Who Was That Guy With the Gray Hair?

Paul Newman, who does not give out autographs, was riding his motorbike along the fence at a recent Indy car race when he noticed a spectator waving a piece of paper at him.

“Hey, fella, can you get Mario [Andretti] to sign this for me?” the fan yelled through the fence.

The Oscar-winning actor and car owner couldn’t resist. He took the paper, rode his bike to the garage, got Andretti’s autograph and returned with it.

“Hey, thanks, pal,” the fan said.

Trivia time: Who was the first player selected in the first major league baseball draft?

The whole works: After Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Steve Parris failed to get out of the first inning against the Florida Marlins, he said, “I basically stunk. I embarrassed myself, my team and my dog.”

Tough league: California opened its 1994 season by losing to Western Athletic Conference underdogs San Diego State and Hawaii. This season they opened by getting buried by San Diego again, 33-9.

“It seems to me that the WAC is on a mission to whack the Pac-10,” Cal Coach Keith Gilbertson said last Wednesday.

Saturday, the whacking continued as Fresno State beat the Bears, 25-24.

Anything else?Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Bill Lyon, after Ricky Watters’ opening game as the Eagles’ new running back, called his performance “the most graceless, clueless, classless debut by a professional athlete in Philadelphia in memory.”

Matched pair: Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner notes that 49er Coach George Seifert grew up in San Francisco and Raider Coach Mike White grew up in Oakland.

“What are the odds on that happening? Probably a lot higher than the odds on a 49ers-Raiders Super Bowl,” he wrote.

Name change: San Francisco Giant Manager Dusty Baker, discussing the size of 6-foot-4 shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., says, “Maybe Cal might get shortstop changed to ‘bigstop.’ ”

Keep going: Ripken passed Lou Gehrig with his 2,131st consecutive game, but he has yet to catch the all-time Iron Man. Sachio Kinugasa played 2,215 consecutive games for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of Japan’s Central League from Oct. 19, 1970, to Oct. 22, 1987.

Did Jerry forget?When Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones announced a seven-year deal with Nike, he said, “This is a marriage of two organizations that transcend sports in the United States.”

To which San Francisco Chronicle columnist Tom FitzGerald commented: “Where does that leave the 49ers, who transcended the Cowboys twice last season?”

The Bs have it: Before a recent game in Pittsburgh, batting practice had to be called off so a thick swarm of bees could be removed from back of second base. Said Pirate publicist Jim Trdinich: “We haven’t had so much excitement over bees since Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla left.”

Trivia answer: Rick Monday, by Kansas City in 1965.

Quotebook: Wide receiver Tim Brown, on the Oakland Raider offense: “We’re going to nickel-and-dime people. In the past, we always went for the quarter.”