Devil Rays: Best Team That Money Can’t Buy

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays aren’t any good, but at least they’re cheap.

The club opened the season with 17 of its 25 players earning $300,000 -- the minimum salary for a big leaguer. Two others were making $305,000 and $325,000.

For perspective, that means the Devil Rays’ on-field payroll of a little more than $15 million is less than injured New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter will make this year and just about 10% of the Yankee payroll.

Mr. Perfect: Much-traveled John Wasdin, a 30-year-old right-hander, has pitched for Boston, Baltimore and Colorado and last year was with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.

This year, he signed a minor league contract with the Pirates and on Monday night he pitched a perfect game for the triple-A Nashville Sounds of the Pacific Coast League.

He struck out 15 In a 4-0 victory over Albuquerque. But he failed to impress Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, who asked:

“Does a perfect game against a team called the Isotopes really count?”

Trivia time: Wilt Chamberlain holds the NBA single-game scoring record of 100 points. Who is No. 2?

Meaningless: College football is “this galaxy’s best sport,” according to Tom Dienhart, who in his column in The Sporting News bashed the NFL, “Basebore” and said of college basketball and March Madness: “A three-week tourney doesn’t compensate for the three meaningless preceding months. The same goes for the NBA and NHL, where so many games are played for so little reason.”

Frustration: Brandi Burton, who has had five wins in her LPGA career -- and 10 operations: “I feel like I’m 31 going on 90. That’s not meant as anything bad against 90-year-olds.”

Roger that: Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News on the New York Mets’ center fielder: “I find it more and more difficult to stop myself from yelling ‘Mayday’ every time a ball heads Roger Cedeno’s way.”

More defense dissing: From comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “Mets’ first baseman Mo Vaughn is the fourth-highest paid player in baseball with an annual salary of $17.2 million.

“But watching him chase a pop fly down the first-base line is like watching an aircraft carrier trying to make a U-turn.”

Dollars and sense: A strange thing happened when Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley approached football Coach Ron Zook with an offer to extend his contract for an extra year.

Zook said no.

“I told him we don’t need to talk about a contract,” said Zook, who is coming off an 8-5 rookie season, “we need to talk about winning games.”

Trivia answer: Chamberlain is also No. 2. Playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, he scored 78 points against the Lakers in 1961.

And finally: Jeff Sluman doesn’t believe the Players Championship should be recognized “officially” as golf’s fifth major.

“When you go to Denny’s and order the Grand Slam breakfast, they don’t give you five things, do they?” he said. “They give you four.”