USC Found Back Door to Rose Bowl

A picture of Jon Arnett in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated identified the former USC running back as leading the Trojans to the Rose Bowl in the 1954 season.

That’s correct even though USC lost to UCLA, 34-0, as the Bruins concluded a 9-0 season and shared the national championship with Ohio State.

So why was USC in the Rose Bowl game?

UCLA was denied an opportunity to play against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl because of a no-repeat rule that existed at the time in the Pacific Coast Conference-Big Ten pact.

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Add Rose Bowl: Ohio State defeated USC, 20-7, on Jan. 1, 1955.

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Trivia time: Who holds the Los Angeles Dodger season record for highest batting average as a left-handed hitter?

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Clip and save: Tim Keown in the San Francisco Chronicle: “This season’s prime candidate for a 2.9-yards-per-carry average: Ricky Watters.”

Watters is, of course, the former 49er running back now playing for the Philadelphia Eagles.

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Cozy crowd: Tom Kite told Golf World that one of the few positives about his current slump is that not many fans have witnessed it.

“Nobody has seen me,” said the 1992 U.S. Open champion. “I’ve been playing literally in front of 10s and 10s of people.”

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Counterpoint: Robert Lipsyte, in a New York Times column, suggested that Cal Ripken Jr. should end his streak of consecutive games played when he has tied the record or come within one game of tying it, as a tribute to Lou Gehrig.

Reader George Kiseda writes that Ripken should say to Lipsyte: “Hey, Bob, if you have a chance to write a column better than anything Red Smith ever wrote, will you promise me you won’t write it--as a tribute to the greatest sports writer of them all?”

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Wedding gift: The honeymoon was over for Tony Gannarelli with a little more than a minute left in the sixth round Saturday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, when Britain’s Eamonn Loughran stopped him in his defense of the World Boxing Organization welterweight title.

Gannarelli took the fight on short notice after South Africa’s Luvuyo Kakaza withdrew, and made it into a honeymoon trip by bringing his newlywed wife along to Belfast.

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Concession: Another off-the-wall comment from Phil Rizzuto, New York Yankee broadcaster, who recently retired at the age of 77:

Following a bulletin in 1978 that Pope Paul VI had died, he said: “Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankees win.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1977, Steve Garvey hit three doubles and two home runs, one a grand slam, in leading the Dodgers to an 11-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

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Trivia answer: Wally Moon, .328 in 1961.

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Quotebook: Pittsburgh coach Rich Donnelly, when asked if the Pirates were a young team: “We had our father-son game the other day. Our guys thought they were supposed to call their fathers to come in for the game.”