In Detroit, This Picture Is Worth 1,000 Insults

Around Detroit, a frequent topic of conversation has been the huge painting of Barry Sanders that was finally removed from the side of downtown’s Cadillac Tower Building last month. A mural of the Stanley Cup, which is a tribute to the Red Wings’ recent title, has replaced Sanders’ picture.

Rob Parker of the Detroit News said it was time for a change: “There’s no reason to immortalize Sanders. None. Zero. Zip.... In the big picture, Sanders’ run in Motown, which ended abruptly three years ago when he quit on the eve of training camp, wound up being empty. What started out as a chance for true greatness--not only for him, but for this football-crazed city--came up short. It would be one thing if Sanders had left behind a Super Bowl championship. Or exited the NFL as the career-leading rusher. Those are reasons to remember someone forever.

“Instead, Sanders helped the Lions to just one playoff victory.”

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Trivia time: Who are the only two athletes to win Olympic medals and be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

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Sharpen your skates: San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler takes aim at the latest figure skating scandal:

“* Alleged ice-dance fixer Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov is also known by his mafia nickname, Salchow Breath. Or you can just call him Skateless Joe.

“* Laugh if you will at that Russian mobster fixing ice dancing. But I hear he was armed, and his gun had sequin-piercing bullets.”

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Just walk, baby: After the Oakland Raiders had gathered for their annual meeting with league officials on rule changes, virtually the entire team walked out in protest of its controversial playoff defeat against the New England Patriots in last season’s playoffs.

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Celtic pride: Michael Holley of the Boston Globe, on the Celtics’ acquisition of Vin Baker in a five-player trade with Seattle: “NBA general managers mete out more second and third chances than any other executives in America, and they are often attracted to 6-11 forwards who used to be All-Stars.... [But] I don’t understand why the Celtics have to pay someone more than $12 million per season to fill that job description. By 2006, the Celtics will have paid Baker more than $50 million, or more than twice as much as Rodney Rogers would have commanded in a four-year contract. And this is [Boston owner Paul] Gaston’s idea of saving money?”

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Looking back: On this day in 1999, Wade Boggs of Tampa Bay became the first player to homer for his 3,000th hit, during a 15-10 loss to Cleveland.

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Trivia answer: Jim Thorpe, a charter member of the Hall of Fame and a gold-medal winner in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, and Ollie Matson, a 1972 Hall of Fame inductee who won a gold medal in the 1,600-meter relay and a bronze in the 440 meters at the 1952 Helsinki Games.

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And finally: After Polish 7-foot-2 center Cezary Trybanski signed a three-year, $4.8-million free-agent deal with the Memphis Grizzlies, General Manager Jerry West said that he wanted to make him another pet project the way he did with Vlade Divac and the Lakers.

“I want to prove that Jerry West is right,” Trybanski said. “I want to play like a Vlade.”