They’re Lining Up and Taking Shots to Bring Down the Rocket

Raghib (Rocket) Ismail has yet to play a down for the Toronto Argonauts because of a leg-muscle injury, but his $23-million contract is beginning to cause a bit of grousing around the Canadian Football League.

“I might say something derogatory about him, but if I did he might buy the team and fire me,” one teammate said, pleading anonymity.

Ottawa Roughrider defensive end Gregg Stumon, who hoped to face the former Notre Dame star in the opening CFL game, was not so reticent about talking.

“(The CFL) should be first among his priorities, and it doesn’t seem he’s taking it that way,” Stumon told the Toronto Sun. “Our defense was geared up to be the first to introduce him to the game of CFL football. Everybody feels this guy is overrated. Every defense across this country wants to get the guy. We want him to know this is no rinky-dink league.”

One the Festival missed: When Carl Braun of Fredericksburg, Va., won Scottish athlete-of-the-games honors in the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, he won five events: tossing the clachneart (a 16-pound stone like a shot), the 22-pound hammer throw, the 28-pound weight throw for distance, the 56-pound weight throw for distance and tossing the sheaf (a 16-pound sack of hay tossed with a pitchfork).

Trivia time: From 1949 to 1958, the New York Yankees won nine American League pennants. The only year they failed was 1954. What was so unusual about that year?

Who’s the boss? Jean-Marie Balestre is president of FIA, international motor racing’s ruling body, and FFSA, France’s racing authority.

At the recent French Grand Prix, Balestre became infuriated when the medical staff and marshals at the race delayed practice when they went on a brief strike. As FIA president, he levied a fine of $20,000 on his own FFSA. The strike was caused when security officials would not allow a deliveryman in who was bringing food for the medics and marshals--and they struck for lunch.

The confusion occurred because Balestre’s two organizations issued conflicting sets of credentials.

Change of scenery: Last year at this time Lisa Olson was preparing to cover the New England Patriots for the Boston Herald.

Today, the writer who said she was sexually harassed by several Patriot players in the team’s locker room, is working in the sports department of Sydney’s Telegraph Mirror. The Telegraph Mirror is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Boston Herald.

“I just want to go back to being a reporter,” Olson said.

Spaced out: Bill Lee, the former major league pitcher, has been known as the Spaceman ever since he showed up to play at USC. Always a clubhouse comedian, Lee has been performing as a stand-up comedian on the “Just for Laughs” show in Montreal. When he was asked whether it represented a new career, he said:

“Heck no. I’ve been doing this all my life. This is foundational for me. I list my job these days as answering the telephone. When the “Just for Laughs” people called, I was building a floor on my country home in Craftsbury, Vt., so now I can pay for the floor. That’s why this job is foundational!”

No DH for Babe: Steve Jacobson of Newsday may have come up with the best argument for getting rid of the designated hitter rule. He points out that if there had been a DH when Babe Ruth started out, “How could they have found out he could hit if pitchers never batted?”

Trivia answer: It was the only year during that stretch the Yankees won more than 100 games. Cleveland won 111.

Quotebook: Former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, on the secret of his success: “Fear was absolutely necessary. Without it, I would have been scared to death.”