He Hasn’t Bled, So a Judgment Is Put on Hold

New England Patriot Coach Bill Parcells isn’t quite ready to attribute greatness to his rookie quarterback, Drew Bledsoe of Washington State.

“Bledsoe has the tools to be great. Say it that way,” Parcells told Ron Borges of the Boston Globe. “But we haven’t seen him get sacked six times and throw four interceptions and answer all your questions and get on the bus and go home and come back the next day ready to play.

“We haven’t seen him bleeding from the mouth. You have to see those things.”

It’s presumed that Bledsoe would as soon pass.

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Trivia time: Who holds the major league pitching record for most one-hit games?

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Ultimate frustration: From the book “Mulligan’s Laws” on golf, edited by Henry Beard:

“No matter how badly you’re playing, it is always possible to play worse.

“Whatever you think you’re doing wrong is the one thing you’re doing right.

“Any change works for three holes.”

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Bloody awful: Columnist Ian Wooldrige of the London Daily Mail is appalled by the atmosphere and rudeness of fans at the U.S. Open.

“There are several aspects about the National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadow, New York, that astonish me,” Wooldrige writes. “The first is that, given the quantities of Semtex (an explosive) recently available, no one has blown the joint sky high.

“There may be more horrific venues to stage Open Tennis Championships, but outside the Khyber Pass and Death Valley, Calif., they do not readily come to mind.”

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Last request: Another sign of Montana Mania in Kansas City: A woman wondered if Joe would sign the urn containing her husband’s ashes before they were buried.

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Merely a homebody: Julia Ruth Stevens, 75, daughter of Babe Ruth, said that movies depicting her father as a hard-drinking womanizer are not accurate.

“They portray someone I don’t know,” she said. “It makes me wish more people had known him as I did. Everyone thinks he was a carouser. I remember him sitting at home, playing rummy or checkers and listening to the radio with us.”

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Soccer doctor: Taylor Buckley of USA Today has some suggestions on improving soccer’s popularity in the United States, such as:

“Put some numbers on the old scoreboard. Soccer has more zeroes than tick-tack-toe. Heck, you hit one ball in tennis and get 15 points. Soccer goals are so few and far between, they ought to be worth 25.”

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Trivia answer: Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians with 12.

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Quotebook: Notre Dame senior linebacker Anthony Peterson on why he enjoys playing football: “I can hit people and not get into trouble.”