Even in the Heat, Dad Showed He’s a Dyed-in-the-Wool Fan

When 47-year-old Ferguson Arthur Jenkins was being inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, his father, Ferguson Holmes Jenkins, 84, sat in a wheelchair wearing a wool tuxedo. Now, why in the world was he wearing a tuxedo made of wool in the sweltering heat?

“When Fergie called me in January to tell me he had been elected, he told me I would have to rent a tuxedo,” the elder Jenkins said. “I had a tuxedo before he was born. ‘You weren’t even hatched,’ I told him.”

Jenkins’ father bought the tuxedo to attend a wedding nearly 50 years ago and never wore it again until the induction ceremony last weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Add Fergie: The elder Jenkins, a former cook, told Joe Donnelly of Newsday that he knows the tuxedo was a good investment.

“Four hometown boys in Chatham (in the Canadian province of Ontario) have worn it; two of them got married in it. It’s got a go-to-hell collar. And not a thing wrong with it. Better than all those modern ones.”

Trivia time: Pat Riley is the sixth head coach of the New York Knicks since 1986-87. Who were the other five?

Crafty Carl: Asked about his chances of breaking Bob Beamon’s legendary long jump world record of 29 feet 2 1/2 inches, set in the high altitude of Mexico City during the 1968 Olympic Games, Carl Lewis offered this: “Altitude doesn’t set world records. Jumping far sets world records.”

It’s in the card: The value of the 1952 Mickey Mantle card made by Topps, considered the most coveted of the so-called modern baseball cards, is nearly out of the park. This week, Florida card dealer Rick Kohl sold a 1952 Mantle for $58,000, breaking the previous high for a 1952 Mantle of $50,000, set earlier this summer at an auction by Sotheby’s in New York.

Kohl sees the Mantle card hitting $100,000 in a year. Better pick up a couple on your way home.

Good-guy award: Catcher Jeff Banister, 26, once ignored his doctor’s advice to have a leg amputated. He told his dad he would rather die than not be able to play baseball.

Banister then underwent 12 operations for cancer, bad knees and a back injury that threatened to paralyze him. All along, he refused to quit and kept on playing baseball.

This week, Banister’s perseverance was rewarded. The Pittsburgh Pirates bought the contract of their 26th-round draft choice in 1986 from their triple-A Buffalo team. Said Banister: “It’s like it’s not even real. . . . I’ve had an intense desire to play baseball every day of my life. This game is very special to me, and I respect it in every way.”

Medic!: When Manager Lou Piniella of the struggling Cincinnati Reds learned that Pirate counterpart Jim Leyland was briefly hospitalized, he said: “If he had chest pains, I should have been in a coma.”

Trivia answer: Hubie Brown, Bob Hill, Rick Pitino, Stu Jackson and John MacLeod.

Billy and the Babe: Billy Martin’s grave is near that of Babe Ruth in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, N.Y. According to Tim Sullivan of the Gannett News Service, cemetery supervisor Bill Lane said a note was left on Ruth’s grave the day Martin was buried: “It said, ‘Take care of the kid. Show him around.’ ”

Quotebook: From Ailene Voisin of the Atlanta Constitution, about the often-used excuse offered by former NBA player World B. Free, now playing in the United States Basketball League, so he could avoid practices: “His grandmother died. . . . At last count, World’s grandmother died nine times, rivaling the life span of his cat.”