Padres Issued Storm Warning by Neighbors

The Class A Lake Elsinore Storm didn’t win Monday night’s attendance battle with the National League’s San Diego Padres, but now they would like to do battle on the baseball diamond.

“Since we couldn’t beat them at the gate,” Storm General Manager Kevin Haughian said, “it might be fun to see how the players would size up on the field. We might not have won the attendance record, but we sure had fun trying.”

The Storm, capitalizing on the Padres’ poor attendance, had urged baseball fans to help the team outdraw the Padres. It wasn’t to be.

The Storm, an Angel farm team, drew 6,108 to the 7,566-seat Lake Elsinore diamond to watch the team beat the Stockton Ports, 3-2, and move into a tie for first place in the California League’s Southern Division. About 60 miles south, at 46,510-seat Jack Murphy Stadium, 9,195 watched the Padres lose, 4-3, to the Colorado Rockies.

*

Trivia time: How many major league players have won the Triple Crown of batting more than once?

*

Oh, that guy: Don Nelson, coach of this year’s Dream Team II, was talking about Dream Team I, the Olympic champions.

“I don’t know if there will ever be another Dream Team I because we had some of the biggest stars to ever play in the game at the end of their careers . . . like Magic, Bird and the other guy, the baseball player.”

*

A novel idea: Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a recommendation for major league baseball--a profit cap. He wrote:

“It would go something like this:

“Pick a fair figure, say, $5 million or $10 million. Once profits go above that amount, the cap goes into effect. Immediately, ticket prices are cut in half, concessions are cut by two-thirds. If there are profits above the cap at the end of the season, the money goes to charity.”

*

Good Samaritan: Richard Virenque of France, who finished fifth in the Tour de France, has pledged to turn over his $47,000 earnings to a relief agency helping Rwandan refugees.

Virenque also said he will auction his bicycle and polka-dot jersey, signifying the race’s best climber, and give the proceeds to relief for Rwanda.

*

High and mighty: Mariner Ken Griffey Jr.’s 36 home runs have traveled an estimated 14,645 feet. Mt. Rainier, which looms in Seattle’s background, is 14,410 feet high.

*

Short career: On July 27, 1918, rookie Henry Heitman of the Brooklyn Dodgers gave up four consecutive hits against the St. Louis Cardinals and then left the game, never to play pro baseball again.

*

Trivia answer: Two. Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1922 and ‘25, and Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox in 1942 and ’47.

*

Quotebook: Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove, on the Indians’ unfamiliarity with pennant pressure: “I’d rather play big games than little games. We played enough little ones to last us all a lifetime.”