These Games Are All Relative on Vegas Strip
Everyone in Las Vegas wasn’t taken with the World Cup hype surrounding Sunday’s draw for next year’s soccer extravaganza.
Brandee, a bell captain at the Flamingo Hilton, says she hadn’t heard about the World Cup until Friday.
“But I’d been off for three days,” she said.
Said William Postorino, a cab driver: “I didn’t know about it until I came to work this morning. When I got to Caesars and saw all this soccer stuff, I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ ”
Referring to the schedule at the convention center, another cabbie said: “I thought all there was this weekend was a Ping-Pong tournament.”
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Trivia time: Who is golf’s all-time leading money winner?
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Lights out: Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone says the NBA has told him he can’t wear his blinking “L.A. Tech” signature shoes during games.
“What’s wrong with them? Just because they blink?” Malone said, adding that he expected to continue wearing them.
The shoes contain a tiny light in the heel that blinks each time the Mailman takes a step.
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Let the hype begin: Already looking forward to a possible San Francisco-Kansas City (read: Steve Young-Joe Montana) Super Bowl, Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner writes: “It’ll be the Super Bowl we’ve all thought the Super Bowl can be, no matter how many aging stars decline the offer to sing the national anthem.”
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Add Super Bowl: Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that kickoff for the game Jan. 30 will be at 6:18 p.m. EST, “barring an outbreak of global war, whereupon it will be moved back one hour.”
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In his image: Andre Agassi might be starting another trend. According to Tennis magazine, Michael Stich shaved his chest hair, a la Agassi, at the request of his wife, Jessica.
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He knows: Former Miami Dolphin fullback Larry Csonka says he knows how Don Shula keeps his team so motivated.
“It’s a Hungarian tradition that goes back to Attila the Hun,” Csonka said.
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Quick riches: Brandie Burton became the youngest player in LPGA history to win $1 million when she accomplished the feat at 21. It took the San Bernardino golfer only 2 years 180 days. Nancy Lopez, who did it at 26, previously was the youngest to win $1 million.
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Magic is gone: Columnist Bud Geracie of the San Jose Mercury News notes that things have changed since “Showtime” was the rallying cry at the once Fabulous Forum. He wrote: “Watched the Lakers-Warriors game and the once-glittery Forum now comes across the TV like a juco gym.”
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An investment: Vanity license plates cost a little extra, but sometimes pay a dividend. Victoria Stolke of Trevor, Wis., has CUBS 60 on her plates. According to Paul White of USA Today Baseball Weekly, it saved her a traffic ticket when the officer turned out to be a Cub fan.
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More vanity: Mark Pankin of Arlington, Va., lets everyone know his feelings about baseball’s designated hitter rule by displaying NO DH.
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Geography lesson: Television commentator Mary Bryan, discussing the field for the Oldsmobile golf tournament: “There are European players here from all over the world.”
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Time killer: The Killington ski area in Vermont claims to have the longest ski lift in the United States. It takes 28 minutes to take skiers on the 3 1/2-mile gondola ride to the summit.
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Conflict of interest: The state Lutheran Church of Norway doesn’t want the Olympic anthem played at February’s Winter Olympics in Lillehammer because it interprets the hymn as a prayer to Zeus, supreme god of ancient Greece.
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Indigestion: According to Golf Digest, a farmer in Sweden sued a nearby golf course when her cows died because of blocked “gaseous transfer.”
Translation: The cows swallowed too many stray golf balls.
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Trivia answer: Tom Kite, with $8,500,729.
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Quotebook: Jay Leno, after Pat Knight--son of Bob--got kicked out of an Indiana basketball game for losing his temper and fighting with an opponent: “Boy, kids today. Where do they learn this kind of behavior?”
