Despite Surgery, Jackson’s Sights Are Set Squarely on Basepaths

Bo Jackson’s football career probably is over, but the standout in two sports is confident that he can be a force in baseball again.

Jackson, who had hip-replacement surgery seven months ago, said he would be as “physical as ever” when he plays again for the Chicago White Sox.

“Once I get back and start playing, I’ll knock your jock off,” Jackson told the Associated Press.

“If I have to hit somebody at second breaking up a double play or at home trying to score, believe you me, there will be contact.”

Add Jackson: Jackson said if his sports career is over, he isn’t worrying about it.

“When it’s over, I’m not going to look back,” he said. “And hell, no, I don’t want to be a coach. I have better things to do.”

Trivia time: In what sport has Casper College in Wyoming won four national championships?

Learning experience: San Antonio Spur Coach Jerry Tarkanian, formerly of Nevada Las Vegas, said he has never coached anyone as smart as David Robinson.

What a surprise!

Election bulletin: From Doug Spoon of the San Gabriel Valley-Tribune: “(USC’s) Curtis Conway might be considered the Ross Perot of the Heisman Trophy candidates--a late entry, perhaps, but certainly not one to be ignored.”

“It” is a loser: From Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Hey, how about that Stanford Cardinal? Doesn’t ‘it’ play good ball? Any chance of a Rose Bowl for ‘it’? Awful. Get a nickname, and get it now.”

Bo’s type of guy: Bo Schembechler, now an ABC-TV commentator, telling Indiana’s Bob Knight that “he coaches basketball like a football coach--not wishy-washy like some basketball coaches I’ve known.”

Please, Bo, name names.

Grounded: After 7-foot-4 Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton had been injured jumping for a ball, Bob Ford observed in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Now, why would he go and try that after all these years?”

A guided tour: Benny Ricardo, a former Minnesota Viking kicker and now a nightclub comedian, on baseball players:

“They’re not the smartest people in the world. They have a diamond diagraming where they have to go. And they still have coaches on first and third telling them which way to go. Otherwise, those guys would run all the way to the warning track.”

Trivia answer: Rodeo.

Quotebook: Kevin McHale, who struggled through his 12th training camp with the Boston Celtics: “I feel like I got into a gang fight with a bunch of three-foot guys who beat my legs up.”