His 15 Minutes of Fame Turned Into 15 Seconds

Remember Sam Young, the Dallas grocery clerk who was fired for wearing a Green Bay Packer shirt to work?

Young had a few days of celebrity--the Letterman show called--but then things went into reverse. Last Wednesday, he was arrested for alleged possession of marijuana.

First to call after the arrest was the Letterman show representative, who told Young not to come to New York.

Also up in smoke went a job offer from a sports bar and negotiations with “Hard Copy” and other TV shows for paid interviews.

The celebrity life just wasn’t for him, Young said.

“What little hair I’ve got is falling out,” said Young, 26.

“I was a very large topic. I’m not a limelight person. I just like going about my life.”

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Zoom! Zap! The late Art Ross, the man credited with inventing the NHL’s puck, probably would approve of the new Tinkerbell-like glowing puck, designed for better TV viewing.

Ross’ son, John Ross, told the Boston Globe: “He’d probably have been in favor of it. He was never much on electronics but I think his feeling would have been: ‘Show me.’ And if it worked, hey, he wasn’t against progress.”

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Trivia time: What major league baseball player had the longest career under one manager?

How Soon They Forget: New York columnist Mike Lupica wrote recently: “[Troy] Aikman is chasing Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, the best quarterbacks to ever play on the last Sunday in January.”

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Whoa! Hey, Mike--ever hear of Joe Namath?

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Shut up, Ty: UMass basketball player Tyrone Weeks, Marcus Camby’s roommate, on what it was like when Camby was hospitalized recently for tests:

“We are like brothers, we do everything together and this was the longest time we’ve been apart. It was lonely in the hotel. I’m used to talking at night . . . until Marcus tells me to shut up.”

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Cardinal flight? While Phoenix’s NFL Cardinals are making sounds they’ll take flight if they can’t get a new stadium, the outlook for the city’s new major league baseball team, the Diamondbacks, is dramatically different.

The team has 43,000 season ticket requests for its 48,500-seat, $300-million, retractable-domed stadium. The stadium, yet to be built, will be funded by taxpayers.

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Fish story? No one believed anything put out by the Tass News Agency in the Cold War era, so should anyone believe this?

The agency reported recently a fisherman in Russia caught a 28-inch pike, a species famed for needle-like teeth.

Tass said the man was so happy with his catch, he kissed the pike . . . and was promptly bitten on the nose. The fish wouldn’t let go, not even after it died. And not even after the man’s pals cut its head off.

The man was taken to a hospital, Tass reported, holding the fish head to his nose, where doctors surgically liberated the man’s nose.

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Trivia answer: Don Drysdale, 14 seasons under the Dodgers’ Walter Alston.

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Quotebook: The late pool hustler, Minnesota Fats, recalling a 1961 Johnston City, Ill., match with another hustler, Cornbread Red Birge: “I told him when we started: ‘When I get through with you, they’ll call you ‘No Bread Red.’ ”