Lighten Up, It Was Only a Football Game

When Michigan defeated Stanford, 49-0, in the first New Year’s Day football game played in Pasadena in 1902, it didn’t impress Lon F. Chapin, editor of the Pasadena Daily News.

“Several thousand Dutchmen and Britishers engage in several years of bloody fight (in the Boer War) for the possession of a government and don’t get an encore,” he wrote the next day. “Twenty-two striplings argue for an hour over the progress along the ground of an inflated hog’s hide, and law-abiding citizens bound up and down on the seats of their trousers, while demure maidens hammer plug hats down over the ears of their escorts with their parasols.”

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It’s a long time: It has been 52 years since Ted Williams hit .406. During that time, according to World Features Syndicate, Americans have earned $2.2 trillion selling illegal drugs, bought 1.5 billion mousetraps, spent $99 billion on parking meters, swallowed 936 billion aspirin, crashed 900 million cars and trucks and eaten 23 billion frozen dinners.

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Trivia time: Who won the first U.S. Women’s Open golf championship?

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Looking back: Ten years ago today, Kansas City’s George Brett hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth to give the Royals an apparent 5-4 lead. The umpires nullified the homer because the pine tar extended beyond the 18-inch limit. Brett threw a legendary tantrum and the Yankees won, but the Royals’ protest was upheld and they completed the 5-4 victory nearly a month later.

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Translations: When Eskimos play softball in Barrow, Alaska, announcer Elise Patkotak calls the games in Inupiaq as well as English for KBRA radio.

“The playing field is bilingual,” she says. “A home run is an aailiqtuqtuq!’ The literal translation of home run means ‘to go home very fast.’ An agisivinauragai, or grand slam, means ‘to take everyone home.’ ”

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Royalty: The Nos. 9 and 10 hitters in the National League on Friday were Grace and Kelly.

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Stranded journalist: Peru’s women’s volleyball team withdrew from the recent World University Games in Buffalo, N.Y., after not qualifying for the medal round, leaving a Peruvian TV journalist stranded.

Aldo Rojas arrived looking for the team, which was supposed to provide him with accommodations and funding. Instead, he found no one. Organizers said Rojas then contacted his station in Peru and reported live by telephone about the volleyball team’s withdrawal.

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Fast fact: Singer-composer Neil Diamond had a fencing scholarship to New York University.

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Fresh viewpoint: After four years on the LPGA tour--learning a new language, getting lost in airports and playing strange courses--Hiromi Kobayashi last week won her first tournament, the JAL Big Apple Classic in New Rochelle, N.Y. Her sponsor is Japan Air Lines, the JAL of the Big Apple. Her reaction:

“I don’t know why, but this day, from morning, almost my heart coming out from my mouth.”

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Career change: Drag racer Eddie Hill had never turned left or right in a race car before he entered the Fast Masters competition, in which 50-and-over racers drive $750,000 Jaguars over a road circuit.

“This sure was a nice way to learn how to drive these cars,” Hill said after finishing second to Parnelli Jones.

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Trivia answer: Patty Berg, in 1946, at Spokane, Wash.

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Quotebook: Chi Chi Rodriguez, on why he refuses to use a long-handled putter: “If I’m going to miss a putt, I want to look good doing it.”