He Makes It All the Rage on Viking Sideline Too

Minnesota wide receiver Cris Carter has drawn criticism as a pitchman for the dietary supplement Mo’ Power after reports indicated the performance-enhancing product contains a potentially dangerous stimulant called Yohimbe.

Ken Rudulph, who does the tongue-in-cheek “Nightly Sports Report” on Fox Sports Net’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” said: “According to the FDA, Yohimbe is a tree bark that can lead to serious side effects, including heart attack, stroke and screaming at your teammates on the sideline.”

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Trivia time: What was unique about former Boston Celtic center Tony Lavelli?

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Amazing race: Going into the final games of the 1978 NBA season, David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets, with a 26.57-point scoring average, trailed George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs in the scoring race by .21 of a point.

Thompson, as noted in the new book “At the Buzzer,” went out and scored 73 points. Later that night, Gervin, needing 58 points to win the scoring title, scored 63.

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Insurance: When Gervin got his 59th point, Coach Doug Moe took him out of the game.

“I went up to Doug and said, ‘Just in case someone made a mistake, maybe I’d better go back in,”’ Gervin said.

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No lunch break: TNT’s Charles Barkley, emphasizing how much effort the Phoenix Suns’ Penny Hardaway was expending this summer with Barkley and Michael Jordan in Chicago, said:

“When I am sitting in the lunch room at the health club, he is in the gym working hard.”

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A real kick: Gabe Lindstrom, a substitute teacher in the Tucson area, has been signed as a substitute punter by the New York Giants.

He’ll probably be punting Monday night at Minnesota because Rodney Williams has a broken wrist. Lindstrom hasn’t punted much since his senior year at Toledo.

“I just don’t want to shank any,” he said.

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Big O hits hard: Oscar Robertson, on “The Last Word With Jim Rome,” was asked about NBA players and their understanding of the history of the sport. “These guys come in, they’re instant millionaires and they don’t care about anything else at all. They have no culture, no real hard background for learning anything at all.”

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Two birthdays: Announcer Bill Macatee, working the early rounds of the EMC World Cup golf tournament at Shizuko, Japan, for the USA network, flew back to his Orange County home on Saturday, his 46th birthday. Flying across the international dateline, Macatee could have celebrated his birthday twice--in Japan and at home.

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Trivia answer: Lavelli played the accordion at halftime. He had it written in his contract that he was guaranteed a minimum of 25 performances at $125 each.

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And finally: From Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune: “There’s an idea floating around that if baseball really wanted to correct economic inequities, it wouldn’t fold Montreal and Minnesota, but rather the Yankees, Orioles, Dodgers and Braves. Those teams created much of the inequity, and as Commissioner Bud Selig indicated, there are more have-nots than haves. Not surprisingly, that idea came out of Montreal.”