Maybe They Can Take Out Second Mortgage

Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post on Kevin Brown’s contract: “The Dodgers have just used Rupert Murdoch’s checkbook to sign the dumbest $100-million contract in pro sports history.

“By comparison, those NBA abominations, such as Kevin Garnett ($126 million), Shaquille O’Neal ($120 million), Alonzo Mourning ($112 million) and Shawn Kemp ($107 million), are models of logic.

“Every shred of baseball history says that the Dodger brain trust, if that’s not an oxymoron, has just swapped a year or two of being a borderline contender, thanks to Brown, for about five seasons of being dragged down by a $15-million-a-season obligation to a pitcher who’ll be lucky to win 10 games.

” . . . Kevin Brown will be 34 in March. For their $105 million, what are the Dodgers likely to get? Have they bought the future? Or mortgaged it?”

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Trivia time: Which players share the Pacific 10 Conference bowl record for touchdowns in a game?

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How about one on one? Many NHL people had to chuckle at a suggestion by Colorado Avalanche General Manager Pierre Lacroix to have teams play three on three in overtime so fewer games would end in ties.

“Why not start the game with three guys,” Edmonton Oiler President Glen Sather said. “Just think of the money we could save. Or no goaltender. Or have one team not use sticks.”

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Writer eats words: Denver Bronco wide receiver Willie Green commenting to Adam Schefter of the Denver Post before last Sunday’s game with the New York Giants:

“This game scares me more than any other game. . . . They could be the team that disappoints us.”

Wrote Schefter: “Unlikely. Besides Green and their own fans, the Giants scare exactly nobody.”

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Touche! Fox NFL studio analyst Terry Bradshaw went on a rampage Sunday on his distaste for instant replay.

“I just don’t believe in a perfect game,” he said. “We need controversy.”

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Retorted colleague Howie Long: “How do you feel about indoor plumbing and electricity?”

Minor inconvenience? Cable TV mogul and sports team owner Ted Turner, as quoted in the new book “Stupid Celebrities”: “Nuclear war would certainly set back cable.”

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Trivia answer: UCLA’s Eric Ball, 1986 Rose Bowl against Iowa, and USC’s Sam Cunningham, 1973 Rose Bowl against Ohio State, four touchdowns.

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And finally: Skiers who must have the latest gadget can try the SportsTracker, which follows a skier’s progress by using the Global Positioning System, or GPS, a network of orbiting satellites developed by the U.S. military.

Skiers can rent a lightweight GPS receiver the size of a pack of cigarettes, turn it in at the end of the day and get a map of the mountain with colored lines showing where they skied and how fast. It costs $27 a day.

Be careful where you wear the GPS, though. Last year, an American technician using GPS equipment to install a cellular phone system in Russia was arrested on espionage charges. He was later released.