Davis Didn’t Care for Corner Route

There have been some lively courtroom exchanges between Al Davis, the Oakland Raider owner, and Jim Brosnahan, the defense attorney representing Oakland in the NFL team’s suit against the city.

Early in cross-examination, Brosnahan asked: “Would it be fair to say you turned around the Raiders in the 1960s?”

Davis: “You’re being too kind to me.”

Brosnahan: “It won’t last. Let’s enjoy the moment.”

As he asked questions, Brosnahan often walked behind Davis to the back corner of the courtroom, clearly making Davis uncomfortable. Judge Richard K. Park asked Brosnahan if there was a reason he needed to stand there.

Chimed in Davis: “He likes to be close to me.”

Replied Brosnahan: “Yes, we’re starting to bond. But in an odd way.”

Truth hurts: Among the questions Davis considered most carefully was when he was asked about the job responsibilities of longtime executive assistant “Little Al” LoCasale.

Davis thought for a moment, then slowly turned toward the jury box and said, “I don’t know if I should say this, but ... he’s in charge of the Raiderettes.”

Trivia time: Who has homered in more major league ballparks than any other player?

Staged: Some of sports’ greatest moments nowadays are ruined by choreography, laments Miami Herald columnist Jeff Miller, who cited Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech as the kind of magic that can take place spontaneously.

“If he retired now,” Miller wrote, “Gehrig’s speech would be written by a professional, spell-checked by computer and designed to fit neatly between Fox’s commercial breaks. Two weeks later, the microphone he used would show up on eBay.”

Insider trading: From Bill Scheft in Sports Illustrated: “[Texas] Rangers owner Tom Hicks told his GM, John Hart, to start dumping salaries. Here’s the scary part: Martha Stewart knew this was going to happen in April.”

Butt of a joke: Supercross rider Travis Pastrana thought he was being clever when he had “Village Idiot” written on the back of his pants, so that, in his words, “when I won a Supercross, everyone would get a laugh out of it.” He hasn’t won since. Said Pastrana: “So I guess I am the village idiot.”

Say what? Yogi Berra has nothing on British announcer Murray Walker, who had this to say during a recent Formula One telecast:

“This is an interesting circuit because it has inclines, and not just up, but down as well.”

And later, “It’s not quite a curve, it’s a straight actually.”

Trivia answer: Dodger first baseman Fred McGriff, who has homered in 42 big league stadiums

And finally: You think former Long Beach State basketball coach Wayne Morgan isn’t missed by his former peers in the Big West Conference?

A high-placed source in the conference says no fewer than three Big West teams -- UC Irvine, Pacific and UC Santa Barbara -- already have contacted the new Iowa State coach about playing games in future seasons.

Apparently there’s nothing like the allure of a payday and a likely victory.

-- Mike Hiserman