At $500 a Game, He Had It Made ‘Til He Checked

George Yardley, a standout player for Stanford and the NBA in the 1940s and 1950s, was recently elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

His last season of pro ball was with the Los Angeles Jets of the short-lived American Basketball League in 1961-62.

“I was as high-paid a player as there was in sports then, $500 a game,” Yardley told Dwight Chapin of the San Francisco Examiner. “That was the good news. The bad news was that none of the checks ever cleared.”

Add Yardley: Chapin wrote that Yardley doesn’t mind that when he finally was picked for the hall of fame, a San Diego newspaper called him “the late George Yardley.”

Trivia time: Who said this? “I have my art gallery and love my music. I’m using a side of my brain I’ve never used. I’m less competitive and more appreciative of the arts.”

Top 40? In case you were wondering, Bimbo Coles, who was recently traded by Miami to Golden State, got his nickname when he was 3 months old.

It comes from an old country-western song that goes like this:

“Bimbo, Bimbo where you going to go-e-yo? Bimbo, Bimbo what you going to do-e-yo? Bimbo, Bimbo does your mommy know, that you’re going down the street to see a little girl-e-yo?”

Lyric recall courtesy of Dave Newhouse of the Oakland Tribune.

Self-help: New Jersey Net forward Jayson Williams says the key to center Shawn Bradley’s development will be the work he puts in this summer.

Williams’ orders to Bradley: “No Mormon missions to help the needy. He’s got to do some serious training. No way he’s going off to Australia with those kangaroos.”

Kick the habit: John Steigerwald in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “It’s time for football fans in Cleveland and any other town that has been deserted by its team to stop whining. Nobody wants to lose their team but when it turns its back on you, you turn your back on it.

“How about a nice, big bonfire in Cleveland next September? Burn everything with the name Browns on it. Start over.”

Get lost: Dave Stewart, former Oakland A’s pitcher now working in the club’s front office, when asked what he thought of Republican candidate Lamar Alexander’s visit to training camp in Arizona:

“I don’t care. Who is he, Felix Millan? If he isn’t a baseball player, what was he doing here?”

Touche: Montreal Expo second baseman Kevin Castleberry, a replacement player last spring, on whether he’s worried about a player backlash:

“Not really. They should be worried about me because I’m here to take one of their jobs.”

Trivia answer: John McEnroe, the temperamental tennis player.

Quotebook: Chuck Estrada, one-time pitching coach for the Texas Rangers: “We had a very scientific system for bringing in relief pitchers. We used the first one who answered the phone.”