Sorry, It’s Still a Silly Name, and That’s No Boll

With a nickname like the Boll Weevils, it makes you wonder what suggestions were rejected for the minor league baseball team in Piedmont, N.C.

The names that didn’t make the cut include the Towels, the Cannons and the Lintheads.

No, the team isn’t identified by a cotton field ravaged by the destructive little bug. The Piedmont logo features a beady-eyed insect wearing a cap and wielding a bat. He’s surrounded by a cotton boll, and it is all enclosed by a baseball diamond.

A newspaper has described the baseball team as “unbollweevible.” Their stadium is being referred to as the “Cotton Boll.”

Enough, enough.

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Trivia time: What is golfer Tom Weiskopf noted for at the Masters tournament?

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The odd couple: John Daly and Nick Faldo were paired in the first round of the Masters, and Denne H. Freeman of the Associated Press points out, “They have few things in common other than the fact they’ve both won the British Open, don’t speak to each other and have had costly divorces.

“Daly sizes up a shot in an instant and lets it fly prodigious distances. Faldo is the mechanical man. . . . He can take forever over a shot. It can be maddening to watch.”

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Phi Beta football: Arizona football Coach Dick Tomey commenting on his new offensive coordinator, former UCLA assistant Homer Smith:

“He’s very cerebral. You won’t find many football coaches with degrees from Princeton, Harvard and Stanford. Actually, you won’t find many professors here with degrees from Princeton, Harvard and Stanford.”

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Familiar path: Tom Weir in USA Today: “Then there’s Tonya Harding. Having filed for divorce from Bad Choice II after 3 1/2 months of marriage, one can’t help but believe Harding eventually will make us forget all about the way George Steinbrenner goes through managers.”

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FYI: It took Rik Smits of the Indiana Pacers only six minutes to foul out of a game against the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 6, 1993.

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All in a name: William “The Refrigerator” Perry, formerly of the Chicago Bears, is now with the London Monarchs, who are preparing to open their season in the World League of American Football.

“On first sight,” wrote Giles Smith of London’s Daily Telegraph, “his nickname seems particularly apt--he is certainly tall and blocky--and at the same time completely wrong.

“After all, what would anybody want with a fridge this big, unless they were planning to keep a car in it?”

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Trivia answer: Weiskopf finished second four times and never won.

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And finally: Eric Dennis, athletic director at Robert Morris College of Chicago, after the school’s baseball team lost to St. Francis of Illinois, 71-1: “I was shocked and surprised--I don’t know how we scored a run.”