A Nation Still Turning Its Eyes to Him

Forty years after he quit playing, interest in Joe DiMaggio is unflagging. There was yet another revival of the Yankee Clipper, 76, during the 50th anniversary of DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941, opening up the achievements of the graceful Hall of Fame player to yet another generation of baseball fans.

DiMaggio told Phil Elderkin that he had two serious offers to manage in the big leagues, in addition to several others that amounted to no more than spurned feelers. As for the legitimate offers, Elderkin suspects that one was from Charlie Finley of the Oakland Athletics, who may have tried to pry DiMaggio out of the house across the Bay in the Marina District of San Francisco.

But the best Finley could ever do was get DiMaggio to coach for the A’s briefly. Besides, DiMaggio said he knew he wasn’t cut out to manage anyway.

“I don’t want to say who made those offers because too much time has gone by and besides, I could never have been a manager because I would have worried too much,” DiMaggio said.

“I was like that. When you manage, too much of what happens depends on other people and I didn’t want that.”

Pete’s punishment: According to Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News, Pete Rose’s suspension from baseball includes at least one little-known ban. “He cannot patronize a Chinese restaurant that allows you to ‘pick six,’ ” Hochman wrote.

Trivia time: How many NFL rushing leaders have played for Super Bowl champions?

Mr. Humility: French Open tennis champion Jim Courier, who quit playing baseball when he was 11, sometimes wishes he had stuck to swinging a bat instead of a racket. Why? For the love of the game? Of course not.

“I could be making $3 million a year--guaranteed--if I was just batting .280 in the major leagues,” Courier told Tennis Magazine. “Sometimes I think the choice (of tennis) was pretty stupid.”

Rope trick: How to get to the Big Leagues, by Travis Fryman of the Detroit Tigers. Fryman, who grew up in Pensacola, Fla., signed a contract in 1987 and was in the major leagues three years later, said he didn’t live around a lot of other kids.

“My situation was more rural,” Fryman said. “My dad got this old rope. He tied a big knot on the bottom of the rope and strung it up on the limb of a tree. I’d hit that knot with a bat. It would swing away and when it swung back, I’d hit it again. That’s how I got used to hitting a moving target. It was great.”

Fryman hit his 11th home run Sunday, but he is currently batting .232 without the benefit of a knot on a rope.

Sure thing: A college football team coached by a guy named Hayden will win 10 of its 11 games this season and go to a bowl game.

It could happen for Coach Hayden Fry and the Iowa Hawkeyes. But it definitely will happen for Hayden Fox and the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles. At least, that’s what actor Craig T. Nelson, who portrays Fox in the weekly television show, “Coach,” has planned. Fry will appear in the show, but don’t expect him to have a big part.

“We won’t give him lines. You know coaches can’t read and write,” Nelson joked.

On the level: First-year New England Patriot Coach Dick MacPherson said he has no idea how many wins or losses to expect after last season’s 1-15 team: “I don’t believe in the word ‘parity.’ To me, there are levels. There’s the upper, middle and lower, and it’s pretty evident where people would place us.”

Trivia answer: None.

Quotebook: From dieting golfer Roger Maltbie: “My idea of a diet is, if it tastes good, spit it out.”