For Ex-Met, a Rocky Road Is Revisited

As one who endured the 1962 season with the New York Mets, who had the worst record in baseball’s modern era, Philadelphia broadcaster Rich Ashburn knows futility when he sees it, and apparently he has seen it this season in the Colorado Rockies.

After the Phillies had beaten the Rockies, 18-1, wrote Bob Kravitz of the Rocky Mountain News, Ashburn was heard to say, “Geez, we were never this bad.”

Add Rockies: Ashburn told Kravitz that life with the ’62 Mets was bearable mainly because of Casey Stengel, who managed the team with few expectations.

“He really had the right outlook for an expansion team like ours,” Ashburn said.

“We had a doubleheader against Milwaukee rained out--that’s why we were only 40-120 (playing 160 games instead of 162)--and Casey says, ‘Fellers, this is a great day for our ballclub,’ and then he took us all out to dinner.

“The very last day of that season, our 120th loss, we hit into a triple play. So we’re sitting in the clubhouse, and Casey gets up in front of us and says, ‘Fellers, I think I can say that this was a team effort. No one man could have accomplished what we accomplished this season.’ ”

Trivia time: What major league player received the highest percentage of votes when he was voted into the Hall of Fame?

She’s outta there: The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, reportedly has lost her automatic right to sit in the Royal Box at Wimbledon.

London’s Evening Standard reports that the duchess, who lost her right to royal security protection after her split from Prince Andrew, is expected to attend the tournament, which begins next week, but will be required to sit in the Centre Court stands with friends.

Said an unidentified police officer quoted by the newspaper: “We have done some extensive work to draw up plans to protect the royal family, but Fergie does not come into it. We have been told that she is to be regarded as a private member of the public unless she is invited into the Royal Box by another royal or a VIP.”

Collect all 10: According to the current issue of the NCAA News, the following was reported to the NCAA by an unidentified football program as a secondary rules violation: “Coaching staff used cards resembling trading cards as business cards.”

Mind your granny: There is at least one person who can tell Charles Barkley where to get off--his grandmother, Johnnie Mickens of Leeds, Ala.

Recalling a recent playoff game during which the television cameras caught the NBA’s most valuable player using some salty language, Mickens said: “I called Charles and told him I knew what he said. I told him to stop swearing, because they’ve got the camera dead on your mouth. He tried to tell me he didn’t say (anything wrong), but I knew what he said. I can read lips.”

Add Barkley: Mickens, 66, says she receives a call from her grandson after nearly every game.

“When he calls, I tell him I love him, and I tell him to play a little more defense,” she said. “He can play good defense when he wants to, but it seems like sometimes he forgets.”

Last add Barkley: From Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Sun: “I disagree with Charles Barkley. He is a role model for anyone aspiring to become a totally insensitive, boorish lout who lacks all social graces.”

Trivia answer: Tom Seaver, with 98.8% in 1992. Ty Cobb received 98.2% of the votes in 1936, and Babe Ruth received 95.1% that year.

Quotebook: Golfer Lee Trevino, on why he doesn’t cut back on tournament appearances: “I’m a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn’t help me. They’d have to put me in prison, and then I’d talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play.”