They’ve Had Their Last Garden Party

Larry Bird and Patrick Ewing became good friends during the Olympic Games, so Ewing was disappointed to hear that Bird was retiring.

“I’ll be sad that I won’t be able to bust his butt any more, especially with all the junk he was talking at the Olympics,” Ewing said.

Responded Bird: “As for Patrick, he’s had eight years to bust me and he hasn’t done it yet. I couldn’t stay around a lifetime and wait on him.”

*

Add Bird: His friends don’t have a hard time staying humble.

This, for example, is Bird’s description of his first encounter with another good friend, Rick Robey:

“It didn’t take me very long to realize I was going to be a great player in this league. When I got to rookie camp, I realized I could play in this league. The thing about it, I had Rick Robey guarding me, so I probably thought I was going to be a little better than I really was.”

*

Trivia time: Carl Lewis lost a chance to become the first man to reach three Olympic 100-meter finals, failing to qualify in the U.S. trials this year, but another competitor did it. Who was he?

*

Brainstorm: Bill Walsh says that if a college coach wants to build a reputation, “He’d coach at USC or Oklahoma or Washington.”

But coaching at Stanford, as he chose to do again, has its rewards.

“Stanford athletes are extremely bright and able to assimilate what we teach and put it into action effectively,” Walsh told the New York Times’ Michael Martinez. “Collectively, we can learn more than most other teams. Last night, I told them to turn to Page 70 in the playbook, and they got it. If you said that in the NFL, they’d still be looking for their playbooks.”

*

Crackdown: The NFL says it will boost enforcement to prevent teams from stashing physically sound players on injured reserve and will take a second-round draft choice from any team it catches.

Teams habitually fudge on injuries and are justifiably suspicious of their peers. The Washington Redskins, who carried quarterbacks Mark Rypien (two years), Stan Humphries (one year) and Cary Conklin (two years) on injured reserve the past five seasons, are prime suspects.

The practice is so widespread, reporters covering the final exhibition game sometimes get up pools on which young prospect is about to go down holding his hamstring.

*

Burning Bushes: President George H.W. Bush is threatening to shake up his cabinet and his son, Texas Rangers’ owner George W. Bush, is threatening to shake his up, too.

Bush is “openly hinting of a major postseason shake-up in the Rangers’ organization,” The Sporting News’ Peter Pascarelli writes. “Don’t fall off your chair if Whitey Herzog (leaves the Angels and) returns as the (Rangers’) general manager, manager or both. Life isn’t easy working for Jackie Autry, and Herzog has always talked about possibly returning to Texas and building a winner.”

*

Trivia answer: Raymond Stewart of Jamaica, who finished sixth, seventh and seventh in 1984, ’88 and ‘92, respectively.

*

Quotebook: Ewa Mataya, the world’s top-rated female pool player: “Being a man doesn’t make you a better player. You should have seen me with my newborn changing diapers. Just because I was a woman didn’t make that easier.”