Mom’s Criticism of Baseball Player Is a Mouthful

Mother still knows best.

After giving up three home runs in one inning, Minnesota Twin pitcher Greg Hansell remembered to call his mother to wish her a happy birthday. For that he got a scolding.

“Shame on you!” she said. “I saw you on TV, and you used the F-word.”

Then there’s the Atlanta Braves’ Chipper Jones, whose mother chips at him constantly when she sees him chewing tobacco on TV.

“Every day of his life that he has put that stuff in his mouth, she’s tried to bug him out of it,” said Chipper’s father, Larry. “I know he’s trying to quit. So is his dad.”

Trivia time: Who are the only two switch-hitters to hit 40 home runs in a season?

Sort of defensive: When the New York Knicks traded Anthony Mason and Brad Lohaus to the Charlotte Hornets for Larry Johnson, Mason argued that the Hornets got the best of the deal.

“Larry shot what, 500, 600 more shots than I did and averaged five more points? I bring defense, I bring ability to pass, I can break a press. There’s not many people in the league that I think can play the defense that I play.”

Good feelings: Relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, who moved from Oakland to the St. Louis Cardinals along with Manager Tony La Russa, says winning the National League Central title was more satisfying than the titles he helped win in Oakland.

“This feels the greatest,” Eckersley told Phil Collier of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Those teams in Oakland were expected to win. . . . Everything had to be just right for us to win. Makes it sweeter.”

Downsizing: The Goodwill Games, which had 24 sports when they were held at St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1994, will be cut to 12--track and field, basketball, boxing, cycling, diving, figure skating, gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, swimming, synchronized swimming, triathlon and volleyball--for the 1998 gathering in New York.

Ouch! The New York Giants practiced indoors last week because Coach Dan Reeves didn’t want anybody stealing their plays. Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News wrote: “I guess the obvious question goes something like this: Who would want them?”

Firing blanks: Defensive tackle Jerry Ball of the Oakland Raiders, trying to explain what the absence of defensive end Anthony Smith meant to the team in Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears, said:

“If you’re shooting a six-shooter and it’s got five bullets, is it a six-shooter or a five-shooter? We didn’t have all our bullets.”

Trivia answer: Mickey Mantle--52 in 1956, 42 in 1958, 40 in 1960 and 54 in 1961; and Todd Hundley, 41 in 1996.

And finally: The Oakland Raiders’ Napoleon Kaufman is a breath of fresh air, and not only for his breathtaking open-field runs. On the idea of renegotiating his contract, he said:

“People nowadays are too greedy. They are not happy with the opportunities they are getting. The Raiders don’t owe me anything.”