300 Club Might Be Full Now

Dennis Tuttle, writing in Inside Sports, took a look at today’s best pitchers, trying to determine who could win 300 games.

His conclusion: none.

Nolan Ryan, who reached 300 in 1990, is the last to have achieved the feat.

Dennis Martinez has the most victories, 239, among active pitchers, Tuttle writes, but Martinez is 41. Roger Clemens has 185 wins and is 33. Greg Maddux, 30, has 155 and at his current pace could get No. 300 at 39.

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Tuttle’s conclusion: There probably will never be another 300-game winner.

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Trivia time: The Milwaukee Bucks ended the Lakers’ 33-game winning streak with a 120-104 victory on Jan. 9, 1972. What five Hall of Famers played in that game?

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OK, hook ‘em up: Earlier this week, before John Calipari became the New Jersey Nets’ coach, club President Michael Rowe said he had not considered Calipari and denied he had spoken with the coach or his agent.

“I will take a lie detector test, and I’m sure he would too,” Rowe told the Record of Hackensack, N.J.

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Bumper guy: Buck O’Neil, promoting a book about his life in the Negro Leagues, was startled to learn youthful readers didn’t know what a bumper is.

“No one here is old enough to remember bumpers on cars,” he said in New York.

“Cars could carry seven passengers. We had nine players. Somebody had to ride on the bumpers. I did that.”

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I swear . . . : Should referees be language cops? Should athletes be kicked off a playing field for using profanity?

According to Referee magazine, a handy book for research on the subject is “The F Word,” edited by Jesse Sheidlower, who managed to fill 232 pages with every known application of the F-word, dating to pre-Revolutionary times.

“I hear that word 10 times a day at work,” one referee told the magazine. “I guess it doesn’t register as profanity anymore.”

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Lion tamer: Should Mike Tyson be allowed to have big cats on his Southington (Ohio) estate?

No, ruled a zoning inspector.

Tyson, who is believed to have a tiger cub on his property and wants a couple of lions as well, asked the local township’s Board of Appeals for a variance. He wants to build a fenced structure, as well as a commissary where the cats’ meals would be prepared.

The request violates the township’s zoning rules pertaining to dangerous pets, a zoning inspector said.

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Trivia answer: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson played for the Bucks, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Gail Goodrich for the Lakers. Pat Riley, who had one assist and no points in nine minutes for the Lakers that night, isn’t in the Hall of Fame as a player but seems sure to make it as a coach.

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And finally: Seattle fans, led by Jack Sikma, who played on the 1978-79 SuperSonic NBA championship team, will try to set the record for the world’s largest simultaneous sports cheer Sunday as they scream for the SuperSonics at 4:30 p.m. from the KeyArena, bars, restaurants, taverns, community centers, homes and cars. The “Go Sonics!” cheer will be heard around Puget Sound 15 minutes before tipoff of Game 3 of the NBA finals against Chicago.