It Made Him Sick to Read This Story

In the April 30 issue of Hockey News, senior writer Mike Brophy acknowledged Mario Lemieux’s midseason Hodgkin’s disease, but wrote, “In retrospect, he came back from something that was no more serious than any other injury.”

Pittsburgh Penguin President Howard Baldwin was outraged that Brophy had downplayed Lemieux’s disease, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In a letter to Brophy, Baldwin wrote: “Have you been living in a cave, Mike? This is not just another knee injury. This is not just a groin pull. This is cancer.

“If Hodgkin’s disease is not deemed a serious injury in your mind, Mike, what is? Does one have to have a stake driven through his heart and rise from the dead to get your attention?”

*

Trivia time: Who holds the NBA record for most rebounds in a playoff game?

*

Dream on: Chris Chelios of the Chicago Blackhawks, commenting on the Penguins before the Stanley Cup playoffs began:

“Let (the Penguins) have the Cup for now. In their minds. Right up until we take it from them in the last game of the finals.”

The Blackhawks were swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the St. Louis Blues.

*

No road block: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, writing on the first playoff game between the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks:

“Having waited impatiently for the challenge of the playoffs, the Bulls were rewarded instead with a matched set of traffic cones from Atlanta, a team so inept that even the Chicago bench had to shower.

“This was a lion playing with lint.”

The Bulls swept the series in three games.

*

Say what? Hey, longtime baseball fans, want to feel old?

According to the Baseball Encyclopedia, Willie Howard (Say Hey) Mays was born in Westfield, Ala., May 6, 1931, meaning that Thursday, on his 62nd birthday, he was eligible to start collecting Social Security.

*

Windy-evil city: Montreal left fielder John Vander Wal, talking to Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner about the fans in the new left-field bleachers at Candlestick Park: “I don’t mind them if they don’t throw anything. And they didn’t. Chicago is a lot worse. In Chicago they know your personal history.”

*

Mr. Nice Guy: Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight was the featured speaker last Saturday at an athletic fund-raising auction for Cal State Fullerton.

The response was $88,000 pledged, about double the amount raised at last year’s affair, when Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda was the guest speaker.

*

Trivia answer: Wilt Chamberlain, with 41 while playing for the Philadelphia 76ers against Boston on April 5, 1967.

*

Quotebook: Pitcher Bret Saberhagen of the New York Mets, on his last-place team: “We’re the Bad News Bears and have been playing terrible ball. Hell, the Florida Marlins are ahead of us.”