No Joking, He Made the Calls

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe writing on feisty, former NBA referee Sid Borgia, who died Jan. 25 at the age of 82:

“Sid was a man of his times. Simply put, he often made it up as he went along. The following vignette is said to be the gospel truth.

“Sid blows the whistle. Turning to the offensive player, he says, ‘You walked.’ Turning to the defensive player, he says, ‘You made him walk. Forced walk. Offensive ball out of bounds!’

“Forced walk? Why not? For Sid Borgia is the man who coined the phrase, ‘No harm, no foul,’ which has made a comfortable leap from basketball lingo to accepted American phraseology.”

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Trivia time: What was unusual about the USC-UCLA basketball games during the 1984-85 season?

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Parting shot: With Oakland Raider quarterback Jeff George now a free agent, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Glenn Dickey wrote:

“He couldn’t lead a team across the street, mostly because his teammates don’t like him.”

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Praise indeed: John Robinson, on his former assistant at USC, Mike Riley, now the coach of the Chargers:

“If you go to heaven and you look around and Mike Riley isn’t there, you’ll know you’re not in heaven. I challenge you to find one guy that says one bad thing about him.

“I wish I was as good a man as Mike Riley.”

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Makes sense: Bill Campbell in the Dallas Morning News: “And while we’ve heard many warnings of bad basketball to come because of the compressed time frame, at least one NBA player sees a bright side to the busy schedule.

“ ‘You’ll never hear me complain about playing three games straight or four games in five nights,’ said Tracy Murray of the Washington Wizards. “ ‘The way I figure it, any day you play means you don’t have to practice.’ ”

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Talent scout? Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Blackhawk General Manager Bob Murray returned from a scouting trip to Sweden.

“Given that the Hawks have found the only Soviet players who can’t score, I’m pretty confident Murray will hunt down the only Swedes who can’t skate.”

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Fair warning: Ron Rapoport in the Chicago Sun-Times: “When the Phoenix Suns, who were miffed at losing Antonio McDyess to Denver, played host to the Nuggets, the following message appeared on the blackboard in the visiting dressing room:

“ ‘If you hear gunshots, move away from McDyess.’ ”

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Leaving on time: Luc Longley, now of the Phoenix Suns, on one of the positive aspects of leaving the Chicago Bulls after Michael Jordan retired: “The Bulls were dying an agonizing death. I didn’t want to be part of the carcass of what was a once-great team waiting for the vultures to pick it apart.”

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Trivia answer: They were double- and quadruple-overtime games, both won by USC.

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And finally: Former Laker Nick Van Exel in an interview with Glenn Nelson of the Seattle Times said the Lakers would be better off under a coach who would focus them.

“I know that for a fact,” Van Exel said. “[Del Harris is] definitely the wrong guy. There’s too much talent to get swept in the playoffs and things like that.”

Harris, of course, doesn’t play. Van Exel was one of the underachieving Lakers when they were swept last year by the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference finals.