Cub Fans Definitely Know It’s No Joke

Ernie Banks says he’s glad contraction wasn’t around when he played with the Chicago Cubs.

“I played on some bad teams, man. We would have been contracted before the All-Star break.”

Banks is busier with golf than baseball these days. He will host a celebrity tournament Monday at Industry Hills to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network and his Live Above and Beyond Foundation.

“I want baseball to live up to its credo, ‘Buy me some [peanuts] and Crackerjack, I don’t care if I never get back.’ Then I’ll match it up with golf.”

He wouldn’t mind matching up with Tiger Woods either. Woods will host a charity tournament, starting a week from today at Sherwood Country Club.

Said Banks, “Let’s play two. First me, then Tiger.”

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Trivia time: Where was the first Los Angeles Open played?

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Logical expense: Tom Lasorda told this story at a party for baseball scouts at former agent Dennis Gilbert’s Calabasas home:

“When I was a scout for the Dodgers, I always put ‘PTA, 10 cents’ on my expense reports. One day Al Campanis said, ‘What is PTA ,10 cents?’

I told him, ‘Pay toilet at the airport.”’

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Quick study: Orlando Magic star Tracy McGrady, on what he thinks of when he sees bloated Portland Trail Blazer Shawn Kemp: “Retirement.”

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Nothing changes: “You go through the Sporting News for the last 100 years and you will find two things are always true: You never have enough pitching and nobody ever made money.”

So said Donald Fehr, head of the baseball players’ union. Not this week, however, but in 1995.

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Calming effect: The late George Harrison’s hits were played Thursday in Rome in hopes of soothing hard feelings between AS Roma and Liverpool fans at a Champions League soccer game. La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Beatles’ songs were played at Olympic Stadium while the teams warmed up.

Last year, when the clubs met, fights broke out in Rome and some Liverpool fans were stabbed.

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Juggling nicknames: Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., may be named for an American Indian tribe, but its 21 athletic teams can no longer be known as Braves.

“Although fond of the tradition we’ve had for 50 years, the university community clearly recognized the difficulties of using a name that has the potential to misrepresent and denigrate an entire group of people,” said a university spokesman.

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Lots of steak: It takes 3,000 steers to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs, according to USA Today.

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Trivia answer: North course of the Los Angeles Country Club, in 1926, won by Lighthorse Harry Cooper.

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And finally: Among the guests in the luxury box of Washington Redskin owner Dan Snyder last week were Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger.

We have to assume they had a quorum, but wouldn’t they have been more comfortable in a cabinet?