Sanders Is Just as Elusive Off the Field

Despite speculation that Detroit Lion star Barry Sanders will retire or is trying to force a trade, Coach Bobby Ross has some advice for NFL teams interested in him.

“Don’t waste a phone call.”

Sanders’ father, William, said Barry was frustrated with the Lions’ lack of progress and might retire. Sanders boycotted the team’s mandatory minicamp, won’t return Ross’ phone calls and has told his agents not to discuss the matter.

This has made it difficult for the media.

” . . . [My] boss was asking for the impossible, which is nothing new,” writes the Detroit News’ Terry Foster. “That is why he is the boss.

“ ‘Hey, why don’t you find Barry Sanders,’ he said.

“And why don’t I fly to Kalamazoo for an interview with Elvis Presley?”

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Long good-by: Red Sox fans have formed a Save Fenway committee, but the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy suggests they chill out.

“This is Boston,” Shaughnessy wrote. “It takes so long to do anything here, we might all be dead by the time they have the new Fenway.”

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Trivia question: Who holds the major league record for pinch-hit home runs?

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Local hero: Maryland guard Steve Francis, the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, made no secret of his distaste at being taken by the faraway Vancouver Grizzlies.

“A lot of people are going to think what they want to think,” he said later. “If they want to take it as I’m a bad guy because I want to express my feelings, I express my feelings on the basketball court, too. . . . It wasn’t Vancouver, it was just the fact I was going to be so far from my family, my grandmother, my brothers and sisters.”

Not that Francis has an attitude problem but at the Chicago pre-draft camp, he lectured a writer who asked about his background, suggesting he should have done his homework first.

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No more dreaming: The first NBA players in the Olympics were regarded as royalty but since then the teams have been better known for boorish behavior (the ’94 World Championships in Toronto) or apathy (the ’96 gold medal winners in Atlanta.)

Nor is the current team in the American qualifying tournament faring much better.

“The arena in Puerto Rico where the games are being played has rarely been even half full for U.S. games,” writes the Associated Press’s Brian Mahoney, “and when it has been, the crowd is turning against the Americans. The fans recently started shouting for Cuba because of its displeasure with the United States’ effort in that game.

“The team is playing with the kind of thuggery that the ’94 team showed in the World Championships. Already, Gary Payton has been ejected from a game, Tim Hardaway has been booed for clothes-lining a player and Tom Gugliotta committed a hard foul that had tempers flaring.”

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Trivia answer: Cliff Johnson, with 20.

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And finally: Just because he hadn’t talked to the media until Sunday since joining the Baltimore Orioles doesn’t mean Albert Belle has been speechless. In the wake of speculation he’ll be traded, he recently posted a note for the media that read:

“Half-year down, 4 1/2 years to go so don’t fight it and show me some love!!! AB.”