General Rule: Don’t Sneak Up on the General

Dick Vitale, of all people, should know better. You don’t fool around with Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight.

The incident occurred on the set of the movie, “Blue Chips,” being filmed at Frankfort, Ind. High School, the New York Daily News reported.

Knight was seated in a wardrobe room with his back to the door and didn’t see Vitale, who sneaked up behind the coach.

Vitale then grabbed Knight in a bear hug, saying, “Hey, big fella, how are you doing?”

Knight, surprised, turned on Vitale and shoved the broadcaster, knocking him to the floor.

“I slipped to the floor,” Vitale said. “I was just playing. I was surprised when he pushed me, but it’s not a big deal. I just wanted to surprise him.”

Trivia time: Who holds the major league record for most grand slams in a career?

Fright night: More from Philadelphia’s John Kruk on striking out against Seattle’s 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson in Tuesday’s All-Star game:

“I’ve had two days of no sleep because of him. He was my worst nightmare. He was the one guy I didn’t want to face. I’ve seen him on TV and he throws 99 m.p.h. I’d rather have both my arms cut off than have to face him again.”

Brrr!Alan Fong, an employee of the Washington transportation department in Seattle, was directing traffic onto a morning ferry, as usual.

But Fong was dressed only in his boxer shorts.

He had said he would direct traffic nude if the SuperSonics lost in the NBA Western Conference finals, which they did.

His supervisor told him he had to at least wear boxer shorts and a safety vest, which he did.

Surf fanatic: Greg Noll, once one of Hawaii’s famous big-wave surfers, recently recalled an infamous day in 1969 when he rode massive 35-foot surf at Makaha point on Oahu.

“Scared? Hell yes, I was scared,” Noll told Sam George of Surfing magazine. “But you have to realize that on that day, my whole life was about riding the biggest wave I could catch; my whole life had led up to this one day, that one wave. And I was willing to die for it.”

Back to school: Detroit Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson on his team’s league-leading 83 errors:

“The game is supposed to be: You pitch it, you hit it, you catch it. The game was never meant to be: You pitch it, you hit and then you catch up with it later.”

Game plan: Joe Montana’s wife, Jennifer, a former model and actress, met her husband while they were filming a razor commercial.

“Jennifer, of course, having been a model, was used to these things,” Montana’s mother, Theresa, told the Kansas City Star. “So the producer says to her, ‘Can you do something to loosen him up?’

“So she pinched him on the butt. And it worked.”

Trivia answer: Lou Gehrig, with 23 from 1923 to 1939.

Quotebook: Columnist Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner: “St. Petersburg is 0-6 in teams courted since 1984.”