With Cooke, You Were Never Sure What Was False

Of all the stories on the vanity of former Los Angeles sports owner Jack Kent Cooke, this one probably tops the list:

Cooke suffered a heart attack in his Forum office. The only other person in the room was Dr. Robert Kerlan.

The famed orthopedist got Cooke stretched out on a couch, then removed Cooke’s dentures before applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

As Kerlan told the story:

“The first thing Jack said when he came to was: ‘Oh, God, Bob, please don’t tell anyone I wear dentures.’ ”

Add Cooke: The Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser, musing over Cooke’s low-key funeral, and the fate of his dog, Coco:

“I’d have guessed that the Squire would have wanted to be carried through the streets of Washington like Eva Peron, and marched right out to Raljon to be buried on the 50-yard line.

“By the way, has anybody seen Coco? You don’t think this is a Pharaoh deal, and they buried her with him, do you?”

Trivia time: What was Joe DiMaggio’s lifetime batting average in games at USC?

Pickin’ on Pop: Mike Di Muro, now the only non-Japanese ever to umpire in Japan, said watching his father, Lou, work American League games for 20 years made him immune to being star-struck.

“When I was growing up, it was hard to look up to the players and want them to be my heroes, because they were always yelling at my dad,” he said.

Heavy company: John “Spider” Miller, a beer distributor from Bloomington, Ind., got to play golf at Augusta National by virtue of winning an amateur title.

His playing partners: Tom Watson, Fuzzy Zoeller and Arnold Palmer.

Miller said he learned a lot. “Most of all, I learned I’m an amateur,” he said.

Wrong number: Plenty of tennis tournaments have their trademarks. At Wimbledon, it’s strawberries and cream; at the U.S. Open, it’s noisy jets.

At the Italian Open, it’s the ringing of spectators’ cellular telephones, and organizers are making an effort to silence them.

While a proposal to ban the ever-popular telefonini was scrapped, organizers said Friday they will place signs in the stands telling spectators to turn off their phones.

The Open’s top sponsor--pledging

$4 million over three years--is state cellular phone company Telecom Italia Mobile.

Trivia answer: Zero. In his only appearance at USC, in a 1951 exhibition game between the Yankees and USC, DiMaggio went 0 for 2 in a 15-1 Yankee victory. Of more interest that day, Mickey Mantle, 19, hit two home runs, one a 500-footer.

And finally: Speaking at the recent John Wooden Award dinner in Los Angeles, Utah Coach Rick Majerus said he felt a bit out of place.

“Everybody before me has talked about Coach Wooden’s ‘pyramid of success,’ and how they start their day with that,” Majerus said.

“I start my day with an Egg McMuffin.”