Fine Just Fine for a Grateful Commuter-Player

Chicago Bull Coach Phil Jackson, a former New York Knick player, reminiscing to Ira Berkow of the New York Times on former Knick Coach Red Holtzman:

“One of Red’s rules was that everyone must ride the team bus. But shortly after Red took over, Cazzie Russell decided to drive his car to Philadelphia for a game.

“When he came into the locker room, Red said, ‘Cazzie those highway tolls must be expensive. How much were they?’ Cazzie said, ‘Eight dollars.’

“Red said, ‘Well, Cazzie, I’ll take that off the $100 fine.’ Cazzie thanked him. I never saw a guy get fined and thank the coach for it.”

*

Trivia time: Which is the only school to reach the NCAA Final Four in its one and only appearance in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament?

*

Three stooges? Boston’s Mike Greenwell laughs at the thought of a Red Sox outfield that would have him in left field, Kevin Mitchell in center and Jose Canseco in right.

“We’d pretty well have it covered,” Greenwell said. “We’d have one guy who could catch a ball barehanded [Mitchell], one guy who could have one bounce off the top of his head [Canseco] and one guy [Greenwell] who could run through a wall with his head.”

*

Wacky business: Blackie Sherrod in the Dallas Morning News: “What zis? Al Davis now suing NFL for forcing him to leave Los Angeles for Oakland? Sometimes you think NFL should institute a compulsory psychological test for owners, just as players are tested for drugs.”

*

Duped again: Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer on the hype of the Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno fight:

“Saturday night’s offering, which was aired on pay-per-view, had been ordered up on 20 million television sets by mid-week, a record.

“So [P.T.] Barnum’s math was a bit faulty--the birth rate of a sucker is accelerating and is now faster than one per minute.”

*

His own world: The St. Louis Blues brought in a sports psychologist to talk to the players about the stress they’d be facing in the wake of the Wayne Gretzky trade.

Tough guy Basil McRae might not have gotten the message, saying: “Fifty percent of the game is mental and the other 50% is being mental [crazy]. I’ve got that part down, no problem.”

*

Last word: Jamal Mashburn, a former Kentucky All-American who plays for the Dallas Mavericks, said he thought his 1993 Wildcat team could beat this year’s version.

Told that present Kentucky players would probably disagree, Mashburn said, “That’s probably true, but who’s going to guard me?”

*

FYI: If Kentucky wins the NCAA basketball championship, it will be the sixth title for the Wildcats, second only to UCLA’s 11 titles.

*

Ouch! Bob Kravitz in the Rocky Mountain News: “I’m reading about this dead-dog rule in the Iditarod and I’m wondering if we can’t apply it to the Denver Nuggets.”

*

Trivia answer: Indiana State, with Larry Bird, in 1979.