Horses Ran According to Owners’ Form

Now the truth can be told. On the day that the Dallas Cowboys embarrassed the Buffalo Bills, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII, a horse named Athenium finished last in its race at Turfway Park in Kentucky.

Meanwhile, at Remington Park in Oklahoma City, Okla., a horse named Harry Jerry won the 89er Handicap.

Buffalo Bill lineman Will Wolford owned Athenium.

Dallas Cowboy teammates Tony Casillas and Daryl Johnston owned Harry Jerry.

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Trivia time: Name the two father-son winners of the Indianapolis 500 rookie-of-the-year award.

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Different strokes: Do you get the feeling that PGA golfer Robert Wrenn might be thinking about tinkering with his swing?

“There are a lot of swings on the PGA Tour that are different,” Wrenn told the Associated Press, “and some of them really do look strange. But I have noticed that some of the strangest ones are winning all the time.”

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Poor little baby: Florida Marlin reliever Joe Klink has had it with broadcaster Hank Goldberg, whose comments on local television and radio have angered some of the players.

“He cuts down the management, he cuts down the players, he cuts down everybody,” Klink told the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “He’s a fat, 12-sandwich-eating . . . whose only decision is to choose between a jelly and a glazed doughnut.”

Shortly after the story’s publication, Klink received a gift from Goldberg: 12 jelly doughnuts and 12 glazed doughnuts.

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Memories: Hartford Courant columnist Alan Greenberg on Kevin McHale, who recently retired from the Boston Celtics:

“But for all his great accomplishments on the court, my enduring image is of him walking into the press room at the 1987 NBA Finals in Los Angeles just so he could cop as many free sodas as he could carry for himself and his kids. McHale was making $1 million a year at the time, on his way to $3.5 million, but when you grow up a miner’s son in Minnesota’s Iron Range, there are some things you don’t take for granted.”

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Wild and crazy guys: Hide the women and children--the Philadelphia Phillies are on top of the baseball world.

“We’re not bad people,” first baseman John Kruk told J. Edwin Smith of the Sporting News, “but you wouldn’t want to have us over to your house for dinner.”

Added Kruk: “Yeah, we’re all throwbacks--we’ve all been thrown back by other organizations, and here we are.”

Said center fielder Lenny Dykstra: “I don’t know if you can call it ‘Animal House,’ but there are some people in here who are a little off-balance.”

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Expensive hits: Morry Lowe won’t soon forget the 1993 Little League debut of his 12-year-old son, Travis.

Travis, who plays for the Walnut Creek (Calif.) Little League Athletics, hit two home runs in his first game. He also sliced a foul ball directly through the grille of the Lowe station wagon. Later, Travis lined another foul ball into his father’s camcorder.

“The (other) parents couldn’t stop laughing,” Morry Lowe said. “They told me to park the car and stand behind the center-field fence because we were magnets.”

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Trivia answer: Mario and Michael Andretti (1965 and 1984) and Bill and Billy Vukovich (1968 and 1988).

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Quotebook: Comedian Bob Sarlatte on Candlestick Park: “You know it’s summertime at Candlestick when the fog rolls in, the wind kicks up and you see the center fielder slicing open a caribou to survive the ninth inning.”