Upon Further Review, It Was Probably a Typical February

February is behind us, but Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse punctuated sport’s cruelest month with a listing of capsule movie reviews, among them:

“ ‘The Silence of the Wolves’: Tony Campbell finally realizes the market for him is about as hot as Eastern Airlines stock, so he shuts up and returns to concentrating on scoring points for the (Minnesota) Timberwolves, the team that advanced his career beyond the nobody stage. . . . “

“ ‘Dances With the Lambs’: An inside look at the 1990-91 UNLV basketball team, as it takes the sacrificial lambs on its schedule to the slaughterhouse. E.T. returns to the screen in the role of sad-eyed, towel-chewing Coach Jerry Tarkanian.

“ ‘Robot Jox’: Indiana basketball players from the past two decades talk about all the fun they have had playing for the Hoosiers.”

Trivia time: Who was the first U.S. player taken first overall in a National Hockey League draft?

Now we know: Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia Inquirer recently marveled at the condition of Wilt Chamberlain, 54, in a story about the former NBA center’s receiving the Living Legend Award from the Philadelphia Sports Writers Assn.

But Stark left it to no less an authority than 76er forward Charles Barkley to make the ultimate assessment.

Said Barkley: “I want (Wilt) now. We don’t have a center, you know.”

Yankee killer: An item in Sunday’s Morning Briefing about pitcher Jim Palmer’s youth served as a memory jogger for reader Howard Cole, a former player and coach in the Beverly Hills American Little League.

Cole writes: “I was forever seeing Palmer’s name in the (Little League) record books, always wondering when it might be erased. . . . Palmer’s record of 121 strikeouts in one season lasted for 15 years and was broken in a season which included a longer schedule.”

For the record, Palmer’s team was the Yankees.

The Pirate of Parlance: Spring training is officially under way. You can tell, because the Andy Van Slyke quote-o-meter is already registering off the scale.

When he arrived in Bradenton, Fla., last week, the Pirates’ gold glove center fielder was asked the customary what-did-you-do-all-winter question.

Said Van Slyke: “Watched CBS-TV.”

Huh?

Said Van Slyke: “Yeah, I felt sorry for them losing $95 million on baseball.”

Add Van Slyke: He suggested that Rickey Henderson and any other player who wants to renegotiate his contract read Matthew 20: 1-15.

That would be the parable of the vineyard owner who hires workers early in the day, agreeing to pay each of them a silver coin. As the day wears on, the owner hires other workers, and when the day is over he tells his foreman to pay all the workers a silver coin each. The early employees complain. The owner says he pays his workers as he sees fit.

Said Van Slyke: “It’s perfect.”

Trivia answer: Brian Lawton, by the Minnesota North Stars in 1983.

Quotebook: Chicago defenseman Chris Chelios, traded to the Blackhawks by Montreal last summer: “Playing for the Canadiens is like getting a Harvard degree. The players respect you more.”