First the Ball, Now His Dignity Is Taken Away

Baltimore outfielder Tony Tarasco still is haunted by the home run ball that was snatched from him by 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier last October in the first game of the American League playoffs between the Orioles and New York Yankees.

Tarasco is even taunted by his close friends, according to Tracy Connor of the New York Post.

“[They] call me a punk: ‘You let the kid take the ball from you? Why didn’t you jump?’ ” he lamented.

“Whenever someone goes deep to right field [in batting practice] and I go back, I feel everyone is looking at me.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the record for the lowest 18-hole score in what is now the Nissan Open?

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Record swap: Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News writes that the recent Maverick multiplayer trade is second rate in regard to numbers:

“Back in 1941, Bert Bell and Art Rooney swapped their entire Philadelphia NFL roster with the Pittsburgh owners. Red Hickey, then a rookie receiver out of Arkansas, once remembered. ‘We went to bed Eagles and woke up Steelers.’ ”

Rooney previously had sold the Pittsburgh franchise to Alexis Thompson, bought into the Eagles with Bell, and then become lonesome for his old Steeler players.

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Add Steelers: In 1944, with World War II raging, the Steelers merged with the Chicago Cardinals, forming the Card-Pitt franchise. The hybrid outfit was so bad--0-10--that it became known as the “Carpets,” the team everybody walked on.

The previous year, The Steelers and Eagles had played as a single entity, known by the fans as the “Steagles.”

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Fat farm: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle, on overweight David Wells of the New York Yankees and Kevin Mitchell of the Cleveland Indians:

“Ballplayers usually announce personal goals when they report to camp. Wells’ goal is not to get stuck in the team Jacuzzi. Mitchell’s goal is to not require a fan belt from a Greyhound bus to hold up his pants.”

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Student athletes: Texas Tech football players Byron Hanspard and Casey Jones had grade-point averages of 0.00 for the fall semester, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Said Michael Ventre of MSNBC: “I would have advised them to stop studying together.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1987, Michael Jordan scored 58 points, the most ever by a Chicago player during a regular-season game, to lead the Bulls to a 128-113 victory over the New Jersey Nets.

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Trivia answer: George Archer, with a 61 in the third round at Rancho Park in 1983. Archer finished fifth in the tournament.

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And finally: After the Orlando Magic fired Coach Brian Hill, the local fans took it out on the players at a home game.

Not only was it booed during introductions, the team was called the Orlando Mutineers in the newspaper, and fans were given baby rattles, diapers and pacifiers.