Expansion Team Is Off to Rocky Start

They have yet to play a game and they are already stirring controversy.

They are the Colorado Rockies of Denver, one of two major league baseball expansion teams, and at issue is the team logo. It is basically a CR, but the tag already is taken, by Carbonic Reserves, a dry-ice company headquartered in San Antonio, with a home office in Colorado’s Commerce City.

The coincidence was first noticed by a University of Colorado professor and customer of the company, which has been in business since 1987.

Woody Paige, columnist for the Denver Post, raised the issue with Carbonic Reserves’ national operations manager, Will Wallace, who said: “Our people in Denver sent us a copy of the Denver Post showing the team’s cap, and I was kind of surprised. I thought, ‘Hey, that’s our logo.’ I took the clipping to the company president, and he checked it out and went, ‘Hmm, I’ll have to look into this.’ ”

The company hasn’t yet decided how to pursue the matter.

“We’re just a small company and we don’t want to cause trouble,” Wallace said. “We like Denver a lot, so we just want an amicable situation. Maybe we should get some honorary season tickets or box seats to the first game.”

Paige summed up: “The least the Denver major league team can do to recognize the contributions of a San Antonio dry-ice manufacturer is to name all the club’s benchwarmers the Carbonic Reserves.”

Trivia time Who was the last Heisman Trophy winner not to attempt to play pro football?

Tough road ahead: Florida State, the top-ranked college football team in the country, also has the toughest schedule of any Division I-A school, according to an NCAA survey. Seminole opponents last season had a 78-36-3 record (bowls included) against Division I-A schools when not playing Florida State.

Tougher road?: As if trying to make it as an actress isn’t a big enough challenge, Lisa Coles, a Los Angeles-based actress and dancer, has taken a job as coordinator of the New England Patriots’ first cheerleading squad in seven years.

“Cheerleaders are just as important when the team is not winning,” Coles said. “In fact, they’re almost more important when the team’s not winning.”

Coles figures to be an important person in Foxboro, Mass.

Down the stretch: Willie Clark, the oldest active jockey in the United States, reportedly will call it quits tonight at Charles Town, W. Va.--after 10,630 races spanning more than 45 years.

Clark, 69, had hoped to ride until he was 100 but decided to hang up his whip after he was suspended earlier this year by the West Virginia Racing Commission for reckless riding.

“I don’t want to put up with the aggravation,” said Clark, who has 1,143 victories. “The riding today, it’s sissified.”

Trivia answer: Pete Dawkins, the Army halfback who won the trophy in 1958 but chose a military career over pro football.

Quotebook: Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Bubby Brister, claiming that the concussion he suffered last Sunday against San Diego was the result of head-hunting by a Charger tackler: “He just tried to pull my head up and tried to uncork my head.”