They Finally Threw the Book at This Fraud

Editors of “The Baseball Encyclopedia” painstakingly check their facts, according to Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

For example, the book contained the record of Lou Proctor, who for years was listed as having played one game in 1912 for the St. Louis Browns, during which he drew a walk in his only plate appearance. No other information on him was available.

“We finally discovered that Lou Proctor was not a ballplayer at all but an employee of the Western Union company,” said Rick Wolff, senior editor of sports books for Macmillan, the publisher. “He used to sit in the press box in St. Louis and transmit the box scores to the rest of the country. One day, he put himself in the box score.

“Nice try. He had us fooled for a long time, but we finally took him out of there.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the NBA playoff record for most three-point shots made in a game?

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Parade leader: Royce Clayton of the Giants talking to the San Francisco Examiner about the impact Barry Bonds has had on the team:

“I kind of compare him to Magic (Johnson), the way he would pick up the Lakers. He makes everybody better around him. You see that, it makes you want to go out there and help, makes you feel like you can jump in the parade.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1972, to the disappointment of Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley, only 583 men took advantage of the free admission and sun-blocking baseball caps offered at Oakland’s “Bald-Headed Men Day.”

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Old friends: Pittsburgh Pirate knuckleball pitcher Tim Wakefield has been so wild that Manager Jim Leyland asked catcher Tommy Prince after one game if he knew the middle name of the guy sitting by the backstop.

“I was sure they were on a first-name basis by the second inning,” Leyland said.

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FYI: The Dodger-Cincinnati game next Wednesday will be broadcast in Chinese on KAZN (1300 AM). It will be the first Dodger game broadcast in Chinese in the United States.

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Nothing to it: Eddie Kidd, a British stuntman, soared over the 20-foot high Great Wall of China on a motorcycle Tuesday--with up to 10 feet to spare. Soon after, he had another challenge in mind.

“Maybe I’m going to go and jump a pyramid,” Kidd said.

On Sunday, to warm up for the wall jump, he jumped over 10 buses in Beijing Stadium, breaking the world record of eight buses that he set last July.

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Incentive: Texas Ranger Manager Kevin Kennedy on David Hulse, who was in danger of being sent to the minors after a slow start until he set a club record of four steals against Milwaukee on May 1 and then went on a 10-for-23 batting tear from the leadoff spot:

“Maybe we should keep an open ticket to (triple-A) Oklahoma City taped to his locker.”

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Trivia answer: Chuck Person, with seven, while playing for Indiana against Boston on April 28, 1991.

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Quotebook: Colorado Rockies Manager Don Baylor recalling some wisdom from Earl Weaver: “He always said if you feel like you’re going to hit into a double play, strike out.”