Will 49ers’ New Arrangement Be a Walsh-Out?

No geniuses need apply: Last season, San Francisco 49er owner Eddie DeBartolo grafted Bill Walsh onto Coach George Seifert’s staff, hiring him as a “consultant,” in effect to look over offensive coordinator Marc Trestman’s shoulder.

Surprise--it didn’t work.

Seifert has fled. DeBartolo has a new coach, Steve Mariucci, and isn’t going the “consultant” route anymore.

Walsh still draws a check from the 49ers but will spend only one day at training camp. He says he might attend a home game or two as the owner’s guest.

DeBartolo, the man writing Walsh those checks to do nothing, told USA Today the situation “is confusing,” if not troubling.

Said DeBartolo: “If we need him, we’ll call him.”

Says Walsh: “I’m history, it’s that simple.”

Add confusion: Walsh designed the 49ers’ Menlo Park facility, with spacious offices for coaches, but after his abrupt hiring last season there was nowhere to put him but a refurbished storeroom closet.

Knowing his former boss’ anguish, St. Louis Ram Coach Dick Vermeil offered him a job. Walsh turned it down, but the man who already has retired twice is looking for a new gig, perhaps with an expansion team.

“I believe I could give immense value to a new owner,” Walsh says.

Trivia time: Which well-known TV actor was the public-address announcer at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field in 1938 and 1939?

Thanks for being you: Popularity is getting them to honor you after you’ve dumped them. That’s what University of Kentucky boosters did for departing coach Rick Pitino, 350 of them paying $150 to attend a tribute dinner.

Said longtime Kentucky broadcaster Cawood Ledford: “I was here 39 years and I will say in all honesty, the most fun three years were my last three years under Rick Pitino.”

We’re not missing much: Not that things have been slow in silver-and-blackdom, but since winning the Super Bowl in 1984 the Raiders have won two postseason games.

Said former Raider Nolan Harrison, after seeing the four Super Bowl trophies in the lobby of his new team, the Steelers: “It was incredible. I had never seen a Lombardi Trophy up close, even with the Raiders.

“I just saw pictures of them.”

Mom and Pop store: The Pittsburgh Pirates hope to make money for the first time in the ‘90s. Of course, they’re doing better on the cost-containment side than the revenue side, having sliced their payroll to $9.1 million--barely $360,000 per player.

They even have outfielder Al Martin signed through 2002. Of course, Martin had to take less than market value.

“I might hear from the players’ association,” Martin told the New York Times, “but this is where I want to play.”

Trivia answer: John Forsythe.

And finally: Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, pride of the Gray Panthers as well as the Nittany Lions, is still working at 70.

“Too many people quit their jobs too early and don’t know what to do with themselves,” Paterno says. “They wake up in the morning and worry about how their golf game is going or when they’re going to have a cocktail party. They keep asking, ‘Where are we going to have dinner?’ ”