It’s Still a Round Ball, Only Smaller

It’s Del Harris Night tonight in Richmond, Ind., his former home in more ways than one.

The town near the Ohio border is where he started a basketball coaching career, at Earlham College in the 1960s and ‘70s, that would eventually lead him to the Lakers.

And Harris, who was a semi-pro pitcher until his arm went dead when he was 32, used to work from the same Don McBride Stadium where the ceremonies will take place.

So the salute is a natural. Harris will throw out the first ball before a minor league game.

But that’s all. Just one pitch.

“It won’t take long,” Harris said. “There’s a fine line between warming up and wearing down.”

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Add homecomings: That’s no ordinary legacy heading to Indiana State in the fall. It is Corrie Bird, daughter of Larry from a marriage just after he left high school.

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Trivia time: The Milwaukee Bucks have had the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft three times. The two most memorable were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1969 and Glenn Robinson in 1994. Who was the other?

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Great question: Here’s one from Wayne Gretzky: How many takers would there have been in 1988 for a bet that, seven years hence, Los Angeles and Orange County would have two NHL teams and a minor-league hockey club but no pro football?

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Say what? The Colorado Silver Bullets have spent all this time trying to prove that women deserve respect as baseball players, but guess who they won’t play?

Women.

The Stockton Ports asked to add Lisa Martinez to its roster to be the starting pitcher against the Silver Bullets a few days ago. The Oakland-Alameda Fire Department team wanted to use at second base a woman who had played no baseball but is a former college softball player. Both requests were turned down, even though Martinez is a former Silver Bullet. Team president Bob Hope reasoned that his gender benders have a better chance to improve if they exclusively play all-male teams.

“Next season we are considering asking each team to include one female player--the best they can find--and use that as a way to help us scout new players for the Silver Bullets,” Hope said. “However, for the time being, we play only men. Period.”

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Trivia answer: Kent Benson in 1977.

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Quotebook: Simon Fletcher of the Denver Broncos, when told that teammate Rod Bernstine had turned down $25,000 to attend an unnamed Southwest Conference school in the 1980s: “He must not have been very good if that’s all he got.”