Nothing Like Being Tossed a Softball Question

The U.S. baseball and softball teams both scored dramatic wins to come home with gold medals.

There the comparisons end.

With Tom Lasorda hogging the limelight, who can name one member of the U.S. baseball team?

With Lisa Fernandez, Dot Richardson and Stacey Nuveman getting the richly deserved headlines for their play, who can name the coach of the U.S. softball team?

P.S. It’s Ralph Raymond.

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Trivia time: When were the first baseball league championship series completed?

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Highfalutin stuff: Syndicated columnist Norman Chad says Dennis Miller’s use of obscure references on “Monday Night Football” is overblown.

“He is simply a Faustian voice in a Cenozoic wilderness, with a touch of Henrik Pontoppidan,” Chad wrote.

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The name game: Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle quotes Peter Bartlett in reference to Marion Jones and her husband, C.J. Hunter, whose reading for the steroid nandrolone was 1,000 times the legal limit:

“Clean and Jerk.”

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Out of work: Nick Canepa in the San Diego Union-Tribune wonders why John Baker’s mother flew from Texas to St. Louis for her son’s game against the Chargers. Wrote Canepa:

“John Baker was the only Ram who didn’t play. He wasn’t injured. The coach wasn’t mad at him. He wasn’t suspended for showboating. The IOC didn’t send him home in disgrace. . . . John Baker is the Rams’ punter.”

The Rams scored every time they had the ball, so Baker never left the bench.

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New York talk: The trade that sent Patrick Ewing to Seattle and ex-Laker Glen Rice to the New York Knicks prompted Steve Campbell of the Albany Times-Union to comment:

“To rid themselves of a malcontent who wants a contract that will take him to age 40, the Knicks agreed to a package where the best player they got in return plays like he’s 40.

“Glen Rice is a former all-star guard whose best days are in the rear-view mirror. To compare Rice to a cigar-store Indian would be an affront to cigar-store Indians everywhere.”

Wonder what Rice’s wife, Christina Fernandez, will say about that?

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Just right: Teresa Edwards is both the youngest (20 in 1984) and oldest (36 in 2000) to win an Olympic basketball gold medal. She is the only member of this year’s team who does not play in the WNBA.

“People ask me if I came along too late [to make big money in the WNBA]. No, I’m right on time,” she said.

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Ahead of his time: Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News wonders what all the fuss is about over Terrell Owens’ showboating on the Cowboys’ star at Texas Stadium.

“He was merely auditioning for upcoming Rassle-XFL,” Sherrod said.

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Trivia answer: Oct. 4, 1969. Baltimore defeated Minnesota, 4-3, at Baltimore in the AL championship series and the Mets beat Atlanta, 9-5, at Atlanta in the NL championship series.

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And finally: Listeners in Colombia must have been surprised when gold medalist Michael Johnson came on the air and said, “Hi, I’m Michael Johnson and you’re listening to 88.9 Bogota, the Super Station.”

No more surprised, though, than Johnson was when a Colombian reporter asked him to read the prepared statement during an Olympic news conference. He was so surprised that he did it.