Some Things Don’t Ever Seem to Change

Frank Fitzpatrick in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Talk about a Subway Series:

“On the morning of Oct. 1, 1952, Joe Black, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ starting pitcher in that day’s World Series opener, was clutching a strap on the D train while it rumbled toward Ebbets Field.

“ ‘So I’m standing there,’ Black recalled, ‘waiting to get off at the Prospect Park stop, and this guy next to me says, “Hey, whaddya think of this guy Black we got pitching in Game 1?” ’

“ ‘I told him I thought he was pretty damn good. And he says, “Well, he’d better be. I’m getting tired of them Yankees beating us every year.” ’ “

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More Black: “ ‘You went into Yankee Stadium and it was this conservative, businessman’s crowd. You might hear a little pat-pat-pat applause once in a while.

“ ‘But go to Ebbets Field and those people were screaming at you, shouting your statistics, questioning your heritage, everything. You had that crazy lady and her cowbells.’ ”

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Trivia time: Who holds the NCAA Division I-A record for most touchdowns in a game?

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Misnomer? Bernie Lincicome in the Rocky Mountain News on the Subway Series: “Other than the obvious alliteration, I wonder how the subway was chosen as the link between the teams when the most obvious connection would be The Dented Yellow Taxi Series, unless you actually need a yellow taxi.

“For anyone who will be able to afford tickets, the Stretch Limo Series would be more to the point, including the ballplayers.”

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A biggie: Ray Ratto in the San Francisco Examiner: “[Today’s] USC-Stanford game will be the first between the two teams with ninth place in the Pac-10 at stake.”

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More Ratto: “The Rams are 6-0, the Raiders are 5-1, and Los Angeles is still happy with its current number of NFL teams.”

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Popular Beavers: Ron Bellamy in the Eugene Register-Guard: “The day after [Oregon State] defeated [USC], OSU sports information director Hal Cowan got more than 100 requests, by telephone and e-mail, for interviews with [Coach] Dennis Erickson and running back Ken Simonton.”

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Wishful thinking: Jay Mariotti in the Chicago Sun-Times: “A Subway Series will not save baseball, but it might destroy New York, not a bad consolation prize.”

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Don’t tell her: From Craig Kilborn on “The Late, Late Show”: “When informed it would be a Subway Series, New Yorker Hillary Clinton exclaimed, ‘What’s a subway?’ ”

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Looking back: On this day in 1975, Carlton Fisk hit his famous home run, waving it fair, in the 12th inning to give the Boston Red Sox a 7-6 victory over Cincinnati and force a seventh game of the World Series, which the Reds won.

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Looking back again: On this day in 1922, USC defeated Nevada, 6-0. Card stunts were used by USC for the first time.

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Trivia answer: Howard Griffith of Illinois, eight, all rushing, against Southern Illinois on Sept. 22, 1990.

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And finally: Nick Faldo, commenting on Tiger Woods in an interview with Hubert Mizell of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times:

“He’s the whole mental-physical package. The hardest part is keeping focus. He’s also been amazing at that.

“Golf has become a physical sport. Tiger keeps creating new levels of accomplishment, shaping his mind, game and body to not match Nicklaus but to become something even better.”