It’s No Dream Team, It’s a Nightmare

Mark Kiszla, writing in the Denver Post: “Caught in the cross-fire of a labor war between the NBA and the league’s players, the Dream Team is dying. Let it fade away.

“The Dream Team, a tired concept, has a duty to die. The United States won’t be sending famous millionaires from the NBA to the World Championship in Greece.

“Good.

“No more Dream Team means no more stars wrapping themselves in Old Glory for corporate gain. No more pampered athletes whining about the 24-hour room service in their four-star hotel. No more rub-it-in scores of USA 133, China 70.”

OK, Mark. Now tell us how you really feel about the Dream Team.

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Trivia time: Who was the last amateur golfer to win the men’s U.S. Open?

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Apocalypse now? Dan Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe: “There haven’t been many years when both the Red Sox and Cubs have had a chance at postseason play. A Red Sox-Cubs World Series would certainly bring out the ‘end of the world’ cult.

“The Sox haven’t won since 1918, the Cubs since ’08 and the Sox’s last Series win was against the Cubs. Stephen King already has predicted that a Cubs-BoSox World Series could only end with an atomic bomb detonating after it got to 3-3.”

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Together at last: The last time the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State played in football was 1931, with the Buckeyes winning, 67-6, and it began to look as though it might be six or seven decades before they played again.

But the schools recently announced that they will play games in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2006. Three of the games will be in Ohio Stadium, with the Buckeyes traveling to the planned home of the Cincinnati Bengals, Paul Brown Stadium, for the 2002 game.

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No surprises: Paul Westphal, the former Phoenix Sun coach and new coach of the Seattle SuperSonics, on relating to players:

“There are a lot of personality quirks that everybody has, me included. And after having coached Charles Barkley, I don’t think there’s anything that I’ll see that I haven’t already seen.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1970, the Detroit Tigers’ Cesar Gutierrez performed a 20th century first when he had seven hits--six singles and a double--in a 12-inning, 9-8 victory over Cleveland.

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Trivia answer: John Goodman in 1933 at the North Shore Golf Club in Glenview, Ill. He defeated Ralph Guldahl by one stroke.

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And finally: Ken Griffey Jr. in an interview in Inside Sports magazine: “I was watching soccer highlights one day this spring, and there were some nice plays, but what struck me was the way the players jumped and did flips and tossed their arms in the air after they scored.

“Man, would I like to do that on the ballfield. I’ve often thought about running down a ball near the wall, getting one foot up on the wall and turning a back flip. The fans would go crazy.”