Horses Should Have Been Dead in Heats

In 1873, at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park racetrack, two horses, Bingaman and Mart Jordan, finished in a dead-heat in a mile and three-quarter race.

At that time, in dead-heat finishes, the horses used to immediately have a runoff at the same distance. It resulted in another dead-heat. Then a third. Finally, on the fourth try, Bingaman managed to stagger home one length in front of Mart Jordan.

The odds against it happening are calculated to be astronomical.

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Trivia time: Which NFL quarterbacks share the dubious record for most sacks in a game?

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Cinema catastrophe: From Jay Leno on Mike Tyson’s broken thumb: “Imagine if that happened to Siskel and Ebert--it would be a career-ending injury.”

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Heady stuff: Free lance writer Norman Chad writes that there is a helmet problem in the NFL’s AFC Central Division:

“The Browns have no insignia, the Steelers have one only on the right side, the Oilers have oil wells and the Bengals have that jungle stuff.’ ‘

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Proper priority: Organizers in Midvale, Utah have balked at housing 2,002 Winter Olympics athletes in two rundown apartment buildings near a toxic waste cleanup site.

But it might be all right as a place to put up some of the 10,000 journalists expected to cover the games, they say.

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Evil forces: Kevin Malone, who resigned as Montreal Expo player personnel director because he could no longer tolerate small-market disadvantages, told Christian magazine in New England: “This game is now controlled by Satan.”

Wrote Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Oooh I hate when that happens. And not even the Prince of Darkness can do anything about these umpires.”

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Busy signal: Tom Weir in USA Today: “About that NCAA TV commercial on where a student should phone with questions on eligibility. Shouldn’t that be an 800 number?”

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Belle’s bell: From the Not-So-Great Moments in Sports by Michael J. Pellowski: “When sports reporter Allison Gordon of the Toronto Star entered the Toronto Blue Jays locker room in 1980 to do an interview, she used a unique warning system to alert players who weren’t properly clothed that she was on her way.

“Gordon used a small bell presented to her by Barry Bonnell, an outfielder on the 1980 Toronto team.”

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Familiar team: After the St. Louis Rams lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 44-10, on Oct. 22, defensive end Fred Stokes said, “We played like the Los Angeles Rams.”

That L.A. label is hard to shake as the Rams then lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-9, last Sunday.

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Trivia answer: Bert Jones of Baltimore against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1980 and Warren Moon of Houston against Dallas in 1985--12.

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Quotebook: Peter Gammons in the Boston Globe on managers trying to get along with George Steinbrenner: “The ideal Yankee manager isn’t Joe McCarthy, it’s Charlie McCarthy.”