Your Vital Signs Could Depend on Remembering This Statistic

Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post proposes that the NFL abolish the draft and cites some benefits:

“Draftniks could enter therapy and learn the difference between a vital statistic and meaningless trivia.

“The birth date of your spouse is vital. The 40-yard dash time of a cornerback from Texas A & M Kingsville is not.”

And: “(Mel) Kiper could be returned to his proper place. He again would be a sports geek talking back to the TV rather than a sports geek talking on TV.”

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Trivia time: Who was the first Angel pitcher to win 20 games?

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Dirt man: Dennis Rodman of the San Antonio Spurs does the dirty work in the NBA, digging out rebounds. He is also literally into dirt, as the owner of an excavation company in Frisco, Tex.

“He doesn’t know dirt, but he asks the right questions,” said Rod Bilhauer, who runs the 75-employee company for Rodman. “Sometimes, I think he would rather do dirt than basketball.”

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Duck talk: Cincinnati’s Kevin Mitchell recently sat out a game against the Montreal Expos’ Kirk Rueter, prompting a question on whether he was trying to duck left-handed pitchers.

Said Mitchell: “I don’t duck left-handers. I don’t duck right-handers. I don’t even duck gunshots.”

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Air Anderson: Greg (Cadillac) Anderson of the Detroit Pistons missed five of six free throws in a recent game against Milwaukee, prompting teammate Sean Elliott to tell him:

“If you were still in college, they would have nabbed you for point shaving.”

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Pioneer spirit: Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe has a love affair with Fenway Park, ancient home of the Red Sox:

“Go ahead, America, laugh at us. Sit in your climate-controlled Skydomes with Hard Rock Cafes in right field. We’ll walk up the sticky, smelly ramps that our fathers and our grandfathers climbed all those years.”

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Ho-hum: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, commenting on major league baseball players wearing patches commemorating the 125th anniversary of the professional game: “This is also the 125th anniversary of the periodic table of the elements, but I do not see chemists wearing patches on their smocks.”

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Just kidding: Now the NBA says the Calvin Murphy-Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf free-throw flap was nothing more than a joke. This after saying it was concerned Murphy interfered before Abdul-Rauf shot two free throws that could have broken Murphy’s single-season percentage record.

“Everybody was laughing about it,” said Rod Thorn, NBA vice president.

Even Abdul-Rauf, who missed the second of two free throws and failed to break Murphy’s record.

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For the record: Bill Munson was the last quarterback drafted by the Rams in the first round, in 1964, not Terry Baker as reported.

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Trivia answer: Dean Chance, with a 20-9 record in 1964.

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Quotebook: Jeff Innis, former New York Met pitcher, complaining that a photograph was not flattering to him: “That picture was taken out of context.”