She’ll Throw In Her Tonsils to Make a Deal

Judy Gold is a legend among Olympic pin collectors. She even writes in pin journals giving her 10 best tips on how to clinch the perfect trade.

“Avoid negotiating in a foreign language,” she warned her compatriots in Atlanta. “My own experience trying to obtain a French Olympic committee pin. Instead of asking what I could offer for the pin, my remarks translated as ‘I am sorry, Monsieur, I have left my appendix on the porch.’ ”

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Trivia time: Eighty-six players have been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., by baseball writers. Eight are products of Southern California high schools. Who are they?

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Hide and seek: Tattoos seem to be the order of the day for Olympic athletes, especially among swimmers.

South African Penny Heyns went for a gazelle jumping over the Olympic rings. American gold medalist Amy Van Dyken has a bubble-blowing sea horse on her hip.

Tom Malchow keeps his tucked discreetly below the trunk line. “Whoever I want to see it, gets to see it,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Replacement raccoon: The Bend (Ore.) Bandits have hired a mystery man to pose as their mascot, promising he will he a kinder, gentler Rowdy the Raccoon.

The Western Baseball League team’s former mascot, David Scott Karr, 34, was fired last week after his arrest for allegedly pelting a former girlfriend and her child with gravel and spraying them with water at a game.

Team officials refused to release the identity of the new mascot. “We want to keep that mysticism about him,” team spokesman Tom Hamilton said.

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Mind changer: Drag racer Mark Oswald, after flying with the Blue Angels in an F-18 fighter plane: “I always said that nothing in the world could compare to the acceleration of a fuel burning dragster or funny car. I stand corrected.”

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Expensive rubber: A team in Saturday’s Brickyard 400 Winston Cup race went through an average of nine sets of Goodyear Eagle tires during practice, qualifying and the race. At a cost of $1,316 per set.

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Dallas Vaqueros? The Dallas Cowboys will have plenty of fan support when they play the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Bowl on Monday night in Monterrey, Mexico. Cowboy gear is the No. 1 seller among football fans in Mexico.

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Trivia answer: Jackie Robinson, Pasadena Muir; Ralph Kiner, Alhambra; Eddie Mathews, Santa Barbara; Duke Snider, Compton; Ted Williams, San Diego Hoover; Bob Lemon, Long Beach Wilson; Walter Johnson, Fullerton; and Don Drysdale, Van Nuys.

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Trivia follow: It might not be too long until there are a pair more: Ozzie Smith and Eddie Murray, once teammates at Locke High. They become eligible five years after retirement.

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And finally: Quarterback Boomer Esiason was all smiles as he modeled the Arizona Cardinals’ new uniforms at a fashion show. “I played for a team with the worst-looking uniforms in the NFL--the Cincinnati Bengals--so anything is a step up.”