward: “I knew I couldn’t beat him. I just wanted to get him to take his sweat pants off.”

Go to the stick: Opening of the Kings’ training camp is two weeks away, but defenseman Marty McSorley is at it already, going after Winnipeg forward Iain Duncan and even teammate Rob Blake.

Driving Gatepost Stormy, a 7-year-old gelding, McSorley came from behind to beat both of the other NHL players in a celebrity race at Raceway Park in Toledo, Ohio.

Earlier, Gatepost Stormy misbehaved, but McSorley, who received 322 penalty minutes in the 1989-90 season, knew what to do. “I took my horse aside when we were in the paddock,” he said, “and had to explain to him who was boss.”

Call him Atlas: Times of London columnist Harry Mullan, in a recent story on middleweight Iran Barkley, wrote:

“He owes his eccentric first name to his parents’ desire to call him after a country. Iran happened to be in the news in the week of his birth. Iran should be eternally grateful that the headlines were not hogged by Bophuthatswana.”

Add Times of London: The newspaper’s copy editors missed a beat as Mullan commented on a remark by WBO champion Nigel Benn, shortly before his first-round TKO of Barkley:

“ ‘Sure, I’d rather he didn’t fight again, with a bad eye,’ he said. ‘But what else can Iran do? He’s a fighter, and he needs the money.’ As a piece of handwashing, it hasn’t been bettered since Pontius Pilot.”

Trivia answer: Pete Rose wears the number at Marion, Ill., Federal Prison.

Quotebook: Philadelphia Phillie outfielder Von Hayes, explaining that he had no desire to renegotiate his $10.7-million, five-year contract despite his teammates’ rising salaries: “The way I look at it, I’m set for life unless gasoline goes to $15 a gallon. And if that happens, we’re all in trouble.”