It Must Be Something About Leaves and No. 1 Teams Falling

Who would have thought Stanford had a prayer against Notre Dame Saturday?

Cardinal Coach Dennis Green.

After his team’s 36-31 upset victory, Green told Bob Burns of the Sacramento Bee that as the team’s three buses were being escorted to the stadium by a police motorcade, he got a hunch.

Said Green: “Nothing against the West Coast, but the Midwest cares about football. I could smell football in the air. When the sirens were going and we were approaching the stadium, I felt like, ‘Move over, here comes the Stanford damn Cardinal.’ I felt like we were important.”

Trivia time: Who was the youngest player to win a PGA Seniors Championship?

A banner day: The Asian Games ended Sunday, but not before a gesture of solidarity with the Kuwait national team.

Friday, Tatal Mansoor of Qatar won his country’s first gold medal at the Games in the 100 meters.

Afterward, he ran his victory lap around the stadium waving the flag of Kuwait.

Add Asian Games: Samir Said, goalkeeper of the Kuwaiti team, told Lena Sun of the Washington Post: “After the (Iraqui) invasion, it was difficult for us to know where we are going or what we are doing. . . . We have proved to all the world that we are against what is happening in Kuwait. When they raised our country’s flag in the Asian Games Village, that was the moment we were looking for. We put our flag high. That was worth more than 1,000 gold medals.”

Do as I say: Baltimore rookie third baseman Leo Gomez, called up in September, made three errors in his first 12 innings.

But Ron Kittle, the Orioles’ veteran, offered him consolation and advice. He told Gomez: “You know my what my theory is: Drive in more than you let in.”

Oscar (Gamble): In the current issue of Inside Sports, the fun-loving “Good Doctor” answers a question from “J.W.” of Covedale, Ohio. “J.W.” asks: “If Chris Berman hosted the Academy Awards, how would he introduce the presenters?”

A partial list from the “Doctor”: “Al (Cap) Pacino, Raquel (Bob) Welch, Danny (Gold) Glover, Sean (Bull) Penn, Sally (Length of the) Field, Dennis (Oil Can) Quaid, Tom (Monica) Selleck, Oliver (Hands of) Stone and Martin (Grounder to) Short.”

Call them “the Chiefs”: When it comes to leadership, no team in the National Hockey League is better equipped than the Quebec Nordiques.

Last week, they named Steven Finn captain on the road, Joe Sakic captain at home, Mike Hough alternate captain on the road, Guy Lafleur alternate captain at home, and Paul Gillis and Michel Petit the alternates for the alternates.

Good neighbor policy: They unveiled a statue of the late Art Rooney, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ founder, Sunday at Three Rivers Stadium. Some 7,000 contributors, including a number of Steeler players, gave $371,000 to fund the seven-foot statue. But not all of it was used for the Rooney memorial.

The former Steeler owner, known for his generosity and community spirit, surely would have approved of an announcement made Sunday: that some of the money would be used to clean and landscape the nearby statue of Honus Wagner, the Pirates’ charter member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Trivia answer: Don January, who won the 1979 title when he was 50 years, 26 days old.

Quotebook: Oakland Athletic shortstop Walt Weiss, on Seattle Mariner outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who is 20: “He shouldn’t have gone to high school. It took three years off his pension.”