Barry’s World Comes to Life on the Shelves

“Bootlegger’s Boy,” Barry Switzer’s autobiography, sold out immediately in Dallas last week after the announcement that he was replacing Jimmy Johnson as the Cowboys’ coach.

Previously, Switzer’s book had not been a hot item. One chain even had hard-cover copies on its bargain table for $2.98.

Not anymore.

Trivia time: What was unusual about the 1957 NCAA championship basketball game between North Carolina and Kansas?

Crash course: The Philadelphia Phillies’ outfield is a dangerous place.

During spring training, Wes Chamberlain suffered a knee injury, Tom Marsh collapsed because of dehydration and Tony Longmire ran into a metal pole in left field and suffered a mild concussion.

“It’s the Bermuda Triangle out there,” outfielder Milt Thompson said.

Strategy: Al Davis predicts there will be some gamesmanship under the new NFL two-point conversion rule.

“You’ll see a lot of teams line up and try to draw the other team offsides,” the Raider owner said. “If it works, you move the ball to the one (yard line) and go for two. If it doesn’t, you take the delay penalty and kick the extra point from the seven.”

Modest man: Boxing promoter Don King on his favorite subject: “I never cease to amaze myself. I say this humbly.”

Bag man: Anthony Munoz, the former USC and Cincinnati Bengal offensive lineman, is back in show business, this time in a slightly more dignified manner.

Retired from the Bengals, Munoz has been hired as an NFL analyst by Fox television. His only other show business experience was a small part in “The Right Stuff,” a movie about the early astronauts. Munoz played a hospital orderly.

“I wound up walking (actor) Scott Glenn and another guy through the halls with enema bags,” he said. “I don’t know if that was a great opportunity or not.”

Priorities: The San Francisco Giants’ Willie McGee on his hitting slump in spring training:

“I don’t worry about hitting as much as the other things in life, like money.”

Car caravan: To save money this spring, Reds’ owner Marge Schott made every employee with a company car drive the 16 hours from Cincinnati to the club’s Plant City, Fla., training camp.

OK, we will: Otto Baric, coach of Austrian soccer club Casinos Salzburg, after he was suspended for spitting at an opposing player:

“I’m an idiot--you can write that.”

Teamwork: Colorado Rockies’ pitcher Marvin Freeman once crafted violin bows, but had to leave the finishing touches to a master.

“I was the middle reliever of bow making,” Freeman said. “He was the closer.”

Trivia answer: North Carolina won in three overtimes, 54-53.

Quotable: C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle on Barry Switzer as the coach of the Dallas Cowboys: “Somewhere, Tom Landry has just decided that he will skip dinner and is going to lie down for a while.”