This Balloon Party Wasn’t a Hot Idea

It wasn’t Ted Simonson’s party, but he wanted to cry last week after a dancer wearing balloons, a bikini and high heels sang “Happy Birthday” to a Los Gatos High School football player at the team’s weeklong training camp.

Said Simonson, the school’s principal: “Something like this should never occur. It was not the intent of anyone involved. It was a mistake by a mother who thought she was going to provide some light entertainment.”

The mother, whom school officials would not identify, reportedly thought the dancer would deliver balloons and sing while wearing a one-piece swimsuit.

The audience included 64 team members, along with coaches and about 30 parents. According to UPI, as the dancer sang and danced, “some of the football players began popping her strategically placed balloons, and at least one student stuffed paper money in the top of her bikini.”

Add “Happy Birthday”: The Los Gatos Weekly Times published a photo of the woman performing in front of the team.

Said Barbara Fishman, whose daughter attends Los Gatos High: “I was very, very unhappy to see that these attitudes toward women were being condoned by the high school program.”

Said Tod Likins, superintendent of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District: “Very understandably, people are outraged.”

Coach Butch Cattolico offered to resign after the incident, but Likins said officials felt he was not to blame.

Trivia time: Which member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame preceded Babe Ruth in right field for the New York Yankees?

Lightheaded humor: Last Wednesday, amid the Oakland Athletics’ trading coup, Manager Tony La Russa called reserve catcher Jamie Quirk into his office.

“Am I released, Skip?” Quirk asked.

“No,” La Russa said. “We made a trade for a guy who’s worn No. 3 all his life. Will you give up your number?”

“Yeah, great,” Quirk said. “Who did we get, Babe Ruth?”

Add A’s trades: Quirk let Harold Baines have No. 3 and took No. 6.

“I’m just glad I have a number,” he said.

Last add A’s trades: Thursday, while the Chicago White Sox were visiting Minnesota, one player walked into the visitors’ clubhouse at the Metrodome and asked aloud: “Did Oakland get anybody else last night--(Frank) Viola or anybody like that?”

Bionic namesake, anyway: Austin Park, a 5-foot-8, 155-pound senior walk-on placekicker and wide receiver at USC, emigrated with his family six years ago from South Korea to Glendale.

He got his first exposure to American sport and culture on a U.S. military television channel in Seoul.

Park became a U.S. citizen last year and officially changed his name from Tang-Chi to Austin.

How did he choose his new name? Said Park: “You know that ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ Steve Austin? I watched that show and was really into it. ‘Austin’ sounded pretty cool so I just picked that one.”

Clearly an imposter: An advertisement for the Forum’s Sept. 15 tennis match is going around town on RTD busses, no doubt creating mass transit confusion.

A photo of Andres Gomez appears on the right. The picture on the left shows a clean-shaven, 16-year-old schoolboy with a sweet, innocent smile.

There must be a mistake here. The headline reads “Agassi vs. Gomez.”

The Suitcase Spartans: This year’s Goofy Schedule Award in Division 1-A college football goes to San Jose State, which opened its season Saturday by tying Louisville, 10-10.

The Spartans now go on the road for five weeks. Granted, they’re at Stanford and California for the fourth and fifth of those, but they don’t return to Spartan Stadium until Oct. 13.

Then it’s two at home, two on the road and back home for the finale with Fresno State.

Trivia answer: George Halas.

Quotebook: University of Maryland center Mitch Suplee, when told that kicker Dan DeArmas complained of boredom during practice: “I’m going to send my first-born son to Uncle Dan’s house and let Dan raise him, so he can be a kicker and do things the right way and have an easy life.”