If You’re Going to Dream, Then Dream Fast

Dennis Mitchell once had the most satisfying--yet frustrating--dream about running the perfect 100 meters. Three years ago, his dream stopped when he broke the tape and a number went up: 9.83.

“I throw up my hands at the line, and the dream cuts off,” Mitchell said in a recent story in Outside magazine about the world’s fastest men.

“It drove me crazy--I wanted to celebrate.”

The next day, he made sure that 9.83 would never leave his mind, scrawling it on pieces of paper and then taping it everywhere in his house, even on the toilet. He decided to name his fledgling music company 9.83 Records.

Guess that solves the problem of deciding how much to charge for the records. How about $9.83?

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Trivia time: What female tennis player has the most combined French Open titles--singles, doubles and mixed doubles?

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Whaler blues: If it wasn’t bad enough that Hartford didn’t make the NHL playoffs, the Whalers recently announced they lost $11.5 million in the lockout shortened season. Their payroll was about $16 million.

Now the Whalers are trying to lighten the load. One small step was trading prospect Jan Vopat to the Kings for a draft choice, so they wouldn’t have to give him a new contract and a $100,000 signing bonus.

“It’s not a hobby anymore when you lose $10 million,” Whaler General Manager Jim Rutherford told the Hartford Courant. “Sports have changed.”

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Rain delay, anyone? A recent game between two South African soccer teams, the Moroka Swallows and the QwaQwa Stars, was delayed 10 minutes when the Stars accused the Swallows of using magical powers against them.

According to a Soccer America report, the Stars said that a Swallow official splashed “magic water” on them beforehand and threatened them with a knobkerrie, a traditional African fighting stick.

The teams played to a 1-1 tie.

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Triple play: The answer to one of the toughest trivia questions is getting into the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame. Who is the only person to play for the Dodgers, New York Knicks and Rangers?

Organist Gladys Goodding.

The late Goodding, the only organist the Dodgers had at Ebbets Field, will be among the inductees on June 11. Among the others are pitcher Kirby Higbe, infielder Don Hoak and outfielder Pete Reiser.

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One opinion: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a recent interview with the New York Daily News, offered his view on who he thinks are the best college coaches in the game.

Indiana’s Bob Knight and Utah’s Rick Majerus.

“Their teaching skills are the best,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

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Trivia answer: Margaret Court, with 13. She won five singles, four doubles and four mixed doubles championships.

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Quotebook: Former Boston Bruin assistant coach Tom McVie, who says he has moved 60 times in his 39 years in hockey: “I’ve been fired more times than Custer’s pistol.”