Thanks, Mac: You Ruined It for Everyone

Steve Hummer in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution on Mark McGwire’s establishing high standards for everyone in sports:

“Records are made to be broken--by tiny increments. The bar is to be raised by fractions and hundredths. But McGwire took a hydraulic lift to the major league home run mark, his 70 a nearly 15% increase of that old, tired 61.

“Apply that math to other undertakings, and it seems even more ludicrous.

“For example, to lower the PGA 18-hole scoring record of 59 by the same amount that McGwire raised the home run record, someone is going to have to shoot 50. That won’t happen until the tour begins playing beachside courses that feature pirate ships and windmills.”

*

Trivia time: Which player holds the record for most hits, singles and doubles in World Series play?

*

Geezer matchup: George Foreman on his Jan. 23 fight with Larry Holmes: “Usually, the doctors check a fighter’s heart, but with Larry and me, they’re just going to check to see if we have a pulse.”

Foreman turns 50 Jan. 10; Holmes 49 on Nov. 3.

*

Ripping review: Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News writes that Tim Green’s novel, “The Red Zone,” is the “worst book I’ve ever read.

“It is crude, it is ugly, it is a poorly constructed blob of garbage. It takes a real event, the drowning death of former Los Angeles Ram owner Carroll Rosenbloom and turns it into a ridiculous, fictionalized mishmash of murder and intrigue, with a cast of caricatures that are clumsily drawn.”

OK, but how was the cover illustration?

*

Bashing Bonds: Bob Smizik in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Another postseason and another failure for Barry Bonds. He was up twice with the bases loaded Monday and didn’t get a hit. He was hitless for the entire game. What else is new?

“Bonds is a dead-certain Hall of Famer, but he’ll be remembered almost as much for his postseason chokes as his excellent regular-season play.”

*

Looking back: On this day in 1981, USC’s Marcus Allen rushed for 233 yards against Oregon State, his fourth consecutive 200-yard plus rushing game.

Allen finished the regular season with 2,342 yards, an NCAA record at the time. It was broken by Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State, 2,628 yards in 1988.

*

Trivia answer: Yogi Berra, 71 hits; 49 singles and 10 doubles (a tie with Frankie Frisch).

*

And finally: Always looking for a Red Sox connection, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe notes that Monica Lewinsky and Nomar Garciaparra were both born on July 23, 1973, in California--she in San Francisco, he in Whittier.

Ah, what a small world.