THE INSIDE TRACK : Cowboys Don’t Realize How Lucky They Are

Dallas doesn’t have Barry Switzer to kick around anymore, although Switzer believes that with two more victories in 1997, he’d have been back to foul more things up for the Cowboys in 1998.

“If we hadn’t gone 6-10, I don’t care if Troy [Aikman] or anybody else--players, media, fans--wanted me, I’d have been back,” Switzer recently told Mike Fisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“Jerry [Jones] would have liked to find a way to have me back, and for him, I would have done it.

“I talked to Jerry before the Cincinnati game and said, ‘If we’re not a .500 team, if we don’t go 8-8, we need to make changes. There should be casualties.’ We knew right then.”

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Add Switzer: He says he didn’t attend his farewell news conference because, “That’s for [the media]. Why volunteer my way into an adversarial seat? Why abuse myself? And, really, I don’t guess I wanted to embarrass Jerry.”

Besides, Switzer never cared much for the members of the fourth estate. Asked about how much attention he pays to what the media say about him, Switzer’s reply was, well, typically Switzerian:

“I listen to big band music. Old stuff. ‘40s, ‘50s. Frank Sinatra, Al Martino, Joe Stafford.”

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Trivia time: Who had 30 rebounds for Ohio State in a 1961 NCAA regional final game against Kentucky?

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P.J., meet Switzer: Todd Phipers of the Denver Post predicts that the Golden State Warriors, given a choice between keeping Latrell Sprewell or P.J. Carlesimo, will go coach-hunting this summer.

“Let’s see now,” Phipers writes, “Golden State is stuck with the final two years of Latrell Sprewell’s contract at $17.3 million, its trading leverage is almost nil and there’s virtually no chance that Sprewell and coach P.J. Carlesimo could reunite.

“It would be morally bankrupt to do so, but in a league in which the inmates obviously run the asylum, don’t bet against the Warriors jettisoning the chokee instead of the choker.”

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Mo Vaughn joke of the day: Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe heard this one from a Toronto Blue Jay player:

“Every time Mo walks this season, the Red Sox are telling him he has to walk the white line to first.”

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Trivia answer: Jerry Lucas.

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And finally: At the Doral-Ryder Open in Miami, Billy Casper was introduced to spectators at the 18th green as “the defending Havana Open champion.”

Casper won the title 40 years ago, in 1958. After Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, the Havana Open was canceled, leaving Casper as the last winner of the event.