Red Sox Flirting With Title? Wait a Minute, It’s a Dream

Spring training is beautiful. Spring training is art. Red Sox spring training is a water-color study in still life, Dan Shaughnessy wrote in the Boston Globe on the first day in camp at Ft. Myers, Fla. He went on:

“After watching 2 1/2 hours of grueling drills, there can be only one conclusion: It looks like the pennant will be Boston’s. The Sox are bound to grab the gonfalon. It’s the Impossible Dream Redux. Your baseball team is a team of destiny.

“None of the above is true, but we thought you’d enjoy reading it anyway. It’s been a long, awful winter, and the New England mind deserves a flirtation with the prospect of the Red Sox winning it all for the first time in 76 years.”

Trivia time: Other than UCLA, how many Pacific 10 teams have won the NCAA basketball championship?

Ready or not: Mark Soltau of the San Francisco Examiner questioned whether John Daly will be ready to return to the PGA Tour in the tournament at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., March 10-13.

Wrote Soltau: “While there’s no denying his long, aggressive swing is entertaining, he has yet to prove it will hold up on a weekly basis. Likewise for his concentration.

“A recovering alcoholic, Daly became frustrated and impatient with himself last year when his game didn’t measure up to expectations.

“A healthy, happy Daly is a real asset to the PGA Tour. Hopefully, he has learned another painful lesson and has his life and career in order. Golf needs Daly, but not at his own expense.”

Guilty conscience: Coastal Carolina basketball Coach Russ Bergman saw the movie, “Blue Chips,” and it moved him to confess to violating NCAA regulations.

Bergman said he bought plane tickets for star forwards Mohammed Acha and Dennis Pierre. Bergman said Acha was stranded in New York when he received a ticket, and Pierre’s ticket allowed him to travel home for Christmas. Bergman was reimbursed by Pierre’s high school coach.

Before the confession, the school suspended Bergman for recruiting violations. Bergman told the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun News that he decided to admit the violations after seeing the movie, which tells the story of a college coach struggling to follow the NCAA rules and still produce a winner.

“I know it was a violation,” Bergman said. “But it was only the humane thing to do. I take full responsibility for all I’ve done and I’ll accept whatever penalties they choose to give me.”

Trivia answer: Three--Oregon (1939), Stanford (1942) and California (1959).

Quotebook: Rocky Thompson, a member of the Senior PGA Tour, on his other job as mayor of Toco, Tex.: “If it was a paying job, someone might run and I might be out.”