Would Sheen Have Thrown This One Back?

What price would you pay to catch a home-run ball at a ballpark? For actor Charlie Sheen, the price was $5,000.

Sheen bought all the seats behind the left field fence of Anaheim Stadium for Friday night’s game between the Angels and Detroit Tigers in hopes of catching a ball.

He sat with three friends on an aisle about 20 rows back, pounding a glove in anticipation of a home run that never came.

“Anybody can catch a foul ball. I want to catch a fair ball,” Sheen said. He chose to set himself apart from the crowd because “I didn’t want to crawl over the paying public. I wanted to avoid the violence.”

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Add catch: Former President Jimmy Carter had better luck than Sheen. He caught a foul ball bare-handed at Friday’s Atlanta Braves game against the San Diego Padres in Atlanta.

He nabbed a foul hit by San Diego’s Ken Caminiti after it deflected off the screen behind home plate and drew a standing ovation.

“He showed good hands,” Atlanta catcher Javier Lopez said. “The ricochet slowed it down a little, but you’ve got to admire any 71-year-old man catching one in his bare hands.”

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Trivia time: Who were the first USC and UCLA players to be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft?

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End of dog days: The Olympic Auditorium is changing its menu. Hot dogs, which reportedly have been sold since the the arena opened in 1924, will be replaced by Mexican food.

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Still rambling: New York Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto: “With this eye of mine, a normal human being would be in the hospital. I’ve had four specialists work on my foot. . . . Not my foot. My eye.”

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Embarrassing: A group of 12 international players scored a 104-96 victory Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., over a squad of high school All-American seniors.

“Basically,” said U.S. Coach George Glymph of Eau Claire High in Columbia, S.C., “they played the game like it was supposed to be played. They were prime time and we were showtime.”

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Clip and save: The Miami Heat has made the NBA playoffs, and Alonzo Mourning said the team’s momentum could carry them past the Chicago Bulls in the first round.

“I want them to underestimate us,” Mourning said. “We know what we’re capable of doing. We know we’re capable of beating the Bulls. We know that, there’s no big mystery about that. We’ve done it. We did it [in February] with eight players.”

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FYI: Keyshawn Johnson is the fifth USC wide receiver to be selected in the first round of the NFL draft. The others: Earl McCullouch, 1968; Lynn Swann, 1974; Curtis Conway, 1993, and Johnnie Morton, 1994.

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Trivia answer: USC quarterbacks Doyle Nave and Grenny Lansdell in 1940, and UCLA running back Cal Rossi in 1946.

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And finally: In Detroit, they throw dead octopuses on the ice at hockey games. In Miami, they settle for plastic rats.

During the Florida Panthers’ 6-3 victory over Boston in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference playoff series on Wednesday night, fake rats of all makes and sizes rained down on the Bruins after every Florida goal.