If Anyone Was Talking Trash, Receptacles Were Easy to Find
Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner recalled his favorite soccer story:
“One year, the El Salavador captain approached Britain’s Sir Alf Ramsey and inquired how he should get his team ready for the World Cup.
“ ‘You arrange 11 garbage cans in a row around the field and dribble through them endlessly,’ his Lordship advised.
“Later, Ramsey contacted El Capitan to ask him how the tactics were working. ‘The garbage cans are ahead two games to nil,’ ” he replied.
Trivia time: Who is the last Dodger to hit 40 or more home runs in a season?
Five of a kind: Aces were wild Saturday at the Lake Placid (N.Y.) Club Resort as five golfers had holes in one.
Club pro Ed Kreil said there was only one hole in one at the resort all last season.
In 1989, at the U.S. Open at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., Doug Weaver, Mark Wiebe, Jerry Pate and Nick Price recorded holes in one on the same hole--the par-three sixth measuring 160 yards--on the same day. Each used a seven-iron.
ZZZZZZZ: Joe Falls of the Detroit News described a recent game between the Tigers and the Minnesota Twins:
“They started at 7:06 and ended at 11:38. That’s not a night game. That’s a home stand.”
Greasy: Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry has a new collectible priced at $39. It’s a jar of petroleum jelly, the stuff Perry used to apply illegally to baseballs.
Each jar bears Perry’s autograph and is numbered 1 through 3,534, his strikeout total.
The 13 club: When rookie pitcher Bill Van Landingham made his debut with the San Francisco Giants recently, he became the 13th player in major league history with 13 letters in his last name.
There has never been a 14-letter man in the majors.
Truly rank: Ron Borges of the Boston Globe commented on the current rating system of boxers:
“If the men who rate professional boxers were rating restaurants, a four-star designation would guarantee you a case of botulism.”
State sentence: It’s presumed that Houston’s Vernon Maxwell is satisfied culturally that the Rockets are playing the New York Knicks in the NBA finals.
During the Western Conference championship series against the Utah Jazz, he incensed fans in Salt Lake City by saying: “None of the guys like the city of Utah. It’s the most boring place in the world. We were there four days. It seemed like four years.”
Trivia answer: Duke Snider, with 40 in 1957.
Quotebook: Author David Halberstam, a Madison Square Garden season ticket-holder: “It sounds to me like it’s time to trade Spike Lee.”
