Gift Ideas for Our Time--Be It 1968 or 1991

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

O.K., St. Nick, you red-nosed old fraud, here’s what you do for the world of sports if you’re making a list and checking it twice:

--Give Magic Johnson the ball and an an open shot at the top of the key with the buzzer going off and the championship on the line against the Celtics.

--Give Bo Jackson the ball and a step on the outside linebacker in the Super Bowl.

--Give Joe Montana the ball on his own 10-yard line with a minute to go and a “prevent” defense to work against for a winning score.

--Give Mike Tyson an opponent, preferably one that hits back.

--Give George Foreman a stomach pump.

--Give Evander Holyfield a lily if he fights Tyson.

--Give Will Clark a 3-2 count with the bases loaded and the infield in and the pitcher thinking he won’t be looking for the fastball.

--Give Darryl Strawberry a whole season of hanging curves and a shot at Roger Maris’ record on nights when the ball carries in Dodger Stadium.

--Give Roger Clemens a copy of the life and times of Walter Johnson, who never cursed any umpires or needed their help to strike guys out.

--Give Orel Hershiser the same kind of comeback after an operation that Tommy John had, then give him Jose Canseco guessing curve with two out in the ninth of Game 7.

--Give Jack Nicklaus one more par-five he can reach with a drive and a one-iron and an Open field collapsing all around him.

--Give Dan Dierdorf a whistle and a striped shirt if he’s going to referee football games from the ABC booth. If we wanted an official on the mike, we’d hire Jim Tunney.

--Give Pete Rose his place on the Hall of Fame ballot and recognition as one of the few white-collar criminals who did the time--and let the sanctimonious hypocrites who blackball him have their next five tax returns audited by the same team that went over Pete’s.

--Give Greg Norman a major where he’s standing on the green with a makeable tap-in for a birdie and the guy out on the fairway doesn’t knock a four-iron over his head and into the cup for a deuce and the tournament.

--Give us assurance Andre Agassi will never, as he promises, play Wimbledon, and see if you can get him to extend it to the rest of tennis.

--Give track and field a handle on what to do about the steroid problem before it destroys the credibility--and the audience--of the sport.

--Give the NFL a solution as to what to do about quarterbacks who are falling like swatted flies and may provide us the first Super Bowl ever started by two backups, leading the press to call it the Subber Bowl.

--Give us coaches who don’t teach that the way to win the game is to maim the quarterback.

--Give Steffi Graf back her forehand down the line so we won’t have Wimbledon quarterfinals that look like a noon bust-out in a nursery school.

--Give Sugar Ray Leonard a lesson in humility or a reminder he’s lucky he wasn’t around when the original Sugar Ray was or he’d be as humble as the butler.

--Give Lou Holtz a hat that fits.

--Give golf another Palmer, baseball another Musial, boxing another Louis and tennis anything but another McEnroe.

--Give everybody out there a very merry holiday season and a very happy 1968. It is 1968, isn’t it?