Looking for Answers to Hardball Questions

With the Major League Baseball season underway, Dave Anderson of the New York Times poses some questions. A sampling:

* “Will the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou and Fred McGriff threaten the record of 143 home runs by three sluggers on the same team (Roger Maris 61, Mickey Mantle 54 and Bill Skowron 28 for the 1961 Yankees)?

“Or will the Rangers’ Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez threaten it?”

More Anderson: “How long will Pirate third baseman Aramis Ramirez (34 homers, 112 runs batted in, .300 average last season) remain baseball’s best-kept secret?”

“Can the Diamondback aces, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, match their 43-12 record last year?”

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Trivia time: Who was the last repeat winner of the Masters?

*

Interest fading: Gene Frenette in the Florida Times-Union: “Chris Berman opined at the start of [Monday’s] Braves-Phillies game that opening day in baseball is ‘when everybody can feel like a kid again.’ No argument there. The problem, however, is that when most of us were kids, baseball was something special the whole year round. Not just once in a great while.”

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Toy talk: Craig Kilborn of CBS’The Late Late Show was musing about this: “In ‘age-before-beauty’ news, 87-year-old cloth doll Raggedy Ann was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Salem, Ore....

“Unfortunately, Ann’s brother Raggedy Andy is ineligible for the Toy Hall of Fame because he once bet on a game of Chutes and Ladders.”

*

A cooking show: Comedy writer Jerry Perisho was turned off by the Maryland-Indiana NCAA title game Monday: “I saw so many turnovers, I thought Martha Stewart was coaching against Emeril Lagasse.

“Putting it in boxing terms, this game looked like Tonya Harding vs. Paula Jones.”

*

Only 4-1? Ron Rapoport in the Chicago Sun-Times: “British bookmaker William Hill has posted some early odds on Mike Tyson’s June 8 fight with Lennox Lewis in Memphis, Tenn. Hill says Tyson is 4-1 to be disqualified.”

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More boxing: Comedy writer Alex Kaseberg in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Tyson has as much of a chance to beat Lewis as Charles Barkley does of being the honorary starter at the Masters tournament.”

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Trivia answer: Nick Faldo, who won in 1989 and ‘90, each time in a playoff.

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All business: Linebacker Bryan Cox, who recently left Super Bowl champion New England for the New Orleans Saints, had this analysis of his former team: “[The Patriots were] not the most talented team I have ever played on and it wasn’t the closest team I ever played on. Like other teams, the players had some differences.

“But when it came to game time, we put everything aside and played football. We beat the Rams because we outcoached them and outhit them.”

*

And finally: Phil Mickelson, commenting on Tiger Woods: “He’s the best player in the world, but I’m not going to back down from him. I see these other guys wilt, and it’s just unbelievable to me that they haven’t been able to play their best golf when he’s in contention.”