Tomfoolery Was His Extreme Game

Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe: “In baseball there are Deviants and there are Goofballs. You cannot live with the former, but you almost always try to live with the latter.

“Ultra-goofballs can wear you out. Take Rube Waddell, the great turn-of-the-century left-hander who was most commonly referred to as an ‘eccentric.’ In his case, ‘eccentric’ was a fancy word for ‘nut case.’

“Picked up by the Philadelphia Athletics at age 25 in 1902, he won 24, 21, 25 and 27 games for Connie Mack in his first four seasons. Who knows how many more games he would have won had he not been frequently AWOL, engaging in such pursuits as chasing fire engines and [no lie] wrestling alligators?”

Trivia time: Who was the first UCLA player selected in the NFL draft?

Stay down: During a game at Dodger Stadium, Pittsburgh Pirate left fielder Brian Giles tripped while trying to catch a line drive, and the ball hit him on the head as he was going down.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that, as Giles lay on the field, trainer Kent Biggerstaff and Manager Lloyd McClendon sprinted out to him, only to have Giles look up and say: “I’m so embarrassed right now because it hit me on the head.”

Said McClendon: “You made me run all the way out here because you didn’t want to get up?”

Gabby guy: Jerry Greene in the Orlando Sentinel: “One message to [football] analyst Joe Theismann ... just shut up.

“And if you must break down every play, please stop saying: ‘Let me tell you what just happened here.’

“There’s a chance I might know it all by myself.”

More Greene: “How come the player who commits a foul in college basketball is identified by the announcer and on the scoreboard, but the guy who gets flagged for holding in college football is immediately sent to the witness relocation program?”

What’s next? In its 102 years, Symphony Hall in Boston has hosted an auto show, an escape by Harry Houdini, mayoral inaugurations and meetings of the Communist Party.

Thursday, it held its first sporting event: the U.S. Open squash tournament.

Looking back: On this day in 1967, USC routed Washington State, 49-0, in a season-opening game at the Coliseum. The Trojans went on to record a 10-1 record, winning the national championship after defeating Indiana, 14-3, in the Rose Bowl.

Trivia answer: Halfback Chuck Cheshire by the Detroit Lions in the second round in 1936.

And finally: Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald commenting on Edgerrin James of the Indianapolis Colts:

“James is straight from the street, a thug and proud of it. He’ll tell you he carries a gun, safety on, clip out, licensed and legal.

“He’ll tell you his main male role model growing up was a drug-dealing uncle. He’ll tell you he hasn’t a clue how many siblings he has, but he knows at least three of them are in jail.

“Said James: ‘I ain’t changing for nobody. The ad people want me to clean up my grammar, my look, but I got a saying: It’s real easy to be me; it’s too hard to be someone else.’ ”