With Leyland, It’s a Whole New Bawlgame

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Bruce Keidan wrote that he admired Pittsburgh Manager Jim Leyland’s tendency to weep openly, as he did when Pirate pitcher Doug Drabek threw a one-hitter, when the team clinched the National League East title and, most recently, when the Pirates let free agent Sid Bream sign with Atlanta.

Commenting on Leyland’s remark that he cries at the movies, Keidan wrote: “You blink back a tear or two in the last reel of ‘Terms of Endearment,’ that’s one thing. But it takes Leyland two packs of Kleenex to make it through ‘Caddyshack.’ ”

Trivia time: Who was the last golfer to win 10 or more PGA tournaments in one year?

Be careful out there: A National Hockey League official (whose name was withheld) recently talked with Al Strachan of the Toronto Globe and Mail about a side effect of raising the glass surrounding the ice, intended to keep the puck in play and the game moving:

” . . . here you are, coming in after getting out of a pileup at the blue line and somebody like (Calgary defenseman) Al MacInnis smashes the puck around the glass.

“You’re trying to catch sight of it because you know it’s coming hard and you know it takes strange bounces off that glass.

“It whizzes past your eye so that you can feel the breeze and now you’ve got to go the other way to catch up and some player comes over and says, ‘Didn’t you see me getting pushed in the crease?’ ”

Add NHL officials: Strachan closed his commentary:

“While players’ salaries have undergone huge increases in the past two years, officials are bound by a five-year contract that came into effect in 1988. Linesmen start at $30,000 and referees at $45,000. Maximum regular-season pay is $60,000 and $85,000, respectively.

“In a league that demands so much and where no player earns less than $100,000, that’s nowhere near enough.”

Who?: John Daniels, a spokesman for “Who’s Who in America,” recently was asked to explain why 1990 American and National League batting champions George Brett and Willie McGee are no longer in the book.

Said Daniels: “They weren’t making many All-Star teams anymore, so we let them go.”

Add Brett: Pro beach volleyball player Steve O’Bradovich recently recalled that during the 1989 baseball season, while the Kansas City Royals and the volleyball tour were in Seattle, Brett and Royal pitcher Bret Saberhagen joined O’Bradovich and Olympic volleyball star Steve Timmons at a bar.

Said O’Bradovich: “People kept coming up to Timmons and asking him for his autograph. Finally, one guy looked at George and Bret and said, ‘Hey, are you guys volleyball players too?’

“George couldn’t believe it. He said it was like sitting next to Muhammad Ali.”

Trivia answer: Sam Snead, who won 11 tournaments in 1950.

Quotebook: New York Giant quarterback Phil Simms, when asked about his sprained right foot: “It hurts.”