Growing Up, Everything Was Relative

John Crumpacker in the San Francisco Examiner: “One of the Rams’ recent roster cuts was a defensive tackle named Jon Kirksey, 360 pounds of a man. So?

“So Kirksey, from Greer, S.C., is one of 31 children his father sired with several women. Having so many siblings made life difficult for Kirksey growing up in a small town.

“ ‘You had to be very careful who you dated,’ ” he said.

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Trivia time: Who holds the major league pitching record for consecutive innings without a walk?

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It won’t work: Dick Selcer, Detroit Lion defensive back coach, discussing the best way to prevent a young cornerback from looking over his shoulder for the ball, instead of concentrating on the receiver:

“Probably the best way to train them is to take them all to a nudist colony and tell them not to see anything.”

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Cow course: Anson Tebbetts, who opened a golf course on his dairy farm in Cabot, Vt.: “I think there is something very tranquil about whizzing a golf ball past a heifer’s head on Sunday afternoon.”

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His hang-up: Isaiah Rider of the Portland Trail Blazers pleaded no contest to possessing four illegal cellular phones, prompting Michael Ventre of MSNBC to say: “I guess he couldn’t get by with one or two illegal cellular phones like other athletes.”

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Boo hoo: New York Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill after a sinking liner skipped past him for a three-base error: “You miss a ball like that in Little League and you throw your glove down and start crying.”

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William Tell trick: Offensive lineman Mark Tuinei recently challenged Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman to show off his marksmanship with a football.

Tuinei stood uneasily with a soft-drink bottle on his head 30 yards away from Aikman, who unleashed a bullet pass that took the bottle cleanly off his teammate’s head.

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FYI: There are precise rules for the manufacture of major league baseballs. The weight of the ball should not be less than five ounces or more than 5 1/4 ounces. The circumference cannot be less than nine inches or more than 9 1/4.

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Looking back: On this day in 1947, the New York Yankees had 18 hits, all singles, in an 11-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Joe DiMaggio and Tommy Henrich had four hits.

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Trivia answer: Bill Fischer of the Kansas City Athletics in 1962, 84 1/3 innings, the equivalent of nine complete games plus 3 1/3 innings.

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And finally: Bubby Brister, veteran backup quarterback to the Denver Broncos’ John Elway, had a torn posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee replaced

in 1992 with an Achilles’ tendon from a cadaver.

“I think they put Jim Thorpe’s Achilles’ in there, so I’m faster now,” Brister said.