Here’s a Vet That Really Needs to Retire Soon

In Philadelphia, there are plans underway for a new baseball park for the Phillies. It would be a retro-style, Camden Yards-type job with about 45,000 seats.

The price tag may be in the range of

$370 million. But that figure includes the demolition of Veterans Stadium.

Here’s a suggestion: Why not let Phillie fans have a go at the stadium for a night?

Either that, or simply do nothing. The place would probably fall down on its own.

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Trivia time: How many home runs did Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez give up this season?

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Beep beep: In the Nov. 29 issue of ESPN the Magazine, there is a profile of Connecticut’s Khalid El-Amin, who seems to be in very serious like of himself.

Says El-Amin: “I feel very good about my shape right now. I’m cut. . . . Hey, I do have a nice figure.”

And reports are that he does seem to be driving a very nice car too.

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Heave ho: Breaking up is hard to do, but not in the case of caddie Jerry Higginbotham, who in less than one year has been fired by Mark O’Meara and now by Sergio Garcia.

Garcia apparently decided Higgy should be history after the caddie got into a fight in a bar after the Ryder Cup.

Higginbotham consoled himself: “I’m either getting beat up or fired.”

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He’s No. 2: Sometimes, it’s good to finish second. Cy Young runner-up Mike Mussina of the Baltimore Orioles had an incentive clause in his contract that paid him an extra $50,000 for finishing anywhere from No. 2 to No. 4 in the balloting.

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High on Earl: Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun rates UCLA as the No. 13 team in the NCAA tournament field, if it were decided today.

Says Markus: “Earl Watson might prove to be a little less flashy and a little more effective than Baron Davis as the team’s floor leader.”

Right, and wake us up as soon as Watson is drafted No. 3 in the NBA, as Davis was.

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Ask Dan Quayle: A new 35,000-seat football stadium for the University of Connecticut is in the works . . . but where?

Adriaen’s Landing or East Hartford. If it’s Adriaen’s Landing, that’s going to be the name of the stadium too. But some are suggesting a different name--Twain’s Landing--in honor of Mark Twain, who lived in Hartford.

Gov. John Rowland seems to like the Twain idea.

Said Rowland: “First of all, Adriaen’s Landing is hard to spell.”

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Trivia answer: Nine.

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And finally: Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg News on Penny Hardaway of the Phoenix Suns: “[He] has a new team, a new tattoo and the same old reputation.”

Soshnick says New Jersey’s Stephon Marbury dissed Hardaway at center court.

“He wouldn’t shake my hand before the game,” Hardaway said. “I know there are a lot of guys around the league that feel the way he does. They’re saying my run is over and my game is gone.”