Martinez Still Red-Hot Over Dodger Blue

Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez can’t believe his brother Ramon signed with the Dodgers after having been released by them three years ago.

“They gave away Ramon after he pitched there 11 years and got hurt,” Martinez told USA Today Baseball Weekly. “If I were Ramon, I would much rather go to Montreal and play for 10 cents than go to the Dodgers and play for a million.”

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Trivia time: Who are the only father and son to each be named NCAA football coach of the year?

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The name game: From the “Caught on the Fly’ column in the Sporting News: “Fly’s fave new college hoopalace: San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion. It ain’t the 5,100 best seats in the house named for the diva-o-dieting, mind you, it’s the joint’s tasty nickname: ‘Slim Gym.’ ”

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Unbelievable: The Montreal Canadiens, one of the teams the NHL was built around, did not have a player selected for next month’s All-Star game in Denver. With 30 teams in the league and the all-star rosters trimmed, the practice of taking one player from each team has been abandoned.

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Pick it: Who do you like in this bet--the number of free throws Shaquille O’Neal misses against the New York Knicks on Sunday or the number of passes Baltimore Raven quarterback Trent Dilfer completes in the Super Bowl?

The Regent Race & Sports Book in Las Vegas is offering the bet with this information: Shaq has averaged 7.3 misses a game, Dilfer has averaged 7.7 completions a game.

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Tough background: Getting the XFL football season off to a successful start has been the job of Basil DeVito Jr., the right-hand man of World Wrestling Federation honcho Vince McMahon.

“This has been the toughest thing I’ve ever been involved with,” DeVito told Bill Benner of the Indianapolis Star.

Benner reminded readers that DeVito had produced the “Bob Knight Show” on television.

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Hear this, Kobe: Jerry Stackhouse, the Detroit Pistons’ prolific scorer, is not impressed with Kobe Bryant’s problem coexisting with Shaquille O’Neal.

“Kobe has no idea how good he’s got it,” Stackhouse said. “Kobe is playing with a dominant big man who opens up a lot of things for him. If he didn’t have Shaq, he might be just another guy scoring a bunch of points on an average team.”

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Trivia answer: John and Lee Tressel. John, Ohio State’s new coach, led Youngstown State to four Division I-AA championships. His father coached Baldwin-Wallace to the 1978 Division III title.

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And finally: Australian Karrie Webb won seven LPGA events last year, including two majors. When asked jokingly if she thought Tiger Woods was tired of being compared to her, she laughed and said:

“Yeah, I’m sure he gets asked that a lot. I think maybe he blonded his hair to be like me.”