Sure, but He Can Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Jim Thorpe is a senior golfer who wins sometimes, but smiles nearly all the time.

Hale Irwin is a senior golfer who wins most of the time, but almost never smiles.

“Hale’s a great player who has won more money than anyone who has played the game, but he’s one of those guys who is just not fan friendly,” Thorpe said. “We have a bunch of jerks out there.”

Thorpe said his fellow seniors have a ritual with Irwin, the tour’s leading money winner with $1.5 million this year.

“We put cheese in his locker to go with his whining,” Thorpe said.

Trivia time: Who is the only player to play 1,000 games at both first base and second base?

The loner: Gary Sheffield credits off-season training with Barry Bonds for his offensive output with the Atlanta Braves. Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asks: “When they got together, did Bonds practice for his regular-season routine by sitting alone on the other side of the weight room from his partner?”

Smart man: The late Bill Veeck, a maverick sports team owner, once said the proof of baseball’s greatness as a game is that it “survives the fools who run it.”

Two views: From Jay Mohr of ESPN: “[Sammy] Sosa took losing [the home run contest] well. Afterward, he fired his pharmacist, and then he went back to the locker room and popped the zits on his back.”

Frightening: Reserve officer Shaquille O’Neal helped apprehend a suspect while he was on a LAPD ride-a-long.

According to CBS’ Craig Kilborn, “The guy apparently dropped his gun when Shaq yelled, ‘Stop or I’ll rap.’ ”

The cutting edge: The motto of the U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Assn. is “The mow the merrier.”

The high-speed mowers have all their cutting edges removed, so how can they “mow” when they can’t cut?

No kidding: In case you wondered, NHRA top-fuel and funny-car dragsters produce more than 6,000 horsepower, about 43 times that of the average street car.

Not good odds: The ABA is talking of putting a pro basketball team in Pittsburgh, but Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook says it’s a bad idea.

“Shaq, Kobe and Allen Iverson--presuming he’s not in prison--could play real basketball on a team here, and it wouldn’t make it,” Cook said.

Strike coming? What a difference a year makes. As Dave Kindred noted in the Sporting News, “It was only last September that our ballparks became cathedrals for mourning and resolve. This September they may be warehouses, empty.”

Trivia answer: Rod Carew, in 19 years with Minnesota and the Angels, played 1,184 games at first and 1,130 at second.

And finally: When ballplayers discuss who is baseball’s greatest living player, former Chicago Cub second baseman Ryne Sandberg nominates Pete Rose because of his 4,256 career hits. Sandberg, who had 2,386 hits in 15 years, would have had to average 187 hits over 10 more seasons to tie Rose.

“I’m totally impressed with that,” Sandberg said. “When you get 4,000 hits, that’s not too many 0-fers.”