Ballplayers: Always Know Your Audience

Shortstop Robert Eenhoorn of the New York Yankees idolized Ryne Sandberg, second baseman with the Chicago Cubs. So when Sandberg wrote a book, Eenhoorn devoured it.

Not long afterward, Eenhoorn was watching a game from behind home plate, according to Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe, when he spotted a man wearing a Cub jacket. Eenhoorn began talking to the man about Sandberg and mentioned that he had read what Sandberg had written.

“I couldn’t believe the things in the book,” Eenhoorn told the man. “I can’t believe what a jerk that GM was.”

The general manager referred to in the book was Larry Himes. The man Eenhoorn was talking to was . . . Larry Himes.

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Trivia time: How many Pacific 10 Conference football players have been honored as Rhodes scholars?

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Not so golden: Jack Nicklaus, 55, is having difficulty adjusting to life outside the ranks of golf’s reigning superstars.

“Now when I return from a tournament,” he explains, “my friends say, ‘Nice playing, Jack,’ if I finish fifth or sixth.

“It used to be that if I finished sixth in a big event, they would say, ‘Too bad, Jack.’ I’d like to hear that again.”

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Attention, Dan Reeves: Jimmy Johnson, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, told Inside Sports that he has no strong desire to return to the NFL--with one exception.

“I know this is out of the blue, but New York is a little intriguing to me,” he said. “It’s got kind of a magic name. You have to say it twice: New York, New York.

“But it’s a remote possibility. An offer’s remote, and me accepting would probably be remote. But it’s the only non-warm-weather site I might--I don’t know--at least scratch my head about.”

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Shorter, not sweeter: From Gary Shelton in the St. Petersburg Times: “I know why baseball owners want to shorten games by a half-hour. But don’t they realize that’s going to give the Mets more time on the streets?”

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The great motivator: Assistant coach Joe Bugel of the Oakland Raiders told the San Jose Mercury News why he has always displayed so much enthusiasm about coaching.

“I worked for Woody Hayes for a year and a half at Ohio State,” Bugel explained, “and if you weren’t enthusiastic there, he’d hit you with that powerful left hand of his.”

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U better believe it: Montreal Expo starting pitcher Ugueth Urbina’s middle name is Urtain. That makes him the only player in major league history with the initials U.U.U.

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Trivia answer: Two--USC’s Pat Haden in 1975 and Stanford’s Cory Booker in 1992.

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Quotebook: Deion Sanders, commenting on a recent television show he flipped to: “They said this guy was ignorant, selfish, egotistical. I said, ‘Damn, they’re really dogging someone.’ Then, they flashed a picture of me. They were talking about me.”