Next, We’ll Have to Start Calling Them America’s Teams

The next thing you know, George Strait will sing “All My Ex-Point Guards Live in Texas” and Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings will re-do their piece and call it, “Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Left Wingers.”

Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan agrees.

“So what’s wrong with this picture?” he writes. “They’ve got rodeos all over Queens and Texas is now the undisputed winter sports champion of the American sports world.

“First, the Dallas Stars bring the Stanley Cup to the Lone Star state. And now the San Antonio Spurs . . . have brought an NBA championship to the land of pickup trucks, sad country ballads and six-man football. As far as excitement goes, this will just have to do until the Cowboys come to camp.”

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Trivia time: Who was the tallest player in NFL history and how tall was he?

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Revisionist history: Spur guard Avery Johnson might have gone off the deep end Friday night when he said, “This is the biggest thing that has ever happened in San Antonio.”

And now every school kid in Texas will be told to “Remember the Alamodome.”

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We’ll always have Paris: With no apologies to William Shakespeare, Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope calls Martina Hingis’ loss to Steffi Graf in the French Open final, “The Taming of the Shrew.”

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Another loss: A week ago, a national chain ordered its department stores to remove T-shirts proclaiming “You’re game’s as ugly as your girl” and other derogatory slogans from its racks.

The T-shirt company had recently signed--who else?--Latrell Sprewell as a spokesman.

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Daddy knows best: Dallas Morning News columnist Blackie Sherrod wonders if horsemen are misguided in their search for another Secretariat. He writes, “Some of us fanciers had rather find another Northern Dancer, who sired 635 foals, at services up to $1 mil.”

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Impact player: Tony Macklin, a short-story writer and associate professor of English at the University of Dayton, tells Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stan Hochman that former left fielder Del Ennis was the perfect Phillie:

“I can remember, first game of a doubleheader, he misses a fly ball, three-base error, the Phillies lose. Second game, he hits a three-run homer and the Phillies win.”

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Taking out an ad: Rob Knight of Kennesaw, Ga., has already declared his allegiance to Atlanta’s new entry in the NHL by having “Let’s Go Thrashers” tattooed on his chest. The misguided loyalty earned him a trip to the NHL draft.

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Trivia answer: Richard Sligh, a 7-foot, 300-pound defensive tackle, played in seven games for the Oakland Raiders in 1967.

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And finally: Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote asks you to “quit knocking that proposed George Foreman-Mike Tyson bout. Where else--other than the Jerry Springer show--do you get to see a 50-year-old man brawling with a borderline sociopath?”