In the End, He Had Golf Over a Barrel

In “Hogan,” a biography of the 83-year-old golfing legend, author Curt Sampson may have discovered a reason for Ben Hogan’s remarkable toughness.

Sampson said the young Hogan was belligerent, small and got picked on a lot. He also wouldn’t cry. The big kids back in Fort Worth once stuffed him in a barrel and rolled it down the hill behind Glen Garden Country Club, where Hogan picked up 50 cents a day as a caddie in the 1920s.

The barrel rolled about 40 yards, then dropped 20 feet and broke into pieces. Hogan, of course, survived. He went on to win nine majors and finish second in six others.

*

Trivia time: How many home runs did Roger Maris hit in April of 1961, the season he hit 61 homers?

*

Doctor Y? Yogi Berra sent his regrets about not being able to attend the Diabetes Institute Foundation’s fund-raiser in New York on May 16. The New York Yankee Hall of Famer is receiving an honorary doctoral degree that day from Montclair State in New Jersey.

Dr. Berra said he was sending some of his memorabilia to be auctioned at the event.

*

Quite a feet: John Salley of the Chicago Bulls said Keith Askins of the Miami Heat thinks Michael Jordan is a mere mortal.

*

Said Salley: “He thinks Michael puts his shoes on one at a time, like the rest of us. He doesn’t realize that Michael’s shoes just go on his feet all by themselves.”

*

Smart talk: Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys will graduate Saturday from Florida, six years after promising his mother he would get his degree after leaving school early for the NFL.

Said Smith: “I had people tell me, ‘You’ve got enough money for the rest of your life. Who needs school?’ I’d tell them that I need school. We all do. A solid education is critical.”

*

She wins office pool: The early leader in cashing in on the Olympics is Karen Clark of Canada, a member of the Canadian synchronized swim team.

Clark already has signed to co-star in a movie called “Poncho & Lefty,” which will be filmed this fall.

*

Coors Field East: After hitting a 474-foot home run at Shea Stadium, Ellis Burks of the Colorado Rockies said “I like hitting in that thin air in New York.”

*

Paper Rockets: When Del Harris coached Houston to an upset victory over the Lakers in the first round of the 1981 playoffs, he said the Lakers had a technological advantage because of videotape.

“We had a legal pad and a ballpoint pen,” Harris said.

The pen was mightier than the tape, at least 15 years ago.

*

Door No. 3: Not only did the St. Louis Cardinals lose a game last week to Montreal, 12-11, their team bus got trapped in a tunnel at Olympic Stadium when an automatic door failed to open.

*

Trivia answer: One.

*

And finally: Officials for the Orange County Boat Show, which begins today at the Anaheim Convention Center, were looking for a boating expert to take part in the grand opening. So they invited Cedric Ceballos. They didn’t hear back from him.