Don’t Ask, but Here Are Answers

In response to popular demand (four letters) and because I need the day off, I am reinstituting the tried-and-true journalistic tactic made famous by the late Jimmy Cannon. He called it “Nobody Asked Me But . . . “ I think I’ll just call mine “Son of Nobody Asked Me But . . . “ As in:

1. I don’t go to any movies with Ninja in the title.

2. When those guys on tour pull out that long putter that comes up to their chins, I automatically root for them to miss.

3. I don’t watch any title fights with junior or super in the designation.

4. I didn’t give Riddick Bowe a round.

5. I think if Bowe and Evander Holyfield fought 50 times, they would win 20 apiece and the other 10 would be draws. And every decision would be split.

6. I know why the Brits riot at soccer games. They badly need a war. When they don’t get one every 30 or 40 years, when the Germans don’t fly at their throats every generation, they turn on each other.

7. That was the worst pitching I have ever seen in a World Series.

8. You can’t base things on one World Series, but Paul Molitor may be the best hitter in the game today. I know Joe Carter’s homer will linger longer in history, but Molitor beat the Phillies.

9. Cito Gaston should be manager of the year. He won a championship in 1992 with Jimmy Key and Jack Morris. And won a championship in 1993 without Jimmy Key or Jack Morris. If you think that’s easy, you don’t know baseball.

10. I think Jim Fregosi should have left Roger Mason in Game 6. But by now, so does Jim Fregosi.

11. I’ll never get used to the idea of some of my sports idols selling their autographs for $10,000.

12. Maybe the most unattainable record in baseball is not Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak but Ty Cobb’s 2,245 runs scored. Only three active player have more than 1,500 and Dave Winfield is 42, Robin Yount is 38, and Rickey Henderson will be 36 next month and will need 100 a year for seven years to catch up.

13. I don’t understand how the airlines are losing money when every flight I get on lately has a couple of dozen on stand-by.

14. When I tell you one young man had just split a man’s head open with an ax a few months back and the other had fractured a girl’s skull with a paving block and both of them were out walking the streets armed to kill Michael Jordan’s father, I have told you all you need to know about the American justice system.

15. When I tell you the guy who stabbed Monica Seles is a free man, you’ll have to wonder if they gave him his knife back.

16. I think that para-glider who jumped into the ring at the Bowe-Holyfield fight should be sentenced to 12 rounds with Bowe, whose wife almost miscarried when the para-glider passed over her head.

17. That was a great leaping catch Lenny Dykstra made in Game 2 of the Series, but DiMaggio would have been waiting for it.

18. I wish the Raiders could have gotten Boomer Esiason, but I have to admit Jeff Hostetler is a lot better than I thought he was.

19. I don’t ever remember Willie Mays making an out when the game was on the line.

20. I get so tired of those NFL telecasts where they keep putting up graphics showing you how many first downs were made on third and long but never tell you who’s winning. The score is the only stat that means anything. The German army made a lot of first downs.

21. Buying shoes on the road is always a crapshoot. I got a closet full of shoes too small or too big. Funny thing is, they’re all the same size.

22. Movie couples kiss like lions biting.

23. If the Angels get rid of Luis Polonia and get Vince Coleman, someone should be prosecuted.