Contract Won’t Let Him Out of This World

No skydiving, no skiing, no race-car driving.

Those sorts of clauses in professional sports contracts are nothing new.

Now comes word from the BBC that an English Premier League team has banned soccer player Stefan Schwarz from space travel.

The BBC tagged Schwarz a “Yuri Gagarin wannabe”--a nod to the cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man to orbit the earth--and quoted Sunderland team executive John Fickling on the clause prohibiting the midfielder from booking passage on a proposed commercial space flight.

“One of Schwarz’s advisors has, indeed, got one of the places on the commercial flights [tentatively scheduled for 2002],” Fickling said. “And we were afraid that he may wish to take Stefan along with him. So we thought we’d better get this tied up now rather than at the time of the flight.”

Guess you can never be too cautious in big-time sports.

“At the end of the day we are protecting the club, really,” Fickling said. “It was a little bit of a light-hearted moment during protracted negotiations. But one day it could become quite acceptable to put such clauses in various contracts.”

No word yet on the team’s policy on time travel.

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Trivia time: What major league pitcher was nicknamed “Spaceman”?

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Boston curse: First, horror novelist Stephen King was seriously injured when he was hit by a minivan in June.

Then Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon was lost for the season because of an elbow injury.

And the latest novel by King, a Red Sox fan, is “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.”

Coincidence, asks Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe?

You be the judge.

“Why couldn’t King have done us all a favor and written ‘The Girl Who Loved Mark Portugal’ or ‘The Girl Who Loved John Wasdin’ ?” Shaughnessy wrote.

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Welcome to the NFL: The Cleveland Browns are joining the NFL for the second time, but it’s doubtful that the expansion club can match the originals of 1950.

The old Browns were born in 1946 as founding members of the All-America Football Conference, but that league folded after the 1949 season and Cleveland, the Baltimore Colts and the San Francisco 49ers joined the NFL.

In a bit of scheduling designed to put the former AAFC teams in their place, the Browns had to play the Philadelphia Eagles, the two-time defending NFL champions, in their first regular-season game.

Quarterback Otto Graham recalls that Coach Paul Brown never mentioned playing the defending champions, he simply posted every news clipping he saw that called Cleveland a minor league team.

“In my opinion, there was no team in the history of any sport that was more ready to play a game emotionally than we were,” Graham said.

And Cleveland crushed the Eagles, 35-10, as Graham threw three touchdown passes.

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Nice round: Brent Geiberger, the son of Al Geiberger, won the Greater Hartford Open on Sunday and is the first-round leader in the Buick Classic.

Still, he never ceases to be asked about his famous father, the first golfer to shoot a 59 on the PGA Tour.

“I shoot 59 every time I go out and play,” Brent Geiberger said. “But I always have at least a couple of holes to play.”

Only three players have shot a 59 in a PGA Tour event: Geiberger in 1977, Chip Beck in 1991 and David Duval this year.

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Trivia answer: Bill Lee, who pitched for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos during a 14-year major league career that ended in 1982.

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And finally: Miami Dolphin receiver Tony Martin is standing trial for laundering money for a convicted drug dealer, and Dan LeBatard of the Miami Herald sees an unfortunate trend.

“Jimmy Johnson has turned Miami into something that looks so much like the Southern Raiders that the dolphin on Miami’s helmets should be wearing an eye patch.”