New Look, but It’s the Same Old Knight

Texas Tech fans found themselves watching new Coach Bob Knight as much as his players in the Red Raiders’ exhibition victory over the EA Sports Central All-Stars on Friday night.

Knight, in his first competitive outing since taking over the Red Raiders seven months ago, donned a black sweater--not his signature red--with a red-collared shirt underneath.

When a foul was called against a Tech player in the second half, a riled Knight sprang off the bench, walked toward the referee and shouted his disagreement.

It was just how Josh Steele, 25, formerly of Carmel, Ind., remembered Knight from his days at Indiana.

“He’s entertaining,” said Steele, a Tech alumnus who lives in Dallas and was one of the 5,860 on hand. “He’s the sideshow to the main event. The same Knight. Some things never change.”

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Trivia time: Who are the only two baseball players to have played with all four major league teams to have called New York City home?

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Living on a wing and a prayer: The Arizona Diamondback 1-2 punch of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson has drawn comparisons to the Dodger combination of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax and Boston Brave pitchers Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain. The Braves, though, had little else pitching-wise, prompting Gerald V. Hern to pen the following poem in the Sept. 14, 1948, edition of the Boston Post:

“First we’ll use Spahn, then we’ll use Sain

Then an off day followed by rain

Back will come Spahn, followed by Sain

And followed we hope by two days of rain.”

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What are the odds? According to Reuters, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf’s newborn baby boy Jaden Gil has been made a 500-1 shot to grow up and win Wimbledon. But if he chooses not to follow in the footsteps of his parents, William Hill bookmakers also offer a price of 1,000-1 on him becoming German Chancellor.

The odds on British soccer star David Beckham’s son, Brooklyn, playing soccer for the English team are much less generous, though.

He is priced at 33-1.

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How much was Elway’s mouthpiece? Hundreds of Denver Bronco fans came from across the country last weekend, ready to claim a piece of Mile High Stadium sod cut from the Broncos’ former field.

John and Heather Gray drove 15 hours from Huntington Beach for a 6-foot-by-18-inch strip of grass.

“I can’t explain what I’m feeling right now. It’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me,” Heather Gray said.

Each $10 strip came with a certificate of authenticity and the sale helped Denver firefighters raise more than $20,000 for the families of New York firefighters and police officers who were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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Trivia answer: Darryl Strawberry and Jose Vizcaino have both played for the Yankees, Mets, Giants and Dodgers.

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And finally: Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle weighs in on Fox’s melodic stylings: “The music that accompanies Fox’s baseball promos is from the 1995 ballad ‘Tonight, Tonight’ by the Smashing Pumpkins. I don’t know about you, but, for me, nothing says baseball more than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins.”