These Snap Decisions Can Mean Everything

If you want your son to play in the NFL and you didn’t give him the requisite DNA, try sending him to long-snapping camp.

Long-snapping is a difficult but important skill.

Think of it as similar to officiating or playing cornerback: Hardly anyone notices you until you mess up.

Joe Spadafino of the National Longsnapping Academy likes to ask players at his two-day camps who the New York Giants’ long-snapper was last season.

“And 75% of them say, ‘Trey Junkin,’ ” Spadafino told the (New York) Daily News. “Then I say, ‘How many knew Trey Junkin before his bad snap in the playoffs?’ They all shake their head, no.”

Because of their potential effect on games, long-snappers are no longer the handiest scrubs available, but constitute a commodity, same as other positions.

Witness the contract the Giants gave Ryan Kuehl after Junkin retired: $3.6 million over five years with a $325,000 signing bonus, to do nothing but snap the ball on punts, field goals and extra points.

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Trivia time: The Women’s British Open was designated a major on the LPGA Tour in 2001. What tournament did it replace, and in what country was the former tournament played?

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New boss: No matter how popular a former coach might have been, his foibles are usually examined as players’ allegiances shift to a new regime.

It’s that time in San Francisco, where the 49ers’ affable Steve Mariucci has been replaced by Dennis Erickson.

“Let’s just say it’s hard to imagine Erickson doing as Mariucci did, complaining to at least two team officials about the coarseness of the bristles on the hairbrush in his interview room,” wrote Ira Miller in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Erickson is usually in and out of the [media briefings] within 10 minutes. Mariucci would just be clearing his throat. He’d spend 30 to 45 minutes with the media every morning. He was too nice a guy to cut off the questions, no matter how inane they became, and he seemed to get a kick out of the banter.”

Or, as right tackle Scott Gragg told the Chronicle, “It’s less fluff, more stuff.”

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Injury report: Mountain-bike ridership has increased 26% in recent years, but injuries have plummeted from 48,600 in 1995 to 19,500 in 2001, Time magazine reports. The decrease is attributed to safer equipment.

One option: A $500 bodysuit by the Italian designer Dainese that provides protection from shins to shoulders with an aluminum “honeycomb” interior.

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Just thinking: Statistics guru Bill Arnold came up with these astounding numbers: During the 100 years of comedian Bob Hope’s life, there were 157,536 regular-season and 1,039 postseason games played in the major leagues as well as 213,249 regular-season home runs hit.

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Trivia answer: The du Maurier Classic, played in Canada, was considered a major from 1979 to 2000.

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And finally: Reggie Jackson stirred controversy in Oakland over the weekend by saying the Yankees were better than the A’s. But before he left town, he downplayed talk about his jersey not being retired in Oakland, saying any display would be fine with him.

“Maybe they can use my jersey at the airport, to test the wind,” he told the Chronicle.

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-- Robyn Norwood