Baseball Returns, Along With All That Spitting

A 1908 ordinance that inexplicably banned the national pastime in the small community of Webster, Fla., finally has been repealed.

The law, which made it a crime to play baseball within city limits, was dumped along with other ancient, rarely enforced mandates, including one that penalized residents for unsanitary outhouses and another aimed at keeping hogs off the streets.

Baseball players reportedly had a bad reputation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to historian Kevin McCarthy--drinking openly, swearing, spitting, chasing after women and gambling.

Thank goodness they don’t do that anymore.

*

Trivia time: Who holds the PGA Tour record for earning the most money in a year without winning a tournament?

*

Is that all? Shirley Povich in the Washington Post: “The corporations won’t give [Mike] Tyson any endorsements because they see no profit in allying their products with a rapist, a wife abuser, a divorced father of two, a renowned wrecker of expensive imported cars and a former thug on the streets of Brooklyn.

“Something in that resume suggests to advertisers that he is not the ideal role model.”

*

Retirement home: The St. Louis Blues of the NHL and the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League have something in common--the oldest teams in their respective leagues.

The average age in years for the Blues is 30.6; for the Cardinals it’s 31.0.

*

First-class vacation: Jim Muldoon, public relations director of the Pacific 10 Conference, reports that the California men’s basketball team will tour Europe in August and play games in Rome, Monte Carlo, Nice and Paris.

Comment from Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Summer school isn’t what it used to be.”

*

Opinion: Bob Smizik in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “In the next couple of months you will be reading that because the Olympics are in the United States this year, the country undoubtedly will experience a soccer boom.

“Which, of course, will be true, but only among the 4- to 7-year-old set.”

*

Bench game: Peter Vecsey in the New York Post: “[Nick] Van Exel claims he can beat [Dennis] Rodman in a best-of-seven game suspension.”

*

Looking back: On this day in 1995, Cedric Ceballos scored 40 points including a career-high seven three-point baskets as the Lakers lost to the Suns, 119-114, in Phoenix.

*

Trivia answer: Fuzzy Zoeller, who earned $1,016,814 in 1994. Note: He finished second five times.

*

And finally: Sabrina Moretti, an Italian table tennis player, had planned to wear a body-hugging catsuit at a tournament this past weekend, prompting this response from a table tennis official:

“She can play nude for all I care,” said Alessandro Peterlini. “She’s a megalomaniac.”