Was He Wearing a Bull’s-eye That Day?

Stanford slugger Carlos Quentin got into the record books the hard way.

In a recent game against Florida State in Tallahassee, he was hit five times by pitches--a Division I record--by five different pitchers. The major league record is three, held by many.

Quentin didn’t think the Florida State pitchers were aiming at him. “I think it was just bad luck,” he said.

Wrote Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle: “If he ever makes the majors, he could be a natural for one endorsement: Target.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the UCLA record for consecutive free throws?

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Arriving in style: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Barry Bonds reported to camp in a chauffeured stretch limo, which stretches more than Barry does.

“But it’s good to see him putting his new money to use. With the energy Bonds saves by not driving himself to work, the man might hit 83 homers.”

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Alternate desperation plan: What would the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have done if Jon Gruden had turned down their offer or if Al Davis suddenly decided the compensation package wasn’t good enough? Wrote David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel: “The next stop on the Glazers Over America tour was probably Barry Switzer’s front porch.”

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More Whitley: Commenting on Gruden: “You’ve got to like a guy who looks like Dennis the Menace, sounds like John Wayne, quips like David Letterman and doesn’t think offense is a dirty word.”

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Eclectic list: Before Tampa Bay hired Gruden, freelance writer Norman Chad commented: “My Tampa Bay sources tell me the Glazer family has narrowed its latest list of Buccaneer coaching candidates to four--Steve Mariucci, the late Vince Lombardi, Red Klotz and the kid who played Screech on ‘Saved by the Bell.’”

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Good thinking: Tubby Raymond, 75, who recently retired after 36 years as University of Delaware football coach, was asked why his team didn’t have a booster club: “I don’t want to organize my own lynching mob,” he said.

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Boo hoo: Sacramento’s Gerald Wallace, beaten in the NBA All-Star slam-dunk finals by Jason Richardson of the Golden Sate Warriors, vowed never to return. “It’s all politics,” Wallace said. “I’m not doing it anymore.”

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English 101: From Bud Geracie in the San Jose Mercury News: As Dave Marcis said after finishing second-to-last in the Daytona 500, “You just don’t never know.”

More NASCAR grammar: “I seen Earnhardt do it,” Sterling Marlin said.

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Looking back: On this day in 1959, Elgin Baylor set a Laker rookie record that still exists by scoring 55 points for Minneapolis against Cincinnati.

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Trivia answer: Henry Bibby, 36, five games, 1972.

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And finally: Andrew Bagnato of the Chicago Tribune recalled how the late Jim Murray used to ridicule unsophisticated fans of Big Ten teams when they visited the Rose Bowl: “One year he described (Iowa) Hawkeye fans as ‘thousands of people in calico and John Deere caps in Winnebagos with their pacemakers and potato salad looking around for Bob Hope.”’