Hanks, Brown and Kennedy? A Dynamic Trio for Manager

Before Kevin Kennedy was named manager of the Boston Red Sox, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe had his own candidates. A sampling:

--”Tom Hanks. He was great as Jimmy Dugan in ‘A League of Their Own.’

--”Larry Brown. He could use another team on his resume.

--”Ted Kennedy. Why not? He knows the region and his grandfather threw out the first ball when Fenway Park was dedicated in 1912.”

Trivia time: What is the NCAA Division I-A record for most punts in a game?

Grow up: Steve Jacobson of Newsday on excessive showboating in the NFL:

“Imagine Gene Sarazen dancing a jig in his knickers when he made his double eagle.”

Jacobson added that Paul Brown, the famous football coach, had simple advice for his players who reached the end zone:

“Act like you’ve been there before.”

Ordinary people: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Jeff Tarango, losing to Michael Chang in Tokyo, drops his tennis shorts to his knees, apparently a sign of surrender.

“It’s like we’ve been trying to tell you about those star athletes: They’re human, they pull their pants down two legs at a time, just like the rest of us.”

Hold the pickles: Croatian-born Vladimir Cerin, one of the leading trainers at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting, earned a graduate degree in kinesiology at UCLA and helped train such athletes as Tracy Austin, Jamaal Wilkes and Bill Walton before turning to horses.

He says training horses is trickier than humans, but that it is much easier to watch their nutrition. “It’s very difficult for a horse to sneak out to McDonald’s,” Cerin said.

Can’t be done: Billy Cunningham, general manager of Avilla (Ind.) Motor Speedway, on a proposal to put mufflers on dragsters because of complaints from neighbors about the noise:

“That would be like watching figure skating without music.”

Flash! Bob Kravitz in the Rocky Mountain News: “I went to a hockey game and a labor fight broke out.”

Ho hum: It’s doubtful the NBA will expand to Pittsburgh. A recently scheduled exhibition between the New Jersey Nets and Atlanta Hawks at the city’s Civic Arena was canceled because only 1,000 tickets had been sold.

Selling point: The Chicago Wolves of the International Hockey League aren’t shy about capitalizing on the major league labor problems in their promotions. Or, as they said in a recent print advertisement:

“Introducing a revolutionary concept in professional sports: actual games.”

Trivia answer: 77--39 by Texas Tech and 38 by Centenary on Nov. 11, 1939. Note: The game was played in a rainstorm in Shreveport, La.

Quotebook: Bob Uecker on Philadelphia Phillie fans: “You know what they do when the game is rained out? They go to the airport and boo bad landings.”