Now, He’ll Just Take His Win and Go Home

Keyshawn Johnson has been labeled brash and cocky, but in an interview with Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post, the Jet wide receiver said he’s motivated only by winning:

“The numbers aren’t important,” he said. “With me, it’s win first. Everything else is second. If I’m not going to get the Ws, I’m not going to get anything else I want. Who cares about the numbers? It’s the dance that counts.

“No one talks about Lynn Swann’s numbers, they talk about his catches in the Super Bowl. Ernie Banks was a great player, but he never won. I don’t want to be him. If Shaq doesn’t get it done, they’re going to say that about him.”

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Trivia time: What are the NFL attendance records for a Super Bowl and a regular-season game?

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Right on: Mary Valentine, wife of New York Met Manager Bobby Valentine: “He’s passionate and emotional, and his mouth can get him in trouble.”

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Old wounds: More Ryder Cup fallout, this from announcer and former British pro Peter Allis in the London Daily Telegraph:

“Americans are totally different [from] us. They might as well be Chinese. In their eyes, pretty much everything in Europe is rubbish--from the weather to food to cars to hotels to cinema to countryside to the warmth of the sea to the sandwiches. And that begins to wear on you after a while.”

Wait a minute, Peter, lots of Americans enjoy the English countryside.

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Pepperoni Pippen? Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated: “Scottie Pippen ripping Sir Cumference [Charles Barkley] as a career failure? Please. Without Michael Jordan, Pippen is the world’s tallest Domino’s deliveryman.”

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Recalled shot: Hal Bock of the Associated Press, on Babe Ruth’s “called shot” home run against the Chicago Cubs in the 1932 World Series:

“ ‘Nobody but a blankety-blank fool would have done what I did that day,’ Ruth told writer John P. Carmichael. ‘When I think of what an idiot I could have been if I had struck out. And I could have too, just as well as not because I had made up my mind to swing at the next pitch if I could reach it with my bat.

“ ‘I didn’t exactly point to any one spot, like the flagpole. I just sort of waved to the whole fence, but that was foolish enough.

“ ‘I took two strikes and after each one I held up my finger and said, “That’s one,” and “That’s two.” Then’s when I waved to the fence.

“ ‘I didn’t point to any spot, but as long as I’d called the first two strikes on myself, I had to go through with it. It was damned foolishness, but I just felt like doing it.’

“Ruth hit Charlie Root’s next pitch into the bleachers and chortled as he circled the bases, clasping his hands over his head like a triumphant fighter.”

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FYI: The Florida Marlins hit 128 home runs this season. So did Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

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Cheap shot: From comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “NASA says the hole [in the ozone layer] over Antarctica is roughly 9.8 million square miles. Or, about the size of the hole in UCLA’s defensive line.”

Trivia answer: Super Bowl XIV, Rams versus Steelers, Jan. 20, 1980, attracted a crowd of 103,985 at the Rose Bowl; Rams versus 49ers at the Coliseum on Nov. 10, 1957, drew 102,368.

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And finally: Art Spander in the Oakland Tribune: “Los Angeles has figuratively been given the middle finger instead of an NFL franchise, but there is no joy in Northern California. On the contrary.

“There is the nagging fear those desperate folk will be eyeing one of our teams. Or might it be the other way around?

“The comic opera involving the city of Oakland and His Deviousness, the exalted Al Davis, is about to go on stage once more, with Al, gleefully rubbing his hands together at the prospects of taking his team back to an old home for a second time.”