Bradley Has Big Mission Down Under

Shawn Bradley, the 7-foot-6 Brigham Young center who is beginning the second year of a two-year religious mission in Australia, has made a few adjustments in lifestyle.

Assigned to a Mormon ward in the town of Tamworth, about 200 miles north of Sydney, Bradley first had to become accustomed to local bicycle riding rules. He kept pedaling on the wrong side of the road.

“He learned that one real quick,” Bradley’s father, Reiner, told the Sporting News.

Bradley, dubbed “the tallest man on the continent” by the Australian press, has been provided at least one concession: an eight-foot-long bed.

Trivia time: Who pitched the first no-hitter at Dodger Stadium?

A hitter’s friend: Former major league pitcher Jim Bouton, no proponent of brush-back pitches, told Inside Sports: “What is toughness, anyway? Throwing at guys? That’s BS. Why should (Don) Drysdale or (Bob) Gibson be allowed to throw balls at hitters? Why shouldn’t hitters be allowed to throw bats at them? Pitchers today don’t lack toughness; they have more talent, and they can get batters out without so-called intimidation tactics.”

Tooth delay: “It happened in our bullpen,” Pittsburgh Pirate reliever Bob Patterson told Bob Hertzel of the Pittsburgh Press. “We heard someone yelling at us from the second deck. We looked up and they said, ‘Hey, can you get Uncle Ed’s teeth?’ Sure enough, the man’s dentures had fallen out into the bullpen. Still had pizza stuck to them.”

The players sent the dentures back, along with autographs.

Down a peg: From Al McGuire, who became a media free agent when NBC chose not to renew his $425,000 annual contract: “In life, you come through in a saloon act, you become a lounge act and you become center stage. Then you come back out. I’m now back to a saloon act.”

What’s in a name?The Sporting News recently offered its favorite college nicknames, with commentaries on each. The top five:

“1. UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs--Go you slimy yellow mollusks.

“2. Grays Harbor, Wash., Chokers--Well, at least they admit it.

“3. Whittier Poets--Imagine the inspiring banter in their huddles.

“4. Tufts Jumbos--They’re not just big.

“5. South Dakota Tech Hardrockers--We’ve seen their T-shirts everywhere.”

Mulch madness: When golfer Tom Kite won the Atlanta Classic last week in Marietta, Ga., nobody was happier than his wife, Christy. The victory qualified Kite for next year’s Masters, which Kite missed this year for the first time since 1974.

The extra time at home in April left Kite a little restless.

“I had some trees that needed to be trimmed,” he said. “I cut down more trees and sawed more wood. That’s honestly what I did. We had a lot of trees in our yard, but Saturday and Sunday, Christy was scared that we were going to be living in a desert. She was scared I was going to cut every one of those suckers down.”

Trivia answer: Bo Belinsky of the Angels, who defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 2-0, on May 5, 1962.

Quotebook: Chi Chi Rodriguez, on two of the top young players in golf, Fred Couples and Davis Love III: “You have to have Couples before you can have Love.”