He Never Thought He’d See This Day

Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press, responding to a string of bad publicity surrounding baseball, says it isn’t the same game he grew up watching.

“As a kid, I worked in a baseball stadium. I arrived hours before the game. I saw the sprinklers watering the field. I saw the first players meander out for their stretches. I saw baskets of balls carried to the pitcher’s mound and the opening pops of batting practice.

“It never occurred to me, watching this gentle, orderly process, that baseball could one day become a complete and holy mess.

“But it has. Oscar Madison’s laundry basket is neater than this.”

More Albom: “In the end, when all the culprits are lined against the wall, baseball can only point to the face in the mirror.

“Its name is Greed.”

Trivia time: Who was the youngest major league player to hit 100 home runs?

Sister power: From Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated: “You cannot be serious, John McEnroe. You cannot mean what you say in your new book. You cannot actually believe you can beat one of the Williams sisters.

“You were great. You were three exits past great. But you would get fried, flambeed and fricasseed. They would stomp you, sweep you up and send you home in an earring box.”

Sisters, Part II: From Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “How silly it is to get worked up about some pitiful little man stalking Serena Williams.

“If he actually tried to approach her, by the time Serena and the rest of the family got through with the guy, there wouldn’t be enough left of him to mail to jail.”

Par for the course: Nick Faldo won the 1987 British Open, his first major golf championship, with a final round of 18 pars at Muirfield. Once hailed as a remarkable feat of consistency, Faldo offers a different perspective 15 years later.

“It wasn’t planned,” he said. “People said, ‘That was Faldo--dead, boring, look at him.’ But I was choking on every putt. I couldn’t get the thing in the hole.”

Setting son: Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, commenting on the body of Ted Williams being sent to a cryonics facility by his son.

“Anyone recall the old Patty McCormack movie ‘The Bad Seed’? Oooh, there was a wicked child. If that evil little girl had a twin brother, it would have been John Henry Williams.”

Deep freeze: From David Letterman: “I get up in the morning and I’m watching the Martha Stewart show, and she’s showing you how to properly thaw Ted Williams.”

Looking back: On this day in 1941, Joe DiMaggio extended his hitting streak to 56 games by going three for four in the New York Yankees’ 10-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Trivia answer: Tony Conigliaro, at age 22 with the Boston Red Sox in 1967. His career was derailed later that season when he was hit in the eye by a pitch from the Angels’ Jack Hamilton.

And finally: From Tom Fitzgerald of the San Francisco Chronicle: “A blind German psychic claims he can read people’s futures by feeling their naked buttocks. We hear he’s offering to demonstrate his technique to predict when Anna Kournikova will win her first tournament.”