Following Tiger No Picnic On a Hot Day at Augusta

Following Tiger Woods on the opening day of the Masters was so exhausting, that columnist Lynne Truss of the Times of London had to, well, depend upon the kindness of strangers:

“It was also so hot by now that usually well-organized people, who had stupidly left all their money in the pressroom [I mean me], were forgetting to be Blanche Dubois any more and just begging at the concession stands for a bit of ice to suck on.

”. . . It’s a good job Tennessee Williams never got the golf bug or playgoers on two continents would have never heard the end of it.”

*

Trivia question: Who was the NHL’s first defenseman to reach the 1,000-point plateau?

*

Books.com: There are lists and rankings for nearly everything these days--including rankings of books sold from on the on-line web site, amazon.com.

One recent sports offering cracked the top 50: “A Golfer’s Life,” by Arnold Palmer at No. 45. And, well, three recent books by Times sportswriters landed in the top 100,000: “Golden Boy--The Fame, Money and Mystery of Oscar De La Hoya”, by Tim Kawakami [31,698], “The Bruin 100: The Greatest Games in the History of UCLA Basketball” by Scott Howard-Cooper [31,811]; and “Encyclopedia of the L.A. Lakers,” by Steve Springer [84,823].

*

Speed racer: Hartford columnist Alan Greenberg, on the swiftness of Allen Iverson: “If Allen Iverson hadn’t been born, some computer genius would have invented him, a 3-D character who goes from start to finish to be glimpsed in between.”

*

Alberta battle: Scott Burnside of the National Post, on the waning of the rivalry between the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames: “Not long ago, this [Red Deer, Alberta] was the epicentre of the NHL’s most fierce rivalry. This was a place where businesses risked losing customers if they incorporated the wrong team logo into their advertising campaign.”

*

Football, football: The British magazine Total Sport was not impressed by the Kingdome in Seattle. But it dismissed the facility in a very, very British way:

“Even though the Kingdome is only 22 years old, it is showing signs of wear and tear and, from the outside, looks rather like an unappetising grey scone.

”. . . The American football experience is a must--even if you’re one of the millions of Brits who reckon the game is duller than an impeachment hearing.”

*

Landing gear: A promotional contest between periods of a recent New York Islander game misfired when four contestants on the ice were chasing parachutes dropped from the catwalks, searching for two plane tickets to the Caribbean.

One of the parachutes floated three rows into the crowd, and of course, it was the chute with the tickets. There was a happy ending as the team gave the contestants two plane tickets to anywhere in the continental United States.

*

Trivia answer: Denis Potvin of the Islanders.

*

And finally: Peter Vescey of the New York Post, on New York Knick point guard Charlie Ward: “If he, indeed, is carrying the Lord’s message, it’s just a matter of time before he turns it over.”