Take a Couple, Hit and Run, Lose Your Job

The secret is out. The hand signals Cosumnes River College baseball Coach Rod Beilby used to communicate with his team on the field have been stolen.

An unnamed former reserve infielder who quit the Sacramento team because he wanted more playing time distributed a list of the signs to every other coach in the Bay Valley Conference.

“He’s blackballed himself from playing in another college program,” Beilby told the Vacaville (Calif.) Reporter. “I can’t imagine any coach who would want him around after he’s pulled this. If he’s does it once, what will happen if he gets upset and does it again? He’ll do it again.”

Isn’t there any way to stop him?

Looking back: On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth to become the career home run leader. He hit it off of the Dodgers’ Al Downing in Atlanta on his first swing of the game.

Trivia time: How many NCAA golf champions went on to win the Masters?

Logical thinking: In the book, “Baseball Quotations,” Jay Leno asks: “If Pete Rose bets on prison softball games, will he be barred from jail for life?”

How about that: Squash has been officially admitted for competition in the Pan American Games to be held in June of 1995 in Mar del Plata and Buenos Aires.

Fair warning: Michael Jordan, who has said he would like to play professional golf after his basketball career, entered a major amateur tournament and missed the cut with an 85-81 score. The Detroit Free Press captioned a photo of the Bulls’ superstar with this warning: “Don’t give up your NBA job.”

The way it is: Race drivers, like Oscar-winning actors, like to thank everyone under the sun after a victory. It’s usually, “I’d like to thank my sponsor, car owner, tire company, manager and crew.”

Arnie Knepper, after a winning effort in the early 1970s, had a different story for the media: “I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m broke and I have to go to the bathroom.”

The mystery man: A.J. Foyt has entered five cars in the Indianapolis 500, but that doesn’t mean the four-time Indy winner will drive in the race. He still won’t say.

Foyt, 58, drove in only two Indy car races last season--in Australia and Indianapolis, where he finished ninth in his 35th consecutive start--and none this year.

Contrast in drivers: At first glance, matching Bob Golic, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound defensive lineman, against Mary Lou Retton, a 4-foot-9, 100-pound gymnast, would seem like a mismatch. But their meeting will be behind the wheel of identically prepared Toyota Celica Liftbacks in the celebrity race of the Long Beach Grand Prix next week.

Trivia answer: Two, Jack Nicklaus, Ohio State, 1961, and Ben Crenshaw, Texas, 1971-72-73.

High priority: A $50-million fund to train Malaysian athletes for the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur was approved by the government. Of that, about $9 million will be spent on badminton.

Quotebook: Vin Scully, on longevity in baseball: “It’s a mere moment in a man’s life between an All-Star game and an old-timers’ game.”