They’re Also Blazing Trail in Team Travel

OK, the Portland Trail Blazers may be in a struggle to reach the NBA playoffs this season, but they lead the league in travel comfort.

The 12-man basketball team flies on team owner Paul Allen’s customized Boeing 757.

We’re talking big-screen TVs, two lounge areas, card tables and TVs that pop out of the armrests of the 35 seats--in a plane that normally seats 239.

According to Boeing, a new 757 costs nearly $70 million.

Said Eddie Doucette, the club’s television announcer, “Even the wallpaper is magnificent.”

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Trivia time: Which university has the most combined seats in its football stadium and basketball arena? Domed stadiums don’t count.

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Friendless: Billy Paultz, on how his former teammate, basketball Hall of Famer Rick Barry, was perceived by other teammates: “Half the players disliked Rick Barry. The other half hated him.”

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Gator ball: The Texas Rangers’ Juan Gonzalez hit a spring training home run at Port Charlotte, Fla., the other day that went unchased.

The ball landed in a pond inhabited by an eight-foot alligator.

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Duck, everyone: The Washington Post’s Tom Boswell, on former Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver’s induction into the Hall of Fame:

“It’s wonderful he can be inducted into Cooperstown while he’s still sharp enough to insult anybody he pleases at the ceremony.”

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Add Weaver: Boswell recently watched a video of a 1980s tirade by Weaver with umpire Bill Haller, when Weaver was wired for sound.

Weaver: “You’re a liar. . . . You ain’t no good!”

Haller: “You’re no good either!”

Weaver: “Yeah? Five, 10 bleepin’ years from now, you look who’s in the Hall of Fame!”

Haller: “Oooohh . . . yoooou’re gonna be in the Hall of Fame?”

Weaver: “You know it.”

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Stop, thief! The Chicago Bulls’ Scottie Pippen, on his first day in Chicago:

“I put my suitcase down, looked up at the Sears Tower, and said: ‘Chicago, here I am and I’m gonna conquer you.’ Then I looked down and my suitcase was gone.”

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Trivia answer: Tennessee. An expansion will give the Volunteers 102,400 football seats in the fall, and the basketball arena seats 25,000.

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Quotebook: New York Daily News columnist Mark Kriegel, on why New England Patriot Coach Bill Parcells turns down $25,000 offers for motivational speeches: “He has zero interest in infusing little accountants with competitive wisdom.”