Could Barry Jerk Them Up From the Depths?

Skip Bayless in the San Jose Mercury News, on improving the Golden State Warriors: “I floated the idea in December while serving as a guest host on KNBR. I asked the audience to give me one good reason why Warriors’ management shouldn’t give Rick Barry a chance to coach the team.

“The lines lit up the way the scoreboard did in 1975, when Barry led the team to the NBA championship. In three hours I didn’t hear from a single caller opposed to the idea.

“My conclusion: What would owner Chris Cowan have to lose except one more game? If nothing else, more fans would buy tickets or watch televised games just to see if Barry lived up--or down--to his reputation as one of the top 50 players--and jerks--of all time. At least it would be intriguing.”

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More Barry: “[He] has long had a way of rubbing people the wrong way. Maybe some can’t forgive him for the arrogance he showed as a player and as an analyst.

“But wouldn’t you love to see how the living dead who play for the Warriors would respond to a little ego-puncturing, eye-opening arrogance from a 6-foot-7 force field who looks like he could still play?”

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Trivia time: What was Dennis Rodman’s number when he played for the Lakers?

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Not the best in show: A sampling of David Letterman’s “Top 10 Signs Your Dog Will Not Win the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show”:

* “His toupee keeps falling off.”

* “Dog nearly obscured by a cloud of fleas.”

“His bone structure would be considered outstanding if he were a cat.”

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Thin Air? Mark Kreidler of the Sacramento Bee, commenting on Michael Jordan, whose Washington Wizards were routed, 109-93, Thursday by the Kings: “Watching Jordan these days is a gamelong exercise in unfulfilled anticipation. It’s four quarters of waiting for the highlight play that never arrives. Jordan could score 44 points on you, and later you might find yourself struggling to recall any two of them in particular.”

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FYI: The 1934 Los Angeles Angels were chosen as the best minor league team ever, according to baseball historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright.

The Angels won the Pacific Coast League championship with a record of 137-50, .733, finishing 351/2 games ahead of the second-place team.

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It’s madness: From the Caught on the Fly column in the Sporting News: “You can bet CBS is casting a very wary eye on the March Madness bracket, as East vs. Midwest is etched into one Final Four half, meaning runaway trains Duke and Kansas, the slam-dunk top seeds in those regions, are on course to collide, no foolin’, a coupla days before the April 1 national cham-peen-ship tilt.”

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Trivia answer: No. 73. No other Los Angeles Laker has ever had a jersey number even in the 60s.

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And finally: Desperate to beat its archrival, a Scottish rowing team is going all out. It is practicing in the nude. Robert Gordon University has not defeated Aberdeen University in the race’s seven-year history.

The adventurous rowers--four men, four women and a female cox--hope the plan will toughen them (brrr!) before they face Aberdeen again March 2.

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Mal Florence