Clinton’s Tax Proposals Aside, These Guys Won’t Go Hungry

Wrote columnist Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, on the potential impact to major league baseball players in regard to President Clinton’s tax proposals:

“One hundred big leaguers will earn at least $3 million this season and, fearing a fiscal crunch to come, many of them reported to camp early to take advantage of the free doughnuts and sunflower seeds in the clubhouse.

“Players like to invest their savings in small businesses, but now, with the nation’s fuzzy financial outlook freezing up investment opportunities, these players don’t know where their next restaurant is coming from.”

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Add Ostler: “Don Baylor, the new manager of the Colorado Rockies, issued a no-facial-hair edict for his players. The Rockies are a very young and inexperienced team, though, and several of the players immediately shaved off their eyebrows.”

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Trivia time: Who are the six living jockeys whose mounts have won the Triple Crown?

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Scatterbrain: From “Baseball’s Even Greater Insults”: Dizzy Dean, in an argument with umpire George Barr during the 1934 World Series, demanded an answer from Barr about a call he made.

“I answered your question,” Barr said. “I shook my head.”

Said Dean: “No you didn’t, because if you did, I would’ve heard it rattle.”

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Ball ahoy: William Barnhill, who has invented the first audio golf ball, told Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle that he is working on technology to keep the ball afloat--and beeping--if it lands in a water hazard.

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Haunted Hall: From Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe: “I suppose it’s not very gracious to knock a guy who has just been voted into a hall of fame, but I must point out that it was of Walt Bellamy that legendary NBA scribe George Kiseda wrote: ‘He’s the skeleton in the closet of the 20,000-point club.’ ”

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Ouch! Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe wonders if the team doctor of the Mighty Ducks will be referred to as “the Quack.”

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Court behavior: Columnist Dan Barreiro of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, commenting on rookie Christian Laettner of the Minnesota Timberwolves:

“There are people who are really not weird, but want others to think they are weird because it is considered cool. Then there are people who are authentically strange. Laettner falls into the latter category. His mood swings on the court are scary.”

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Who’s counting? Before Greg Haugen was knocked out by Julio Caesar Chavez in the fifth round of their bout in Mexico City, he said that Chavez had scored 50 of his 82 victories “against Mexican cab drivers.”

Afterward, Haugen said: “OK, so they were 50 tough cab drivers.”

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Trivia answer: Eddie Arcaro, Warren Mehrtens, Johnny Longden, Ron Turcotte, Jean Cruguet and Steve Cauthen.

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Quotebook: Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald: “I wouldn’t believe some pro sports owners even if they swore they were lying.”