After Defeat, He Wasn’t at a Loss for Words

Bob Kravitz in the Indianapolis Star: “Choose your favorite word. The Colts’ mind-numbing loss to the Patriots Sunday was:

* “Inexcusable.

* “Inexplicable.

* “As brutally a painful afternoon as listening to Allen Iverson’s rap album.”

Gee, Bob, it’s only one game.

*

Trivia time: What quarterback holds the NFL record for career games of 400 yards or more passing?

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Hi honey, I’m home: Washington Capital goaltender Olaf Kolzig is featured in one of those ESPN commercials that promote the NHL. The scene has him enjoying a fancy dinner with an actress playing his wife.

Kolzig takes a swig out of a bottle of red wine, then spits it out and pours the rest of the bottle over his head as if it was the squirt bottle sitting over the net in a game.

“I had to throw out my underwear because it was so drenched,” he said. “[My real wife] wasn’t too happy. It didn’t help that I got home at 2 in the morning smelling of alcohol with no underwear.”

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Luxury zone: Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post: “Barry Bonds in the aftermath of the Giants’ playoff ouster: ‘We play as a team, we win and lose as a team.’

“Right. That’s why Barry has his own leather lounge chair in the clubhouse, not to mention his own TV and almost as many lockers as the entire bullpen.”

*

Trade-off: Sacramento King point guard Jayson Williams will sit out the first five games of the season for failing to follow the NBA’s anti-drug policy.

“Ironic, isn’t it,” writes Peter Vecsey of the New York Post. “Williams gets in trouble for possession. As a result, his team now gets eight or 10 extra possessions a game.”

*

Really big: Rulon Gardner’s stunning Olympic wrestling victory over Russia’s Alexander Karelin is causing quite a stir in Gardner’s hometown of Afton, Wyo.

“This is probably the greatest thing in the valley since the first settlers survived the early winters,” Mayor Jerry Hansen said.

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No way subway: Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News doesn’t share New Yorkers’ enthusiasm for a potential Subway World Series:

“The feeling east of the Hudson River is that St. Louis and Seattle as baseball’s final match would be proof that the universe has no order and the apocalypse is at the gate, not that a simple walk across Manhattan won’t confirm the same thing.”

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Remember when? Mark McGwire and Will Clark, teammates on the St. Louis Cardinals, were also teammates on the 1984 Olympic baseball team in Los Angeles. It was a demonstration sport at the time.

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Looking back: On this day in 1946, UCLA defeated Stanford, 26-6.

The Bruins had a 10-0 regular-season record that year before losing to Illinois, 45-14, in the Rose Bowl game.

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Dizzy and dim too: The late Dizzy Dean, responding to a listener who complained that he didn’t know the King’s English: “Ol’ Diz knows the King’s English. And not only that, I also know the queen is English.”

*

Trivia answer: Dan Marino of Miami, 13, from 1983 to 1999.

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And finally: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle, bemoaning the Yankees’ elimination of the Oakland Athletics:

“Now we get another week of Joe Torre, who looks like he accidentally dropped his winning lottery ticket into his Wheaties and is now waiting for a miracle of digestion.”