Flush Away a C-Note? Not Charles

Charles Barkley is known for his outrageous, candid behavior, and Cedric Ceballos will never forget an incident when they were teammates with the Phoenix Suns.

“We went to the john together, and he’s talking, and he accidentally drops a quarter in the john,” Ceballos told Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“He starts cursing. Then he whipped out a $100 bill and throws it in the toilet, and I really thought he was psycho.

“Then he reached into the toilet and grabbed the $100 bill and the quarter, and I go, ‘Why did you do that?’ He said, ‘If I’m going to put my hand in the toilet, I’m not going to put it in there just for a quarter. I’m going in for the $100 bill too.’ ”

Trivia time: Who is the only player to have won the Masters in his first appearance in the tournament, other than the inaugural year of 1934?

Nosebleed section: Greg Hansen of the Arizona Daily Star, commenting on his seat at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix:

“To say that you’re ‘on top of the action’ doesn’t begin to tell you how steep the architects made the upper deck at BOB. You’re too high to catch a foul ball, too survival-oriented to take any step without first looking to see where your foot is. Thank God, for handrails.

“But at least the view of Camelback Mountain at sunset is unique, as ballparks go. What can you see from the cheap seats at Dodger Stadium? Smog, that’s what.”

Smog? What smog? El Nino has taken care of that.

Meet the Flintstones: Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, on Edison Field: “An otherwise attractive renovation of the Angels’ ballpark is sabotaged by the great cascading mound of lava rock complete with waterfalls and fountains spraying 60 feet high.

“If baseball-amusement parks are the future, why then does center field here look like Bedrock? The battle cry shouldn’t be ‘Let’s Go Angels!’ It should be ‘Yabba-dabba-do!’ ”

More Big Ed: Cleveland infielder Travis Fryman: “The playing surface is terrific. But center field looks like a goofy golf course.”

Spendthrift: Jorge L. Ortiz in the San Francisco Examiner: “[Portland’s] Isaiah Rider has lost some $360,000 due to suspensions this season. More than a fourth of the league’s players make less than that.”

The Sprewell factor: Utah Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan on the players’ position in labor bargaining with the NBA:

“Everything is going their way. . . . You can kill the coach and still come back to play, so what else could you ask for?”

They’ll think of something.

Real rivalry: New York point guard Chris Childs said after the Knicks’ 83-80 victory Wednesday over the Miami Heat:

“This is like bully against bully, neighborhood against neighborhood. This is old-school basketball where you go out there, lace ‘em up, play physical and don’t back down.”

Looking back: On this day in 1907, New York Giant catcher Roger Bresnahan unveiled an innovation in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies: wooden shinguards to protect his legs and knees.

Trivia answer: Fuzzy Zoeller, who defeated Ed Sneed and Tom Watson in a playoff in 1979.

And finally: Rookie pitcher Sean Runyan of the Detroit Tigers, who made the team after playing in double A last season: “Last year, I could barely fit into the hotel bathroom. This year, there’s a television in my bathroom.”