Baseball Gets Stripped Down in Steeltown

The Pittsburgh Pirates played the San Francisco Giants Wednesday night in Three Rivers Stadium, but the real show was in the stands.

Fans saw two strippers dancing topless in a private box owned by a real estate company.

Two teen-age boys in a nearby box yelled at the strippers and took pictures of them.

“Their mothers and fathers were trying to stop them, but what can you do?” said Linda Powell, who was in the same box. “(The strippers) were the main attraction.”

What else?

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Trivia time: Who holds the UCLA record for the longest punt?

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Clip and save: The college football season is just beginning, but NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper is already predicting that Drew Bledsoe, Washington State’s 6-foot-5, 225-pound junior quarterback, will be the first selection in the 1993 pro draft.

“I’ve never been this sure about a No. 1 pick this early in the year,” Kiper told Bud Withers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “He’s a lock for the No. 1 pick, more than Steve Emtman (former Washington defensive tackle) was last year.”

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Well said: Reaction of some of Oakland’s players to the trade that sent Jose Canseco to the Texas Rangers, as reported by Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Rickey Henderson: “I don’t care about the trade. I ain’t talking to the press.”

Willie Wilson’s opinion? “I ain’t got one. Doesn’t bother me, I ain’t got one.”

Dizzy Dean would have loved those guys.

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Add Canseco: Frank Blackman of the San Francisco Examiner said the trade hadn’t been officially announced Monday night in Oakland, when a reporter asked Canseco an obvious question: Where had he been traded?

“To Ethiopia,” Canseco said in the clubhouse. “For a box of Fruit Loops and a camel to be named later.”

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Easy rider: Cole Ford, USC’s sophomore kicker, would be comfortable riding Traveler IV, USC’s mascot. When Ford was 12, he competed in the Western States 100 Horse Race, a 24-hour, 100-mile race in the Sierra Nevada.

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Frequent fliers: The San Francisco 49ers will lead the NFL in air travel this season, logging 40,606 miles. The least traveled team? The Detroit Lions with only 10,688 miles.

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Embarrassing exit: Pat Haden, former USC and Ram quarterback and now a TNT analyst, looking back on his pro career:

“I never could figure out why I always was breaking my hand. When you get hurt, you want to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Me, I always walked off holding my pinky.”

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Summation: From Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune: “Think of the pro football court case in Minneapolis as sharecroppers asking for a tiny piece of the plantation.”

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Trivia answer: Bob Waterfield, 91 yards against March Air Force Base in 1944.

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Quotebook: Asked if there is anything in baseball he hasn’t done, pitcher Nolan Ryan said: “Get an intentional walk.”