In the Franks Household, Mays Is Statuesque

Twenty-seven years ago, Hall of Fame center fielder Willie Mays bought a car for the mother of Herman Franks, one of his managers.

Mays and Franks were together Friday in San Francisco, where a nine-foot statue of Mays was unveiled in front of the Giants’ new stadium, Pacific Bell Park.

Franks, 86, talked about the car in the present tense.

“She still has it,” said Franks of his mother.

But don’t look for her to drive it to the park. She’s 104.

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Still the Say Hey Kid: “I’d like to be playing here today,” Mays said of the Giants’ new home. “I think I could hit 10-20 more home runs.”

Mays, who finished with 660, is 68.

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A true miracle: Giant officials refer to their new stadium as “the miracle on Third Street.”

Writes Ray Ratto in the San Francisco Examiner, “In fact, there may be miracles to be had here in time, but so far, the only miracle is that people feel good about something named after the phone company.”

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Trivia time: Much has been made of home run sluggers Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr. all playing in the National League’s Central Division. But it’s not the first time. When else were they all in the same division?

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Green with envy: The NFL is being criticized in the media for disciplining players for on-the-field celebrations while ignoring off-the-field criminal activity.

The league’s competition committee clamped down last week on routines such as the St. Louis Rams’ Bob ‘n’ Weave, performed in the end zone after the team scores.

But at least Minnesota Viking Coach Dennis Green, the committee co-chairman, was honest when asked by Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch what the problem was with the Bob ‘n’ Weave.

“When you’re on the other side of the Bob ‘n’ Weave, that’s the problem with it,” Green said.

Let’s see, the Rams beat the Vikings, 49-37, last season in a divisional playoff game.

That’s seven bobs and seven weaves, 14 good reasons to vote it out.

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Say what? In ruling out the possibility of Tara Lipinski and Oksana Baiul competing in the 2002 Olympics, International Skating Union President Ottavio Cinquanta explained, “If you have an egg and you boil it, and you want to have it back fresh, it’s impossible.”

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Trivia answer: From 1989 through ‘91, McGwire, Griffey and Sosa were all in the American League West, McGwire with the Oakland A’s, Griffey with the Seattle Mariners, Sosa with the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox.

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And finally: A Salt Lake City attorney named Steve Young, a former punter at Utah, is sometimes mistaken for former Brigham Young quarterback Ty Detmer, according to Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“No,” the attorney explains, “I am Steve Young.”