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Gee, You Think This Scribe Has a Clue Now?

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Just last week, the Denver Post’s Jim Armstrong was wondering why more NFL players didn’t go to Raider linebacker Bill Romanowski for guidance.

“The man is 37 years old, owns four Super Bowl rings and hasn’t missed a game since the ‘80s,” Armstrong wrote. “Gee, you figure he’s got a clue or two?”

Maybe they’re smart to keep their distance. Oakland teammate Marcus Williams didn’t and suffered a broken bone in his face after a fight with Romanowski in practice Sunday.

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But there are those who worship at the shrine of Romo. Charger receiver David Boston has bought into the gospel according to Romanowski, and is now taking an average of 90 dietary-supplement pills a day. Boston also employs a biochemist who doubles as his trainer and nutritional therapist -- for a meager annual fee of $200,000.

No word on the guy’s expertise in boxing.

Add Romo: He spent the off-season training with Dan Pfaff, former University of Texas track coach who is working with Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, and swears he can run a 4.3 40-yard dash.

Morning Briefing wins a Pulitzer Prize before that happens.

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Trivia time: Eric Gagne is the second pitcher to record 30 or more saves and 100 or more strikeouts in consecutive seasons. Who was the first?

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Not uniform: Dave Mann, the former sports information director at UC Riverside, recalls inviting Bobby Bonds, who died Saturday, to participate in a charity baseball game in Bonds’ hometown of Riverside in 1981.

“He couldn’t have been more cooperative,” Mann said. “We wondered what uniform he wanted to wear, since he played for eight teams. He said, ‘Why don’t I wear all eight?’

“So that’s what he did. He changed uniforms in the dugout between innings.”

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Yuck! The new skateboarding movie “Grind,” about three suburban Chicago buddies on a cross-country chase, has been getting less than rave reviews, but few are worse than this appraisal from Bob Campbell of the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger:

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“List ‘Grind’ among those rare films that starts at the bottom and burrows downward.”

The guys run out of money, Campbell believes, because they have spent so much on fast food, which at least helps move the “action” along.

“Investing most of this fortune in junk food pays off in double story value,” he wrote. “It’s disgorged, excreted or passed as gas for bonus merriment.”

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Looking up: When Tonya Harding made her entrance to the ring for her boxing match in the parking lot of a Dallas strip joint, she was accompanied by Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” which includes the lyrics: “I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothing left.”

According to the Dallas Morning News, the former ice queen’s grand entry took two minutes ... about twice as long as it took for her opponent to knock her out.

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Trivia answer: Padre closer Trevor Hoffman had 42 saves in 1996 and 37 in 1997. He struck out 111 batters in each season.

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And finally: NBC’s Jay Leno, on Mike Tyson’s filing for bankruptcy: “This is the first time Mike Tyson got up to Chapter 11 in anything.”

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--John Weyler

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