They Can’t Have Dodgers, so This Is Next Best Thing

According to a New York Post report, the Mets are planning a 40,000-seat replica of the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but with modern touches such as a retractable roof and luxury boxes.

The new stadium would be built 100 feet from the Mets’ current Queens home, 33-year-old Shea Stadium.

It’s estimated the new stadium, which would be completed by April 2001, will cost $450 million, much of it funded by city taxpayers.

The new field would replicate several features of Ebbets Field, including the old stadium’s brick wall.

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Trivia time: What was unusual about the 1918 World Series?

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Expensive eights: Philadelphia Flyer General Manager Bob Clarke, when asked if Eric Lindros, who wears No. 88, might seek symmetry and ask for $8.8 million a year in his next contract:

“I wish I could have convinced him to wear No. 22.”

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Cruel: St. Louis Ram Coach Dick Vermeil, whose coaching staff has five members over 60, was called “Dick and the Has-Beens” recently by a St. Louis radio station.

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Spinks connection: Cory Spinks, 19, son of former heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, will make his pro debut Nov. 21 in Kansas City, Mo. He will fight a four-round bout in the 140-pound division.

Cory will wear a satin robe that will read “The Next Generation” and call himself “The Return of the Spinks Jinx.”

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Squeeze play: The top 30 money-winners on the PGA Tour will play in the Tour Championship, which begins today in Houston.

Barely missing out at No. 31 was Billy Andrade, who earned $5 less than Andrew Magee, 30th on the list.

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Any suggestions? Nashville, the NHL expansion team, is seeking a nickname. Wrote Kevin Paul Dupont in the Boston Globe:

“Nashville wanted to call itself the Ice Tigers, but the league felt it sounds too ‘minor league.’ The bet now is that the franchise will be dubbed ‘Fury,’ a decent fit with its logo, a fanged tiger.”

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Surprising fan: Jayson Stark in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Maybe baseball isn’t America’s pastime anymore, but it might be Russia’s. Mikhail Gorbachev visited actor Kevin Costner last week and told Costner that ‘Field of Dreams’ is his favorite movie.

“We’d have guessed ‘Field of Borscht.’ ”

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Looking back: On this day in 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain the world heavyweight title.

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Trivia answer: It was the only Series played entirely in September. The Boston Red Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs in six games.

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And finally: Tommy John, while pitching for the Dodgers in 1978: “When they operated on my arm, I asked them to put in a Koufax fastball. They did. But it was a Mrs. Koufax fastball.”