Teams of the ‘90s Need to Nick Those Names, Get With Times

Bruce Keidan of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette would like to get rid of all team nicknames and start over:

“When is the last time you saw a panther, except in a zoo? What is a Buckeye? A Hawkeye? A Nittany Lion? A Hoya? Why should we care? With a modicum of effort we could replace the whole tired lot.

“Give me nicknames with relevance now. I yearn to see the New York Muggers take on the Washington Tax and Spenders, no matter what the sport.”

Add nicknames: Toronto’s new NBA team will be called the Raptors, a shortened version of the name for the velociraptor dinosaur in the movie “Jurassic Park.”

The team’s logo will be a snarling dinosaur dribbling a basketball.

A dinosaur dribbling?

Trivia time: How many times have the Dodgers played the New York Yankees in the World Series?

Twin Towers II: Remember when Hakeem Olajawon and Ralph Sampson of the Houston Rockets were called the Twin Towers?

Well, Sammie and Simeon Haley, 7-foot identical twins, have announced they intend to play at the University of Missouri.

Tee tied: Pro golfer Billy Mayfair and his longtime girlfriend Tammy McIntire were recently married near the 18th green of the Four Seasons/Tournament Players Course in Las Colinas, Tex.

“We’re going to be spending the rest of our lives on a golf course,” Mayfair said. “We thought we might as well be married on one.”

Eloquent: In replacing “Raider” with “Skyhawk” as the school’s new nickname, President Joel M. Jones of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., said:

“The skyhawk is a powerful image in flight--the symbol of our efforts to conduct our daily lives from the higher plane of vision and understanding.”

Ageless ace: At 81 and with failing eyesight, Philip Lopiano no longer can see the pins. It didn’t matter.

Lopiano recently got the third hole in one of his 66-year golfing career. All three aces have come on the par-three 17th at Glen Brook Country Club in Stroudsburg, Pa.

Naughty, naughty: When the Chicago Blackhawks played their final game in Chicago Stadium, a woman tried to steal the door off the women’s rest room in the second balcony.

She was caught and stadium officials made her put it back.

Easy sell: Blackie Sherrod in the Dallas Morning News: “Headline: ‘George Foreman Talked Out of Retirement.’ Whoo boy. Bet that took some talking. Like two words, one of which was four and the other, million.”

Trivia answer: Eleven times.

Quotebook: Whitey Herzog, former St. Louis Cardinal manager, on playing in Candlestick Park: “Sitting in the dugout is like sitting in the bottom of a toilet. All that tissue blows in, and no one flushes it.”