He May Get an Argument, by George

New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner made a couple of bold predictions that Newsday’s Jon Heyman found amusing:

Steinbrenner: Dwight Gooden will win 15 to 20 games.

Heyman: “Gooden had an ERA in the spring of 8.89.”

Steinbrenner: Tim Raines will steal at least 30 bases.

Heyman: “Raines started the season on the [disabled list] after showing no inclination to steal in spring games.”

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Trivia time: Who is the only player named Associated Press college basketball player of the year three consecutive seasons?

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Who are they? Taking note of the first-time winners in three successive PGA tournaments, a New York Times headline said, “The Unknown Leader Du Jour.”

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Reason enough: Donyell Marshall, a forward with the Golden State Warriors, has a tattoo of the X-Men cartoon character Wolverine on his calf.

“His character is opposite of mine,” he told the San Jose Mercury News. “I’m more laid back, mellow, whereas he’s got an attitude problem. He goes against what the rest of the team says all the time. If he had been in my situation this year, he would have caused a lot of trouble.”

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Dawn patrol: Spring football opened last Monday for the California Bears and it was a relief to players to be practicing in the afternoon.

The NCAA allows eight hours a week before spring drills for workouts and weightlifting, so new Coach Steve Mariucci ordered drills before dawn.

“We turned on the lights and let them run,” Mariucci said. “We wanted to see how bad these guys wanted to do this, if they wanted to win as bad as the coaches do.”

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Sound reasoning: Peter Gammons, baseball expert for ESPN and the Boston Globe, tabs the Dodgers’ Ismael Valdes as the National League’s Cy Young Award winner. Why?

“Just because sometime Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine aren’t going to win everything.”

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The critic: Former Boston Bruin coach Don Cherry, now writing for the Vancouver Province, was incensed when the Mighty Ducks’ Paul Kariya wouldn’t take time for an interview.

“These guys are getting like baseball players,” Cherry wrote. “Swelled heads, too big.”

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Little guys: Where can a Division III college compete on equal terms with Division I schools such as USC, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State, Alabama and Tennessee?

In racquetball, where tiny Nichols College of Dudley, Mass., with an enrollment of 850, will defend its title in the national championships next week in Fountain Valley.

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Trivia answer: Ralph Sampson of Virginia, 1981, ’82 and ’83.

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Add trivia: In UCLA country, there will be protests that Lew Alcindor, as he was known before he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and/or Bill Walton were three-timers. Not so. Houston’s Elvin Hayes split Alcindor’s three years and North Carolina State’s David Thompson was named in Walton’s senior year.