Watching McGwire Is a Power Trip

Mark McGwire might not like the attention his home run hitting is getting, but the St. Louis Cardinal slugger understands why he’s getting it.

“Americans love power,” McGwire says. “Big cars. Big trucks. Big people. Baseball fans have always been drawn to the home run and the guy throwing close to 100 mph. That’s what they want to come and see.

“I remember as a kid, I always wanted to go see Mike Schmidt or Dave Kingman, or Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana. It’s like going to see golfers, John Daly when he came in and was hitting over 300, then Tiger. Not everybody can do that.”

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Trivia time: Who is the current leader in consecutive cuts made on the PGA Tour?

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Lame excuse: Chad Ogea, who has spent 76 days on the Cleveland Indians’ disabled list and most recently has been sidelined because of a pulled knuckle, prompted Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe to comment: “Pulled knuckle? That sounds like something you’d get at a Blue Ribbon Barbecue.”

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Anonymous Aussie: Patrick Rafter secretly donated half of his $650,000 prize money for winning last year’s U.S Open to help ailing children in his home state of Queensland, Australia, according to his mother, Jocelyn Rafter. She said the money was used to build a games room for terminally ill children.

“He likes to share, he likes to help to do things for children,” she said. “I don’t know if that has anything to do with coming from a big family where the whole family is orientated that way anyway.”

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No smoking: Conditioning, says San Francisco 49er quarterback Steve Young, is the biggest difference between pro football today and when he broke in with the Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League in 1984.

“I remember my first year, guys were smoking in the locker room,” he said. “I was shocked. You’d never see that today. If you did that today, guys would look at you like you were insane.”

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Little ball: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starting ends are 5-foot-10 Bert Emanuel and 5-11 Reidel Anthony. Their backups probably will be 5-10 Karl Williams and 5-9 rookie Jacquez Green.

“These guys can hit some home runs,” Coach Tony Dungy said of his receivers.

But can they catch one?

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Name game: There was no surprise when the minor league team owned by Nolan Ryan announced its nickname--the Round Rock Express. That’s a take-off on Ryan’s own nickname, the Ryan Express. The double-A Texas League team, now playing in Jackson, Texas, will play next year in Round Rock.

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Big and bigger: Former USC lineman Tony Boselli, now with the Jacksonville Jaguars, is 6 feet 7, so it’s logical that when McDonald’s named a burger after him, it would be big. The $1.99 Boselli burger consists of three hamburger patties on a big bun topped with American and Monterey jack cheeses, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes and onions.

It will be sold only in north Florida and south Georgia.

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Pricey golf: Want to join the new Nantucket Golf Club on the Massachusetts island? Membership goes for $300,000 and annual dues run about $6,500. Carts are not allowed and a caddie costs $40 a bag--before tips.

Anybody need a starting time?

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Trivia answer: Tiger Woods with 14. Fred Couples is second with 12.

And finally: Many Boston Red Sox rooters feel that Babe Ruth put a curse on the team after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1920, but the Babe’s daughter, 81-year-old Julia Ruth Stevens, says it’s not so.

“That’s the last thing he would have tried to do--put a curse on any club,” she said. “He loved the game too much.”