College Prank Ends in Paying Exercise Tax

The 1992 Rose Bowl trophy is back in a University of Washington display case, but not before a group of engineering students at the University of British Columbia stole it and smuggled it across the Canadian border. The prank, carried out as part of UBC Engineers’ Week, proved costly when the students were told they had to cover $800 in repair bills and police charges related to the break-in.

The trophy, which was whisked away from its place of honor in Tubby Green Building, is valued at $3,000, according to an article in Washington’s alumni magazine.

Times have changed: When the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--the real one, not the one portrayed in “A League of Their Own”--existed in the 1940s and ‘50s, the players contract included a dress code.

“On the field, players (must) wear skirts,” the contract read, adding that “players must always appear in feminine attire when not engaged in the practice of playing ball. Masculine hairstyling, shoes, coats, shirts, socks and T-shirts are barred at all times.”

Add changing times: According to the Amateur Athletic Foundation’s sports letter, the AAGPBL would fine players $10 for being ejected from a game for arguing with an umpire. The fine for appearing in public with an “unkempt appearance” was $50.

Trivia time: Who is the only athlete to be drafted by an NFL team, a major league baseball team and teams in two professional basketball leagues?

Anything else? Jack Shupe, the former general manager at Medicine Hat, has filed a lawsuit against the Western Hockey League club after being fired. Shupe claims that his dismissal was wrong because his hockey reputation was “unjustly and wrongfully humiliated, lost, hindered, destroyed and discredited.”

Who picked the hotel? Forced to drop a plan to relocate Barcelona’s “sex workers” from their preferred neighborhood, which happens to include the hotel where International Olympic Committee members will stay during the Games, city authorities resorted to harassing prospective clients.

With a view to a clean image during the Olympic Games, prostitutes working the streets near the IOC lodgings at the Hotel Princesa Sofia were “encouraged” to move to an industrial zone near the city. Objections from residents and the prostitutes ended the plan, at least temporarily.

Harsh punishment: A spectator in Pittsburgh recently threw a golf ball at former Pirate Bobby Bonilla when he returned to Three Rivers Stadium with the New York Mets. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook recommended that the culprit be thrown in jail, then added, “or better, locked in a room with Bonilla.”

Kissing skater: Calla Urbanski, the waitress-skater, has left partner Rocky Marval, the truck driver-skater, for a new skating dance partner. It will be the sixth time Urbanski has changed partners.

“You have to kiss a few toads before you find the right prince,” she said.

Trivia answer: Dave Winfield.

Matter of taste: Most drivers who win the Indianapolis 500 keep the pace car as a memento of their victory. Rick Mears keeps the milk bottles handed him for the traditional swig in Victory Circle. He has four of them--courtesy of the American Dairy Assn.--on display in a trophy case in his home.

Quotebook: The Raiders’ Bob Golic, on sports heroes: “If old-time athletes were scrutinized (by the media) the way athletes are today, we might need a new set of sports heroes.”