Perhaps He Should Have Gone to an Arena Football Game

After watching the first five hours of “Baseball” on public television, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post writes:

“The documentary is as slow as the game it documents. I’m told it picks up after the first eight hours. But so did the Hundred Years War, and I wouldn’t have stuck around to see that either.

“Let’s see, ‘The Civil War’ lasted 12 hours, and this goes 18. I can’t wait for (Ken) Burns’ next big score: 25 hours on ‘Household Pets.’ ”

Perhaps, Kornheiser has a short attention span.

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Trivia time: Who holds the NCAA Division I-A record for touchdown passes in a season?

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Wishful thinking? With an unexpected 0-3 record, Arizona Cardinal Coach Buddy Ryan can be forgiven, perhaps, for being confused.

“I think you’re going to see a different Eagle offense next week. I hope you do,” Ryan said recently.

Asked if he meant the Cardinals, Ryan, a former Philadelphia Eagle coach, said, “I mean Cardinals. Get the right place, whatever it is.”

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War of words: Stanford Coach Bill Walsh reportedly took some cheap shots at Arizona in his book, “Rough Magic.”

Now, Cardinal defensive end Pete Swanson is accusing Arizona of taking cheap shots in last year’s game.

“I hate them,” he said. “I thought their offensive line was cheap. Under the pile, they’re grabbing your throat, punching your ribs.”

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Add book: Greg Hansen of the Arizona Daily Star writes that Walsh has provided added incentive for the Wildcats for their game against the Cardinal today.

In “Rough Magic,” he referred to Arizona as a “mercenary program,” and speaking of the players, said that one needed to “hose them off” before playing them.

Arizona Coach Dick Tomey said he hasn’t read the book and doesn’t intend to.

Walsh claims he wasn’t serious when he made those remarks.

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Fashion note: Tom Weir, in USA Today: “Sunday’s ‘throwback’ gig was a successful one for the NFL, even if the uniforms for Pittsburgh’s orange-and-black look from 1933 looked as if they were stolen from a South American marching band.”

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Post-mortem: After California had lost to San Diego State, 22-20, on Sept. 10, Bear quarterback Dave Barr said, “How do you deal with this? I mean, we lost to San Diego stinkin’ State.”

He was more subdued after last Saturday’s 21-7 upset by Hawaii, saying, “The only positive thing is, nobody died.”

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Spaceman: Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe writes that new San Antonio Spur assistant coach Dave Cowens spent a recent weekend helping run a mini-camp that was optional for veterans:

“David Robinson missed out because he was in Mexico filming a commercial, and Dennis Rodman wasn’t there because he was on Mars.”

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Trivial pursuit: Tom Cushman of the San Diego Union-Tribune, reflecting on San Diego State’s season-opening 56-14 victory over Navy:

“The Aztecs’ victory over Navy obviously can be dismissed as trivial--if football really did approximate war and Navy was an example, we’d be underdogs in Haiti.”

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Trivia answer: David Klingler of Houston, with 54 in 1990.

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Quotebook: Terry Hollimon of the University of Washington, on moving from tailback to outside linebacker: “My head feels different after practice than it did when I was a tailback. It’s like something is loose inside.”