Some Would Consider This Trash Talk in a Literal Sense

Who is the best prospect in Wednesday’s NBA draft? Chris Webber? Shawn Bradley? Jamal Mashburn? Forget it.

If Wake Forest’s Rodney Rogers, a 6-foot-7, 235-pound player, is as good as he says is, he’s a franchise savior. A sampling:

“I have the determination of (Charles) Barkley and the finishing ability of Karl Malone. I fear no one. When I go to the hole, they have to foul me or get dumped on.

“I have the attitude Barkley has, I play like him (and Malone), but my jump shot is better than either of theirs.”

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Trivia time: How many UCLA basketball players have been first-round draft choices of the Lakers?

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Losing legacy: Columnist Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner reporting from Wimbledon: “Sport in Britain is written about subjectively and politically. The Brits always are ‘brave’ and ‘heroic.’ That’s because they’re rarely winners.”

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Depressed division: Phil Rogers of the Dallas Morning News on the American League West:

“Once the domain of the powerful Oakland Athletics and a pack of hungry challengers, it has turned into baseball’s skid row in 1993.”

Oakland is in last place, but only 8 1/2 games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox.

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Golf hunter: A recent Morning Briefing item reported that a player got a birdie--his tee shot killed a horned lark--and a hole-in-one on the same hole.

Milo V. Olson writes that he got an eagle and a rattlesnake on a hole about 20 years ago.

His second shot on a par-five hole at El Camino Country Club in Oceanside hit a rattlesnake. It was curved around his ball, still alive, before Olson dispatched it with a nine-iron.

Then, he said, he hit a three-wood that found the hole for the eagle-rattlesnake trick.

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Tennis stalkers: Chris Evert mentioned on television that she once found a man who had been hiding in her cupboard for three days, to which Martina Navratilova commented:

“I’ve got to go check my kitchen. I haven’t had anything like that. I’ve had photographers lurking on the garage roof and stuff, trying to take pictures of me in my place. But no men in my cupboard--or women.”

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FYI: Five legal maneuvers in ancient Greek wrestling: Eye gouging, finger-breaking, strangleholds, punching and biting.

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Omen? Lee Janzen visited the Baltimore Orioles’ clubhouse a few weeks before he won the U.S. Open. Last year, Tom Kite visited the Orioles a week before he won the U.S. Open.

“Maybe golfers will want to come here more often,” said Oriole relief pitcher Mark Williamson.

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Trivia answer: Four. Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, David Meyers and Brad Holland.

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Quotebook: Lee Trevino on his passion for golf: “I’m a golfaholic, no question about it. 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.”