After This Experience, the Sky Is the Limit

Rob Adolph, one of the golfers who failed to qualify this week for match play in the U.S. Amateur at Oakland Hills near Detroit, played quarterback for two USC Rose Bowl teams in the 1970s and was the second baseman on two national champion Trojan baseball teams.

Now 50 and a Fresno real estate developer, Adolph took up skydiving about 10 years ago and several times has sky-dived into Fresno State’s football stadium with the game ball--a Bulldog tradition.

“That’s the ultimate adrenaline rush,” he told Jo-Ann Barnas of the Detroit Free Press. “When you reflect on jumping out of an airplane, it makes this thing called golf easier to do.”

Trivia time: Two of the top five on the major league career strikeout list pitched for USC. Who are they?

A true story: Jules Tygiel, author of “Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy,” told this tale about Josh Gibson, the great Negro League slugger, to Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle.

A young player for the Homestead Grays reached base with two out, bringing Gibson to the plate. Before Gibson had a swing, the player took off for second and was thrown out, ending the inning.

“What were you thinking of?” yelled Gibson.

“I was trying to get into scoring position.”

“Boy,” admonished Gibson, “When I’m at the plate, everyone is in scoring position.”

Changing times: Remember Danny Almonte, the 14-year-old Dominican kid from the Bronx who was passed off as 12 and dominated the Little League World Series last year before his age was revealed and his team disqualified?

Juliet Macur of the Dallas Morning News tracked him down a year later on a dusty diamond on the edge of Harlem. He’s still throwing left-handed fastballs, but facing players his own age, they’re getting hits.

“The kid’s no superstar against players his own age,” said Felix Bonilla, a Harlem baseball commissioner. “At least I think these kids are his own age.”

Tough decision: When he accepted the Florida State coaching job, Bobby Bowden wasn’t all that sure he had done the right thing. In his book “Bound for Glory,” he explains:

“When [athletic director] John Bridgers approached me about the possibility of the head coaching job at his school, I could think of only two jobs that could be worse--being elected mayor of Atlanta shortly after Sherman left town, or being the general who volunteered to replace George Custer during the last siege of Little Bighorn. Things [at Florida State] were just about that bad.”

Faster than fast: From a standing start, an NHRA top-fuel dragster accelerates faster than a jumbo jet, a fighter jet or a Formula One race car.

Trivia answer: Randy Johnson and Tom Seaver.

And finally: Chris Riley, who finished third in last week’s PGA Championship, was a sophomore at Nevada Las Vegas when he was asked to host a hotshot recruit he knew from the Southern California junior circuit.

The recruit was put up at the Mirage hotel and given red-carpet treatment, but Tiger Woods enrolled at Stanford instead.

Asked what went wrong, Riley said, “My college coach wanted to know that too.”