She Might Come to Run From Across the Water

Miler Ruth Wysocki, who lives about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Canyon Lake, was cut off from the outside world for three days last month when heavy rains caused the lake to rise and cover the road that leads from her house to the main highway.

With another series of storms expected to hit the area this week, Wysocki has taken precautions to ensure that she makes it to the 34th Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet Saturday night at the Sports Arena.

Should the need arise, she has arranged for a boat to pick her up.

Trivia time: When and where was the Final Four first played in a domed stadium?

On the mark: At the Buckmasters National Deer Classic, a series of competitions held annually 30 miles east of Montgomery, Ala., Dave Krieg of the Kansas City Chiefs won a tomahawk-throwing contest.

Last year’s winner was Greg Olson of the Atlanta Braves.

And Phil Woof: Lou Piniella, former manager of the Cincinnati Reds, brought three members of his staff with him when he took the same post with the Seattle Mariners, moving coaches Sam Perlozzo, John McLaren and Sammy Mejias.

“I brought everybody from Cincinnati except Schottzie II,” Piniella said.

On the mend: Oregon basketball Coach Jerry Green, who was on crutches Sunday at Pauley Pavilion when his team played UCLA, later had arthroscopic surgery on his knee, prompting a Times staffer to ask: “Does that make him a lame Duck coach?”

Improper fit: From Frank Cooney of the San Francisco Examiner, dismissing speculation that Joe Montana might be headed to the Raiders: “Forget it. Wrong horse for that course. Montana is the master of the three- and five-step drop, hit-’em-where-they-ain’t offense. The Raiders want somebody who can drop back seven steps, wait forever, and then launch ICBMs the length of the field.”

Tu too much: From Tennis magazine, among its “aces and faults” of 1992: “Michelle O lost to Meilen Tu, 0 and 2, in the third round of the Easter Bowl junior championships.”

For the record: Gene Bartow, the first of John Wooden’s successors as UCLA basketball coach, was hired away from Illinois, where he was 8-18 in his only season after moving from Memphis State.

Popular opinion: Paul Kennedy, an announcer for Florida’s Sunshine Network, proposing that the NHL expansion team in Miami call itself the Humidity: “Then they can say the Heat is bad, but the Humidity is what’s really terrible.”

Trivia answer: In 1971, when UCLA defeated Villanova, 68-62, in the final game at the Astrodome in Houston.

Quotebook: Guard Hosie Grimsley of Florida, after Dick Vitale of ESPN called him one of the nation’s top five defensive players: “That usually means you can’t shoot.”