Concentration Was More Than State of Mind

How different was Steve Carlton from everybody else who surrounded him during his days in the major leagues?

Jayson Stark, writing in Baseball America, describes a unique moment from the career of the recently elected Hall of Famer:

“People still talk about the game in West Palm Beach, Fla., back in the early 1980s in which an Expo hitter chopped a foul ball down the third base line off Carlton. Well, it was never Carlton’s style to waste time watching where foul-ball choppers wound up. So he turned immediately toward the plate to await a new ball.

“ ‘Except the third baseman picked the ball up,’ then-Expos broadcaster Tommy Hutton said, ‘and fired it back to the mound. And Lefty wasn’t looking, so it hit him right in the side of the head. And he never even flinched. It was like a fly ticked him.’ ”

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Mean feat: In Phil Berger’s new book, “Miracle on 33rd Street: The New York Knickerbockers Championship Season, 1969-70,” he writes about a cloth good-luck charm Willis Reed acquired along the way.

“The cloth featured a smirking pioneer holding a rifle to a pigeon on a perch and read: There’s a little meanness in everybody. . . .

“Basketball translation: Sometimes you have to find an opposing player who is not up to the ability, smarts or hustle and you must use your resources to exploit the other team’s ‘pigeon in sneakers.’ Reed brought this cloth into the Knicks locker room prior to the season and soon after the Knicks went on to win 17 straight games.”

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Trivia time: With Michael Jordan set to take a whack at baseball, who holds the major league record for career home runs by somebody named Jordan?

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Moorer power: At the news conference announcing Evander Holyfield’s April 22 fight against Michael Moorer, Holyfield got a display of Moorer’s power.

Moorer, dressed in combat fatigues, strode up and pounded the podium with his right fist, splintering it.

Holyfield, the World Boxing Assn. and International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion, sounded like he enjoyed the prop-gag. “I’m glad to have the opportunity to display my talent,” Holyfield said. “And I’m glad I’m not a podium.”

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Boss Angelos: Mega-rich Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos certainly hasn’t gone out of his way to quiet talk that he might run for state office or buy an NFL franchise.

Writes Baltimore Sun columnist Ken Rosenthal: “One minute, Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer is urging Angelos to enter the gubernatorial race. The next, he’s talking to him about buying the Los Angeles Rams or Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”

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Trivia answer: 46, by Ricky Jordan of the Phillies, 46.

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Quotebook: Fred Couples on the antics of Bill Murray at the recent AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am: “I really like Bill, but I don’t think I’d ever go down to a set where he’s shooting a movie and jump and scream like a maniac.”