The Game Is No Longer Grand, It’s Merely Old

Under the headline, “Strike may be the best thing for a fading sport,” Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg Times writes:

“Baseball needs repair more than America needs baseball. As a sport, it rattles and wheezes like an old car trying to make one last trip before it dies on the road.

“Still, it lumbers ahead, as if 1950 were going to come back and all the parts were going to be new again and everyone would be happy.”

Trivia time: Who holds the NBA playoff record for least time played before fouling out?

In the chips: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Bone chips from the elbow of Mariner pitcher Jeff Nelson draw a high bid of $23,000 before eBay pulls the plug.

“Wow, pitchers and football linemen can earn a nice side income selling their surgical debris. That’s not a bad elbow you got there, Lefty, that’s a chip farm.”

More Ostler: “The Sharks’ sad demise brings to mind the question once posed by noted sports thinker George Kiseda, who asked, ‘Which sport has the most accidents?’ Answer: ‘Hockey. They’re called goals.’”

No ordinary intruder: The San Quentin Giants, the convict baseball team, hosted the semipro Novato Knicks recently at the prison, which Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated dubbed “Unsafeco Field.”

According to Rushin, “Prison ball presents pressures unknown to Randy Johnson.” For instance, Novato’s Kevin Wolfe, pitching against the Vacaville state prison team in 1984, heard a guard yell, “Hey, Charlie, get off the field!”

Wrote Rushin, “The diamond invader obeyed, but still: When Charles Manson is your Morganna, it gives a pitcher pause.”

Homebody: Steve Jacobson of Newsday in an interview with Seattle Mariner Manager Lou Piniella: “[He] pointed out that he played in four World Series, batted .319 in 72 at-bats and never drew a walk.

“‘That was my on-base percentage: .319,’ he said. ‘I consider that stat now. It’s a good thing they didn’t have that stat then. I’d have on-based myself onto the bench.’”

Tip money now: In a 1968 interview with Maury Allen of the New York Post, pitcher Tom Seaver said of a new contract with the Mets, “I got what I wanted. If I had gotten more it would have not been fair to the club.”

Allen: “Seaver was raised to $20,000, an extraordinary contract for a second-year player.”

Old habit: Comedy writer Earl Hochman: “David Schultz, president of Pony athletic shoe company, is backing Pete Rose in his bid to reach the Hall of Fame with advertisements in magazines and on billboards. Rose is laying 2-1 odds the campaign will pay off.”

Looking back: On this day in 1952, the Brooklyn Dodgers broke loose for a major league-record 15 first-inning runs and coasted to a 19-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field.

Trivia answer: Travis Knight of the Lakers, six minutes against San Antonio on May 23, 1999.

And finally: In a divorce petition against former Angel Chuck Finley, Tawny Kitaen called the Indians’ pitcher a heavy drinker, marijuana smoker and steroid user.

Finley’s reply: “It’s all bull. It’s a typical custody battle. I can’t believe she left out the cross-dressing.”