Miller Time? They Should Put Charles in Charge

Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune, commenting on Charles Barkley, “the Round Mound of Sound,” and his impact as an analyst on the NBA playoffs for TBS and TNT:

“Barkley is everything ABC’s ‘Monday Night Football’ dreams of for its booth. In fact, if we’re ABC, we get Barkley in there right now. Barkley played basketball like it was football, and he’s much funnier than Dennis Miller. . . .

“Commenting after Michael Jordan was seen drinking beer on television: ‘I called him and told him to be careful drinking beer on TV. I told him he’s going to need something stronger than beer to watch that team [the Washington Wizards].’

“On Rasheed Wallace’s numerous technicals: ‘Up there in the Northwest it rains all the time, so it messes with his personality.’

“On Al Gore and former Wizard coach Leonard Hamilton: ‘Two losers who live right up the street from each other.’ ”

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Trivia time: Ken Bantum, the weight coach at Corona High, is a former world-class shotputter. He is also known as a famous streak breaker. Whose streak did he end?

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A Jordan clone? San Antonio’s Steve Kerr, a former Chicago Bull teammate of Jordan, on Kobe Bryant’s dominating performance in Game 1 of their playoff series:

“That’s what Michael used to do. Teams start to come back and make runs, especially in their home buildings. Fans get behind them and, man, he just sucks the air out of the place. Very similar. Sometimes, he even sounds like Michael in interviews.”

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Showboat: Chicago White Sox pitcher David Wells said he wouldn’t mind playing for the New York Mets if Bobby Valentine weren’t the manager.

“There’s no love lost between us. You ever watch a Mets game? Who do they show, always? . . . He knows where the cameras are. One day I was pitching against the Mets and he gets thrown out and tries to come back in disguise. What a loser. Just go to the office and go have a beer and watch it on TV.”

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Easily digestible: Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Don King booked heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman against relative unknown Brian Nielsen of Denmark on the undercard of his Chinese fight program.

“ ‘This is a strange menu,’ says Steve Abney of S.F. ‘The fans get served the Danish pastry first.’ ”

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More Rahman: From Jay Leno: “The new heavyweight champion of the world took a vow of poverty. It’s not religious. He signed with Don King.”

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Still smoldering: In his autobiography, “Zim, A Baseball Life,” Don Zimmer writes that Bill “Spaceman” Lee is “the only man in baseball that I wouldn’t let in my house, and I don’t care who knows it.”

Lee gave Zimmer the nickname “Gerbil” when he pitched for the Boston Red Sox and Zimmer managed them.

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Looking back: On this day in 1992, Al Unser Jr. won the closest finish at the Indianapolis 500, beating Scott Goodyear by 43-thousandths of a second, barely half a car length.

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Trivia answer: In the 1956 National Amateur Athletic Union meet, he threw the shot 59 feet 1 1/2 inches to defeat Olympic champion Parry O’Brien, who had a 116-meet winning streak, still the longest in any event in men’s track and field competition.

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And finally: Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star, on NBC’S NBA coverage: “Please for the sake of humanity, take the three-man broadcast booth and drive a stake through its heart. And if Bill Walton happens to get in the way, well, so be it.”