Ditka Entered a Guilty Plea in This Case

Can you imagine volatile Mike Ditka begging a quarterback to return to a game? It actually happened in 1984, when Ditka was coaching the Chicago Bears.

Ditka had chewed out Rusty Lisch during a Monday night game in San Diego. The quarterback then refused to go back in the game.

“I go over and beg him to go back in,” Ditka told Don Pierson of the Chicago Tribune. “I’m saying, ‘I didn’t mean that stuff. You’re a great kid. You’ve got to go back in.’

“The next Tuesday, he comes in and gives me a crucifix and said, ‘This will help calm you down.’ ”

Trivia time: Who are the five PGA Tour players with career earnings of $8 million or more?

Tables turned: John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun, on the irony in a recent NBA front-office hiring:

“Fifteen years after he played for coach Dick Motta as a member of the Dallas Mavericks, Allan Bristow is now Motta’s boss as the new general manager of the Denver Nuggets, replacing Bernie Bickerstaff. Bristow said Motta will be ‘reevaluated.’ ”

Battling baby: David Letterman, on the new Dennis Rodman doll: “It’s $19.95, assault and battery not included.”

Color blind: For their 30th anniversary weekend in the middle of March, the Kings are going back to their old purple-and-gold uniforms for two games.

Former owner Jack Kent Cooke referred to the purple portion as “Forum blue,” which mystifies King President Tim Leiweke.

“For the life of me, I can’t figure out what was wrong with Cooke that he called them ‘Forum blue.’ They look purple and yellow to me.”

Concerned: Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune, on the recent retirement of skier Marc Giardelli: “Hope you didn’t have Luxembourg in your Olympic Rotisserie League.”

FYI: Washington State set a Pacific 10 Conference basketball record for points by a losing team with 111 against Arizona (115) on March 2, 1995.

Looking back: On this day in 1960, Philadelphia Warrior rookie Wilt Chamberlain set an NBA record with his fourth 50-point game of the season--58 in a 129-122 victory over the New York Knicks.

Trivia answer: Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Fred Couples, Mark O’Meara and Corey Pavin.

And finally: The Toronto Maple Leafs recently received an anonymous package in the mail posted from Richmond, Canada, containing three pieces of brick with a note saying the material came from the exterior of the Maple Leaf Gardens.

“I secretly chipped these off during my tours of the Gardens last summer,” the note read. “I may have put a curse on the team and am now returning them to their rightful place.”

Help is indeed needed--Toronto is near of the bottom of the NHL’s Western Conference.