Here’s a Switch: the Ex-Catcher and the Wry

Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post suggests that Dennis Miller and Tim McCarver should switch sports as analysts:

“Wouldn’t Miller be perfect on baseball? With all that time between pitches, innings, pitching changes, the time it takes some of these guys to make their slow-motion homer trots, he’d be a natural.

“His obscure references might even be understood by the emerald chessboard types. . . .

“With 22 players on the field, wouldn’t McCarver be in analyst heaven? This is a man who feels it necessary to comment on some of the most mind-boggling minutiae known to man. No one but bleary-eyed football coaches viewing game tape for hours can truly figure out football.”

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Trivia time: Who was the New York Yankee pitcher who, in 1947, was one out away from the first no-hitter in World Series history, only to lose it and the game, 3-2, on a two-run double by Brooklyn’s Cookie Lavagetto?

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Brand new world: Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist Rulon Gardner on his newfound fame:

“Here I am, sitting across from Regis Philbin, trying to answer a $250,000 question,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Rosie O’Donnell gave me a jet ski, Conan [O’Brien] was the nicest guy, and Jay Leno was just awesome.

“People want me for what I am and I’m not going to be any different. But I am a little out of my element.”

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Hard place: Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times on scrambling Bear quarterback Cade McNown injuring his shoulder Sunday against the Eagles at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia:

“Didn’t McNown realize he was playing at the cement Vet, where the turf is as kind to runners as the Pipeline coral is to surfers?”

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Nowhere man: Eagle running back Darnell Autry, from Northwestern, who tried out for the role of a running back in a TV movie but was turned down because, they said, he didn’t look like a running back:

“I was thinking, ‘Not only do I not feel like a football player, I don’t even look like one either.’ ”

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What’s going on? Charles Barkley, telling the New York Post about the state of the world: “You know it’s going to hell when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy.”

The rapper, if you didn’t know, is Eminem. We presume we don’t have to tell you who the golfer is.

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The right buttons: New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, on the managerial moves of Joe Torre: “We need to take him to Vegas. The man is almost never wrong.”

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Inflation: From NBC’s Conan O’Brien: “Because the Mets and Yankees don’t have to travel to another city for the World Series, they’re saving about $200,000 each. Which in stadium dollars amounts to two hot dogs and four beers.”

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Happy birthday, Knight: Bob Knight, former Indiana basketball coach, turns 60 today.

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Looking back: On this day in 1986, the New York Mets, on the brink of elimination in the World Series, scored three runs in the bottom of the 10th inning and defeated the Boston Red Sox, 6-5, in Game 6. The Mets won the seventh game, 8-5.

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Trivia answer: Bill Bevens.

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And finally: Trainer Al Certo, on Andrew Golota quitting between rounds in his fight with Mike Tyson, before realizing his fighter really was hurt:

“Here’s a guy who goes into a bank, robs the bank, gets the money, drops it in the bank and runs out. He could have beaten Tyson if his head was right.”