Seeing Starzz? Off Your Rockers? Here’s the Place

The Women’s National Basketball Assn. announced nicknames for its eight teams Thursday.

The lineup sets up an astronomic matchup between the Comets and the Starzz . . . or an all-Ford Motor Co.--Mercury Division--game between the Mercury and the Monarchs.

The teams: Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, Utah Starzz, Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, New York Liberty.

The WNBA’s 28-game season begins June 21.

*

Trivia time: Which Laker center holds the NBA single-game record for blocked shots?

*

Dignity discussion: Ron Cook commented recently in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the Rev. Jesse Jackson rushing to Dennis Rodman’s defense when the NBA suspended him for kicking a photographer:

“It’s one thing to punish a man--it’s another to take away his dignity,” Jackson had said.

Countered Cook: “Didn’t Rodman lose his dignity when he started wearing dog collars and wedding dresses?”

*

Tough to follow: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s John Steigerwald, on the Super Bowl’s halftime show:

“Once again, the Super Bowl halftime show failed the dog-and-Frisbee test. One dog and one Frisbee would have been more entertaining.”

*

It was inevitable: Among items in a new Eurosport merchandise catalog is an alarm clock shaped like a soccer ball. It wakes you up by screaming, “GOOOOOOOOAL!”

*

For what it’s worth: Superdome officials report the economic impact of the recent Super Bowl to New Orleans will be more than twice the $162-million cost of building the stadium.

*

Greatest ever: At the NBA All-Star game, Magic Johnson was asked to describe the greatest shot he ever saw.

“One time Julius Erving went out of bounds on us and kept walking on air for two or three minutes, then came up on the other side of the glass with no angle,” he said.

“That’s the greatest shot I’ve ever seen.”

*

Who’s the dentist? A sharp-eyed Green Bay Packer fan is turning up the heat on the U.S. Postal Service.

Noel Franus of Chicago noticed on the new stamp depicting the late Vince Lombardi--to be released this summer--something was missing.

The gap between his front teeth.

“It’s just the angle,” a Postal Service spokesman said. “If you look at it from a frontal position, the gap would be a lot more noticeable.”

The spokesman noted that the stamp had been approved by some of Lombardi’s relatives and the NFL.

Nevertheless, Franus has mounted an Internet pro-gap campaign and claims to have received 7,000 responses.

“I really don’t consider the stamp valid,” he said.

“It’s completely inaccurate. Everybody loved the Lombardi with a gap.”

*

Trivia answer: Elmore Smith, 17, against the Portland Trail Blazers, Oct. 28, 1973.

*

And finally: John Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on showboating Super Bowl

players:

“How long would an NHL player last if he went into a dance after a goal? About three steps into his routine, he would have to be peeled off the glass.”