Turf Not Only Thing Artificial

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, writing about Toronto’s SkyDome, site of the first two games of the American League Championship Series:

“I’m not saying the SkyDome is sterile and plastic, but when you come through the turnstiles, Barbie and Ken tear your ticket.

“It’s all prefab and plastic. The concession areas are so sterile they make a hospital operating room look like a corner on Bourbon Street.

“The Dome complex features restaurants and a hotel. It’s not a ballpark, it’s a mallpark.”

*

Trivia time: When was the last time a Stanford football team won 10 games in a season?

*

Put-down: Writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail, San Francisco Examiner columnist Art Spander knocked the Blue Jays and the team’s postseason disasters.

He quoted Blue Jay reliever Tom Henke as saying, “Fans in a lot of places would gladly trade places with the people in Toronto.”

Responded Spander: “Right, Tom. Angola, Somalia, Anaheim. But people in Minneapolis or Oakland? Not a chance.”

*

Allen’s legacy: Rusty Tillman, a former special teams player with the Washington Redskins, credits the late George Allen for developing special teams, once virtually ignored, to a high state of efficiency.

“He’d say all those stupid things to us, like, ‘When I go to a gas station, I want the guy to run out there and really clean my windows and fill my tank right up,’ real go-get-’em stuff,” Tillman told Pro Football Weekly.

“We thought he was pretty goofy. But what he was saying is that every job is important. He had a great knack for making every guy on the field feel he had the most important job. I owe that man everything.”

*

Only way to fly: Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls, and his wife, June, were offered a free trip to Switzerland by Swissair as long as they played host to all those fans who wished to vacation with the coach of the NBA championship team.

“The Jacksons agreed and they enjoyed a marvelous trip,” writes Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe. “In fact, they enjoyed their own private trip because nobody else signed up.”

*

Going, going . . . : Dave Rowe of the Raycom network, describing a catch-and-run by Texas Christian’s Curtis Modkins: “He’s on about the 40, the 50, 51, 52-yard line.”

*

Trivia answer: In 1940, when Stanford was 10-0 after beating Nebraska in the Rose Bowl, 21-13.

*

Quotebook: Philadelphia Eagle Coach Rich Kotite, on where he got the idea to play Herschel Walker in a deep, one-running back, power-running set: “We certainly didn’t get it from Minnesota.”