Kings Steal Ducks’ Thunder With Taylor-Made Headline

George Steinbrenner has a scheme that often works for him in New York. Whenever the other baseball team in town makes news, the Yankees make bigger news and knock the Mets off the tabloids’ back pages.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was the Kings’ strategy Tuesday when they fired General Manager Sam McMaster and replaced him with Dave Taylor.

With the Duck-Phoenix playoff series heating up faster than a desert morning, with coaches Ron Wilson and Don Hay creating intrigue with their moves and countermoves, the Kings declared checkmate and assumed a place alongside their Orange County rivals on the front pages of local sports sections.

Timing is everything.

In this case, however, I have to believe that whenever the Kings fired McMaster was the right time.

I don’t enjoy writing that because he is a genuinely nice man. He certainly didn’t deserve his cruel nickname, “McMaster the Disaster.” I’m not sure anyone could have done much better under the circumstances of his three years with the team--the fall of Bruce McNall, the strange transition to temporary owners, the end of the Wayne Gretzky era.

The Kings didn’t need a general manager in their front office. They needed a Zamboni.

But McMaster has failed to prove he’s the man to usher the Kings into a new era or new arena. A former high school business teacher and computer salesman, he discovered he had a gift for discovering potential in young ice hockey players. From Moncton to Medicine Hat, he was extraordinary. He might have been equally adept as the Kings’ scouting director.

As the general manager, though, he had only low-level experience, few contacts and little success. He made a good trade with New York, getting Ray Ferraro, Ian Laperriere and Mattias Norstrom. But when Teemu Selanne was available, the Kings got Kevin Stevens. Tony Granato left as a free agent. Ed Olczyk came as one and then departed. Worst of all, the Kings have too little to show for Gretzky.

One of the organization’s most valuable assets, Coach Larry Robinson, said he won’t be back next season if the Kings aren’t truly serious about acquiring players who can contribute now. The announcement Tuesday was the first step in that direction.

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Fuzzy wasn’t funny, wuz he? . . .

John Argue, chairman of the L.A. Sports Council, remembers meeting the 11-year-old Tiger Woods, who told him he was considering giving up golf. . . .

“Every time I hit the ball on the green, it comes back to me,” Woods told him. . . .

Once he learned to control his backspin, he turned out OK. . . .

According to a London newspaper headline, Europe, in anticipation of this fall’s Ryder Cup, is “gripped by Tigermania.” . . .

Bad news for the Europeans: The Ryder Cup course in Valderrama, Spain, was modeled on Augusta National. . . .

In the edition arriving on newsstands today, Sports Illustrated says UCLA has the nation’s No. 1 athletic program. USC is ranked among the top 10. . . .

Don’t expect to see wide receiver Danny Farmer in UCLA’s final spring football scrimmage Thursday. He’s playing for the Bruins’ top-ranked volleyball team that night at Pauley Pavilion in the semifinals of the Mountain Pacific tournament. . . .

USC is recruiting a basketball player named Oral Roberts. . . .

Former ice dancer Judy Blumberg, a New Yorker by way of Tarzana, returned to Southern California this week as a coach for figure skating’s Junior Olympics in Anaheim. . . .

She has a promising skater in 13-year-old Zack Grenier. His late father, Robert, was a drummer for singer Van Morrison.

The Yankees apparently became more persistent about that Hideki Irabu deal because they lost the bidding war with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a Cuban pitcher, Rolando Arrojo, who defected before last summer’s Olympics.

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Although baseball is Cuba’s national pastime, credit for the small Caribbean nation’s success in international sports belongs to Manuel Gonzalez Guerra, who died last week at 87.

The final project for the longtime director of Cuban sports was to build a swimming team. He died before he could see Neisser Bent win two gold medals at last weekend’s World Short Course championships in Sweden.

Fidel Castro often told Guerra, “We live on an island; we should be able to swim.”.

As Miami’s demographics would suggest, the Cubans also should be better in rowing.

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While wondering how quickly the czar can return to where he belongs at the telestrator, I was thinking: the Washington Bullets deserve a special award for keeping Mike Fratello out of the playoffs, Danny Ainge is the NBA’s coach of the year, Dave Taylor could be another Jerry West.