Air Gordon Rises to Top of the Class

Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writing before Jeff Gordon had won the Daytona 500 on Sunday:

“Here is Gordon, 27, positioned supremely at his prime, between a core of drivers growing too old to keep up and a new wave of talent too green to be serious.

“He is out there alone, now that Michael Jordan has moved on, the single most dominant figure on the sports page.”

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Straightaway sport: Former baseball standout Reggie Jackson, a big NASCAR fan, who attended the Daytona 500:

“I’ve always liked this. There aren’t many foul balls and everything is pretty much down the middle.”

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Trivia time: What was the result of the first UCLA-USC basketball yearly series?

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Star quality: He is called “the Jewish Jordan,” and Tamir Goodman is so skillful that Maryland, which rarely makes such a commitment to high school juniors, has offered him a basketball scholarship.

Goodman, a 6-foot-3 guard, averages about 37 points a game playing for Talmudical Academy, a Jewish day school near Baltimore that has an enrollment of 72 students.

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Modesty: Mush March, 90, who scored the first goals at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens and the old Chicago Stadium: “What the heck? It was just a game, and I was just a player.”

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Mountain men: Peter Vecsey in the New York Post: “From the looks of Oliver Miller, I can see why the [Sacramento] Kings hired him to be their new Fitness Center.

“From the looks of Bryant Reeves, the [Vancouver] Grizzlies should order him to change his nickname from Big Country to Big Continent.”

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Legitimate payoff: From comedy writer Earl Hochman: “Philadelphia 76er guard Allen Iverson will be paid $70.9 million over the next six years, almost as much as some IOC members received from the Winter Olympic Games scandal.”

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Sorry, sir: Opposing players should be careful when fouling George Politis of St. Joseph’s College of Patchogue, N.Y., the Division III school’s leading scorer and rebounder.

He’s a part-time New York police officer.

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FYI: Armando (Mando) Ramos, the youngest boxer to win the world lightweight championship, will be honored by the Golden State Boxers’ Assn. tonight at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Hollywood.

Ramos was only 20 when he stopped champion Carlos (Teo) Cruz in 11 rounds Feb. 18, 1969, at the L.A. Sports Arena. Ramos retired in 1975, having compiled a 37-11-1 record.

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Trivia answer: UCLA won two of three games in 1928.

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And finally: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, “confessing” that he has been an Olympic bribe-taker:

” . . . I have taken Olympic bribes and I have the bribes I could find lined up in front of me.

“Here from Los Angeles is a commemorative Coca-Cola bottle, still unopened. Twelve ounces. What must this be worth?

“We know 1984 was a very good year for U.S. gold medals, but as for soft drinks, well, this was pre-Coke Classic.”