Worried Fans Need Not Weep for Parcells

Bill Parcells walked away from a lucrative job as coach of the New York Giants and reportedly has been deluged with offers worth millions of dollars.

“The day Bill announced his retirement, we had 50 phone calls from people wanting to make deals with him,” agent Robert Fraley told the Boston Globe. “Later, the number of opportunities for him was closer to 100.

“I won’t say he has reached Orel Hershiser proportions yet,” added Fraley, who represented the Dodger pitcher after the 1988 World Series, “but it’s close.”

Add Giants: Of Ray Handley, the former Stanford running back who succeeded him, Parcells said: “Ray is going to do well. He is brilliant. He’s got like a 150 IQ or something.”

Trivia time: Who holds the NFL record for most fumbles in a career?

Fall in the Hall: When Ethel Peckham went on the disabled list because of a broken hip, officials from the Baseball Hall of Fame brought the game to her.

Peckham, 90, of San Mateo, Calif., was walking toward a picture of Babe Ruth near the entrance to the Hall of Fame last week at Cooperstown, N.Y., when she fell.

“Imagine, falling for a man who’s been dead all these years,” Peckham said of Ruth, whom she saw as a player.

Unable to make it back to the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame came to her. While hospitalized, officials gave Peckham a navy blue baseball cap and T-shirt, a Hall of Fame yearbook and a lifetime pass to the museum.

Add Peckham: “I’m going to be very proud of that pass,” she said. “I earned it.”

No way, Jose: Baseball nicknames are generally part of the past. Yankee Clipper, Iron Horse, Big Train, and Little and Big Poisons, to recall a few, are from another era.

Jose Canesco of the Oakland Athletics regrets that he doesn’t have a nickname.

“I’ve thought about it, trying to think of one that would fit me,” Canesco said. “The best I’ve come up with is ‘the Bionic Cuban.’ ”

A giving guy: Derek Smith of the Boston Celtics, commenting on Charles Barkley, his former teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers:

“He is easily one of the most generous people I know. Guys come in for 10-day contracts, and Charles gives them his cars. He invites them into his home. He’s a giver.”

Real hazards: “The Golf Hall of Shame” tells of some courses that you play at your own risk. A sampling from the book:

At the Jinga course in Uganda, Africa, a rule states: “If a ball comes to rest in the dangerous proximity of a crocodile, another ball may be dropped.”

Or while playing the Glen Canyon course in Page, Ariz., a local rule is guaranteed to keep golfers’ eyes glued to the ground: “If your ball lands within a club’s length of a rattlesnake, you’re allowed to move the ball.”

And while playing the Sudan Country Club in Sudan, Africa, golfers must yield the right of way to camel trains.

Trivia answer: Dan Fouts of the San Diego Chargers with 106, one more than Roman Gabriel of the Rams.

Quotebook: Southern Mississippi quarterback Brett Favre, a second-round draft choice of the Atlanta Falcons, on his hometown of Kiln, Miss.: “Mostly people work on cars all day, party at night and wrap it all up with a few barroom brawls.”