This Baker Demands Plenty of Dough

Dusty Baker felt the love of Chicago Cub fans when he was in the Windy City last weekend for the Notre Dame-Boston College football game, writes Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times:

“[The San Francisco Giant manager] was mobbed by Cub fans, who view him as the faith healer and mojo man of a 95-year hex....

“On the grandest scale, though, Baker equates love with the amount of money he is paid. Which is why those fuddy-duddies at Tribune Co., if they are truly serious about hiring the franchise’s first marquee manager since Leo Durocher, better be ready to shower him with at least $12 million of love.”

Trivia time: Carson Palmer of USC has emerged as a Heisman Trophy candidate. What is the highest finish for a USC quarterback in Heisman voting?

Wrong country: During the World Series, Giant second baseman Jeff Kent declined a pregame interview request from a Canadian sports network, explaining, “I talked to Canada yesterday.”

Game-ending drive: Joe Hawk of the Las Vegas Review-Journal criticized John Jackson, assistant head football coach at Nevada Las Vegas, for leaving Saturday’s game early so he could get to a boxing card in which he was promoting a fighter:

“A coach can’t ask his players to give a full 60 minutes if he only gives 57 1/2. Leaving early was absolutely, positively wrong -- and Jackson owes his players an apology.”

UNLV Coach John Robinson, calling the early departure an error in judgment, said a letter of reprimand would be put into Jackson’s personnel file.

Not making his day: Skip Bayless of the San Jose Mercury News says that Oakland Raider Coach Bill Callahan might be too nice to inspire a reversal of a four-game losing streak, judging by what he observed at Monday’s media briefing:

“You wanted to see some Dirty Harry Callahan. Instead you got Bill.... An upbeat, media-friendly Callahan acted as if he’s calmly riding a roller coaster that soon will rise again. But these Raiders need something Callahan might not be able to provide -- some sort of unifying, refocusing jolt.”

Out of sight: Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel defended casting a No. 4 vote for unbeaten Bowling Green in the Associated Press college football poll:

“Go ahead and laugh at me. Go ahead and scream that there’s no way Bowling Green can possibly be one of the top four teams in the country. Oh, yeah? Well, how would you possibly know how good Bowling Green is? Have you ever seen Bowling Green play?

“I didn’t think so.”

Dressing down: From Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Notre Dame and the San Diego Chargers suffered huge upsets after making jersey changes. These were the worst fashion moves since Bjork wore a goose to the Oscars.”

Trivia answer: Rodney Peete was runner-up to tailback Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State in 1988.

And finally: Carolina Panther defensive end Mike Rucker, telling ESPN Radio how well rookie teammate Julius Peppers is playing:

“You can’t tell how old he is by looking at his age.”

-- Rob Fernas