Now You Have to Pray You Get Good Seats

Surely you know about PSLs. Personal seat licenses, or charging a one-time fee of hundreds or thousands of dollars for the right to buy a season ticket for a particular seat.

According to the Associated Press, it’s a trend that got its start in the ‘80s--the 1880s.

A curator at the Tennessee State Museum says recently discovered documents show members of a Presbyterian church in Nashville paid for choice pews.

Churches have given way to athletic stadiums, given the modern change in religion, but the equivalent of the 50-yard line was important even in the PSL pew business.

Said curator Jim Hoobler: “You probably paid more to be closer to the front.”

Trivia time: When did the Sacramento King franchise win the NBA title?

And I breathe a lot: Jockey Nick Santagata was in stable condition in a New York hospital after breaking six ribs and fracturing his sternum in a spill at Aqueduct. “I’m OK, except it hurts when I breathe,” he said.

Etched in stone: Greg Cote of the Miami Herald doesn’t like the chances of a team from the AFC, any team from the AFC, in the Super Bowl.

Cote said the NFC will win the Super Bowl again, “just as it has every year since players wore turtle-shell helmets and coaches etched game plans on stone tables, like when Marv Levy started out.”

Herr Gourmet: Peter Graf, the father of tennis star Staffi Graf, is jailed in Mannheim, Germany, on tax charges. But he isn’t starving, according to the German publication Bild.

In fact, Graf is enjoying gourmet meals, catered daily by a luxury hotel in Mannheim. Bild said the main dish Graf ordered for his Christmas Day menu was venison in a hazelnut crust.

Holmes for holidays: After two years of sponsoring it, former heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes backed out of the Christmas turkey giveaway for the Boys and Girls Club in Easton, Pa.

“I just think that people take people for granted, and I don’t want to be taken for granted anymore,” Holmes said.

The $3,000 turkey tab was picked up by somebody else.

Uh, intuition? How did Marshall Coach Jim Donnan learn he wasn’t out of the running for the Georgia football job after all? He was working off some of his Christmas meal when his wife called to tell him Athletic Director Vince Dooley was on the phone.

“I knew he wasn’t calling to wish me a Merry Christmas,” Donnan said.

Good reasoning: If anything made Tommy Bolt madder than missing a shot, it was having someone ask why he threw clubs.

In fact, Bolt had an answer prepared: “I never threw a golf club that didn’t deserve it.”

Trivia answer: In 1950-51 as the Rochester Royals.

Quotebook: Dennis Scott of the Orlando Magic said a two-point victory over the Houston Rockets wasn’t revenge: “The bottom line is they’ve still got the rings on their fingers.”