More Signs That Soccer Is Going to the Birds
The problem hasn’t reached Alfred Hitchcock proportions yet, but the Spanish soccer club Atletico Madrid is getting worried.
It seems the club’s Vicente Calderon stadium is plagued by pigeons, and nothing can make them disappear.
Before a game against Espanyol a couple of weeks ago, large flocks of pigeons swooped onto the field around the goals, pecking the grass and leaving sizable patches of dirt.
Atletico officials say efforts to discourage them--including placing pigeon carcasses on the field and introducing stadium cats--have failed to intimidate the birds.
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Trivia time: What is Yogi Berra’s full name?
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Whistle stop: Jody Silvester, retiring this month after 32 years as a basketball referee, told Sports Illustrated about working a game at Indiana shortly after having ultrasound treatment on his knee.
During the game, Hoosier Coach Bob Knight called out to him: “Jody, I know you’re having a problem with your knee, but why’s it affecting your eyesight?”
Silvester said he was laughing so hard he had no comeback.
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The 2000 campaign: Art Thiel of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer likes what he has seen of former Angel coach Larry Bowa.
“The fact that the five-time all-star took the Mariners’ third base job,” Thiel wrote, “was a good sign for Seattle baseball, which historically has paid its coaching staffs worse than George W. Bush pays his foreign-policy mentors.”
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What, him worry? Lamar went 15-15, made the NCAA tournament and plays Duke’s Blue Devils (27-4) at Winston-Salem, N.C.
That might be tough, conceded Lamar Coach Mike Deane.
“The thing that concerns you is that they are so close to home, that they are the most formidable offensive team in the country, they are the deepest team, they are the most athletic team and they certainly are the best team in the country right now.’
Other than that, it shouldn’t be too bad.
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Worm holes: Before Dennis Rodman’s not-unexpected departure from the Mavericks, the Dallas Morning News’ Frank Luksa managed to get in a few shots of his own.
“Rodman had refined his artificially eccentric persona for so long that few accepted anything he said as the product of a rational mind,” Luksa wrote.
And:
“The collected wisdom of Rodman heretofore has been one of history’s shortest books. It compared in length to The Sophisticated Man’s Guide to Dining Etiquette by Mike Tyson.”
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Trivia answer: Lawrence Peter Berra.
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And finally: Bill Scheft, writing in ESPN the Magazine, couldn’t resist commenting on tennis starlet Anna Kournikova’s engagement to the Florida Panthers’ Pavel Bure.
“The two met after she broke up with the Red Wings’ Sergei Fedorov,” Scheft wrote. “You can’t leave a rebound like that for Pavel Bure.”
