Head of State Didn’t Impress in This State

In his autobiography, “Bootlegger’s Boy,” former Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer recounts what happened shortly before President Gerald Ford flipped the coin for the 1976 Texas-Oklahoma game in Dallas.

Switzer, Ford and Longhorn Coach Darrell Royal entered from the tunnel at the Oklahoma end of the field.

Writes Switzer: “Darrell wasn’t speaking to me and I had nothing to say to him, but both of us were trying to conduct a conversation with President Ford.

“As we became visible walking toward the field, there is some old redneck drunk Okie (obviously) who stands up several rows behind us and roars in this voice you can hear all the way out to the 50-yard line on both the east and west side.

“‘Who are those two . . . with Switzer?”’

Add autobiography: Switzer continues: “I wanted to step in a hole from embarrassment. I didn’t give a damn what Darrell thought, but in front of the President of the United States, this was . . . well, to tell the truth, it was funny. The whole crowd at the south half of the bowl was screaming with laughter. As the remark was passed from mouth to ear, the whole place started laughing.”

Trivia time: On opening day of the 1990 baseball season, which college conference had the most players on major league rosters?

Double Spark: If Detroit’s Cecil Fielder hits 50 home runs this season, he will have something in common with the last player to do it.

When George Foster of Cincinnati became the 10th member of the 50-homer club in 1977, his manager was Sparky Anderson, who now manages Fielder and the Tigers.

30-day drill: Ram quarterback Jim Everett, whose photograph appears on the current cover of Gentleman’s Quarterly, could be working on a record even before the season opens.

Said GQ Editor-in-Chief Art Cooper: “Our September issues are our biggest in terms of pages and circulation.”

Cooper said that the magazine’s biggest seller was the September, 1985 issue, when the cover boy was Miami quarterback Dan Marino.

Roseanne trails by 25: Helen Hudson was presented with 26 long-stemmed roses by San Diego Padre Manager Greg Riddoch Monday night--one for each major league ballpark, after Hudson completed the circuit by singing the national anthem in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

In April, her husband came up with the idea of singing the anthem in every park. Said Hudson, a New York singer-songwriter who knew nothing about baseball when her odyssey began: “It started out as a lark and turned into a challenge.”

Add anthem circuit: Hudson battled the flu all day Monday but went to the mike fortified by a steady diet of cough drops.

It wasn’t her closest call, though. After arriving at Shea Stadium in New York wearing culottes, she was told to find a dress to wear or management would play a tape of the anthem.

Said Hudson: “It was just before the game and I ran out to the turnstiles and started asking women who were about my size if I could borrow a dress. A gal ran into the bathroom, pulled off her dress, gave it to me, and I gave her my culottes.”

Trivia answer: The Pacific 10, with 40.

Quotebook: Toronto outfielder John Olerud, on becoming the 1,079th player to be struck out by Nolan Ryan: “I was told you’re nobody until it happens to you, but I still didn’t enjoy it.”