His Uniform Should Have a Bull’s-Eye

Steve Abbs, a University of Wyoming outfielder, is making a big hit out of getting hit.

Abbs, who was hit by pitches a school-record 22 times at Cerritos College last season, tied an NCAA record recently by being hit four times in a game against Creighton.

Abbs has already been hit nine times, breaking Wyoming’s season record, and he could own the career record of 12 by season’s end.

“I’m a magnet,” he said. “I attract the baseball. I guess it’s just part of my aggressive style. . . . I crowd the plate a little bit.”

A little bit?

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Trivia time: Who holds the NCAA Final Four record for highest field-goal percentage in one game?

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Way-out: Larry Andersen, a 39-year-old relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, is concerned about the message delivered in the popular baseball song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“In the seventh inning, (the fans) all get up and sing, ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ and they’re already there. It’s really a stupid thing to say.

“And I don’t know who made ‘em sing it. Why would somebody that’s there get up and sing, ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game?’ The first person to do it must have been a moron.”

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Or next week? From “Baseball’s Even Greater Insults”: Earl Weaver, on managing the Baltimore Orioles in a particularly bad year: “We’re so bad right now that for us to hit back-to-back home runs means one today and another one tomorrow.”

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FYI: If the Atlanta Braves win the National League pennant, they will have the opportunity to be the first team since the 1913 New York Giants to lose three consecutive World Series.

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Or Looney Rule? Columnist Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner, writing on free agency in the NFL: “This thing they call the ‘Rooney Rule’? They should rename the whole free-agency business the Ruination Rule.”

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Sticking point: Because of fog, cold weather and a capricious wind, along with a crime-ridden neighborhood, Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is regarded as the worst ballpark in the major leagues.

“If the Giants don’t find a new stadium to replace their dank, miserable biker bar of a ballpark, then you can count on baseball being back at the same corner of Hopeless Street and No Return Drive in four or five years . . . maybe sooner,” wrote columnist Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury-News.

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Reason enough: From The Good Doctor in Inside Sports, asked if President Bill Clinton has a favorite baseball team:

“Clinton likes the White Sox because they play Sax.”

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Wrap it up: The Florida Marlins’ mascot hasn’t impressed Rick Folstad of the Naples (Fla.) Daily News: “Sorry, Miami, but this is one ugly fish,” he wrote. “If you left it outside overnight, even the cats wouldn’t go near it.”

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Trivia answer: Bill Walton of UCLA at 95.5%, 21 of 22, in the championship game against Memphis State in 1973.

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Quotebook: From columnist David Climer of the Nashville Tennessean: “(Bobby) Cremins is a sugar-frosted flake on the breakfast table of college basketball.”