Bowe’s Stint Not Worth the Weight

Tony Kornheiser in the Washington Post on Riddick Bowe’s short stay in the Marine Corps: “What did he think boot camp was, Jenny Craig with dorms?

“I don’t doubt Bowe’s sincerity about wanting to be a Marine since he was a teenager. But Bowe didn’t go to boot camp to change careers--Bowe went to lose weight and get in shape for his next fight.

“Bowe had a romantic notion about the Marine Corps making him into the man he’d always wanted to be, a man with a sense of duty and discipline. But you have to bring those things with you; the Marines don’t hand out character at the door like a blanket and a pillow.”

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Add Kornheiser: He writes that this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is one of his favorites “because it isn’t cluttered with a lot of, you know, words.”

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Trivia time: What was memorable about the 1961 Los Angeles Open, now known as the Nissan Open?

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Zzzzz: Columnist Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune on golf: “As for being boring, it is true.

“I sympathize with any nongolfer who finds himself in a room with a bunch of guys who played that morning and insist on describing every heroic shot, or even worse, seeking pity because they hacked about like the klutzes they are.”

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Tongue in cheek? Dan Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe: “The Red Sox are going to be fundamentally sound this year. They’re going to catch the baseball, throw it to the right base, hit the cutoff man and play heads-up ball for 162 games.

“No star exemptions. There will be no slo-pitch ‘where’s the keg?’ baseball at Fenway this summer. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

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The earache: Motor mouth of the Motor City is the Pistons’ Michael Curry. Grant Hill told Bob Wojnowski of Detroit News: “He only talks in the locker room, on the bus, on the plane and on the court.”

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Can they hit it? Frank Funk, pitching coach of the Colorado Rockies, on the tendency of Jamey Wright and Curtis Leskanic to throw too hard early in the spring:

“If you turn them loose, they’ll be out there trying to throw a ripe strawberry through a battleship.”

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Trivia answer: Arnold Palmer got a 12 on the par-five ninth hole (now the 18th) at Rancho Park on opening day. A plaque near the tee commemorates Palmer’s unlikely score.

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And finally: Deion Sanders, on the difference between playing football in Dallas and baseball in Cincinnati:

“The media there [Dallas] follow players. Crazy. This is the real world. I walk down the street and all people say is, ‘Nice to see you, Prime Time.’ ”