Another Four Years of Foul-Ups in Washington

The Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell unloaded on Chris Webber, traded last week by the Washington Wizards to the Sacramento Kings for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe:

“You can be 6 feet 10 and movie-star handsome with world class athletic talent and a $57-million contract.

“You can have a prep school education, two years at Michigan, a solid family background and everybody in Washington on your side--ready to cut you 100 yards of slack.

“And in just four years, you can screw it up so badly that people are tickled to hear you’ve been kicked out of town in exchange for a couple of veterans who, at best, constitute 80 cents on the dollar.”

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Trivia time: The Angels’ Chuck Finley recently won 14 straight games. What’s the major league record for consecutive wins?

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Need two? When Indiana beat New York in the NBA playoffs, Chicago ticket brokers broke out black arm bands.

Buddy Wolfe of AAA tickets in Chicago prayed for a Knick-Bull Eastern Conference series. “It would drive the prices to the moon,” he said.

If purchased at the box office, Bull playoff tickets range from $30 to $450. With Patrick Ewing and the Knicks in town, one ticket broker said he could charge more than three times those amounts.

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Cleveland bound? The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ed Bouchette speculates Steeler Coach Bill Cowher could become the top candidate to be coach of the expansion Cleveland Browns in 1999.

That’s if Cowher’s negotiations with the Steelers on a new contract falter. He wants his salary raised from $1 million a year to about $2 million.

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Help wanted: The ABL’s Long Beach StingRays had the league’s worst attendance last season.

No surprise, then, to spot this ad for a sales and marketing director in the Sports Business Daily newsletter:

“Excellent opportunity for young executive who wants to call his or her own shots. NBA, MLB, CBA, IHL and minor league baseball account executives encouraged to apply.”

NFL people need not apply, apparently.

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Bad numbers, man: Sports Business Daily also reports ice hockey’s TV ratings are plummeting.

ESPN’s NHL playoff numbers are down 30% and off 29% on ESPN2, the newsletter reports.

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Hitterish? Boston Red Sox pitcher Bret Saberhagen said he had “probably the best stuff, the best fastball I’ve had,” after a 7-4 loss Wednesday to the Minnesota Twins.

So what went wrong?

“They just looked like they were real hitterish,” Saberhagen said.

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Trivia answer: Twenty-four, by the New York Giants’ Carl Hubbell, in 1936-37.

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And finally: Six months after being released by his last NHL team, Brian Bellows, 34, prepared to complete work for his business degree at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada.

Then the injury-riddled Washington Capitals signed him.

Bellows: “The running joke is getting to be: ‘Will I finish school before my professors retire?’ ”