It’s a Good Thing They Aren’t the Spitting Cobras

They don’t know it yet, but the baseball players for the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks are going to be hearing from crusading Joe Paul.

Paul is an anti-spitting zealot, and he means to establish the new Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix as an expectorant-free zone. The Sun City resident plans to compel state officials to enforce an obscure Arizona law that calls for saliva scofflaws to be fined or jailed.

Not only is the spitting so common among baseball players disgusting, Paul says, it’s “part of the societal breakdown.”

But officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services are skeptical about sending inspectors to bust spitting and scratching baseball players.

“What are we supposed to do?” a spokesman asked. “Jail people? For spitting? The state has far more serious health problems to deal with than with ballplayers spitting all over Bank One Ballpark.”

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Trivia time: Who is the only basketball coach whose teams have won a junior college championship, an NIT championship and the NCAA championship?

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Name game: The NHL’s newest franchise in Nashville has found the good nicknames already are taken. Disappointed but undaunted, team officials interviewed 20,000 potential fans to ascertain what they wanted in a team name.

“This is probably the most-researched name in team sports history,” majority owner Craig Leipold said. “The fans told us they wanted a name with strength, speed, determination and focus.”

The result: the Predators.

The team will be represented by a silver saber-toothed tiger.

League officials are relieved with Nashville’s choice after the lukewarm reception from the expansion franchise in Columbus, Ohio--the team’s choices of Blue Jackets and a red-eyed bug as its logo were not happily received by fans.

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Passing shots: Tennis magazine recently surveyed players on the WTA and ATP tours, asking a variety of questions. Some results:

Best ugly shot: Pam Shriver’s forehand was voted first among the women. Her ugly footwork placed second. Brad Gilbert’s game style was second-most ugly among the men. Gilbert, it should be remembered, wrote a book, “Winning Ugly.”

Best player never to win a Grand Slam event: Goran Ivanisevic and Jana Novotna were the runaway winners, so to speak.

Best player to hit the pubs with: Jennifer Capriati among the women and “any Aussie” among the men.

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First class: Pete Sampras does not travel well, but he does travel in style. The world’s No. 1 tennis player often complains about the frequency and pace of international travel required of him, and his agent has been listening.

Sampras’ agent negotiated an unusual contract with an aviation company. Sampras appears in ads for the purveyor of private jets in return for free trips.

A round trip to Europe on a charter jet can cost as much as $80,000.

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Trivia answer: Nolan Richardson of Arkansas.

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And finally: The Tennis magazine survey asked players the best way to beat Andre Agassi in 1997. The answer? Play him.