Hits Kept Coming as Ted Williams Kept Returning

Magic Johnson’s stunning comeback game Tuesday brings to mind another memorable return.

In the early 1950s, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams, a World War II combat pilot, was called back for Korean War service.

He was discharged late in the 1953 season, after missing roughly 1 1/2 seasons.

In the last 37 games of the ’53 season, he batted .407, drove in 34 runs and hit 13 home runs.

The next season, he broke his collarbone on the first day of spring training. Twelve weeks later, at age 35 and with a pin in his shoulder, he was put in the starting lineup for a doubleheader at Detroit.

Williams, before 42,957, went eight for nine, with five singles, a double and two upper-deck home runs. He was taken out of the nightcap in the eighth inning, after having gone five for five.

The Tigers won both games, 7-6 and 9-8.

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Trivia time: How many NHL players have scored 500 goals?

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For what it’s worth: Stanford, with five national championships, had the nation’s winningest Division I athletic program in 1994-95.

The top 10: 1. Stanford; 2. North Carolina; 3. UCLA; 4. Arizona; 5. Florida; 6. USC; 7. Michigan; 8. Penn State; 9. Nebraska; 10. Texas.

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Puck party? Feb. 14 will be the 100th anniversary of the first U.S. intercollegiate ice hockey game.

For the record: Yale beat Johns Hopkins, 2-1.

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Add hockey: Should the Edmonton Oilers bolt for the United States, only five of the NHL’s 26 teams would be Canadian--Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

“It’s sad to see. Hopefully the teams that are left won’t go,” said Montreal Canadien captain Pierre Turgeon, a native of Rouyn, Quebec. “Hockey is getting more popular in the United States and that’s what we want, but. . . .”

Said Commissioner Gary Bettman: “We’re trying not to move Canadian teams to the United States. We’re the national pastime of Canada, and we don’t want to do anything to diminish our role.”

The Quebec Nordiques are now in Colorado and the Winnipeg Jets are headed for Phoenix next season.

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Name game: Golf writer Ron Sirak, inspecting new merchandise at the PGA of America Merchandise Show at Orlando, Fla.:

“The best name has to go to the Mud Weasel, a ball retriever made by Executive Assembly Inc.”

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Add golf show: Sirak spotted Ian Baker-Finch, who last year at the British Open hit a tee shot on No. 1 that crossed the first fairway, the parallel 18th fairway and bounded into downtown St. Andrews, a hook of frightening proportions.

Sirak asked him what’s happened to his game since he won the 1991 British Open:

“I’m here selling hats,” Baker-Finch said.

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Trivia answer: St. Louis’ Dale Hawerchuk became the 23rd on Wednesday.

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Quotebook: Coach Pat Riley, unhappy over a possible move by the Miami Heat from downtown to a proposed new arena in neighboring Broward County: “I didn’t come here to coach in Broward. . . . I came here to coach in Miami.”