Good Thing He Wasn’t Working in the Bar

William Ligue Jr., who led his 15-year-old son in an attack on Kansas City Royal first base coach Tom Gamboa in September, managed to get into the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields outside Chicago last week.

He was wearing a legitimate vendor’s badge.

Ligue, who recently changed his plea to guilty and faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced Aug. 6 for the incident during a White Sox game, was hired by a temporary employment agency to clean hospitality tents. Ligue, who blames the incident on alcohol and drugs, came into the media center seeking reporters.

“People recognize me all over,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s bad. I get made fun of, ridiculed. I’m just trying to put it all behind me.

“I’m no security risk. I’m no threat to society. I just had a rough time in my life.”

Tell it to the judge.

Trivia time: Who were the first two NFL players to intercept a pass in 16 consecutive seasons?

Miscommunication: Associated Press sent Sammy Sosa a letter of apology for quoting him speaking in broken English the night of his corked-bat incident.

“It was wrong to put those quotes in the story,” AP sports editor Terry Taylor told the Philadelphia Daily News. She said Sosa was “perfectly clear” in other statements.

The union has since sent foreign players a memo urging them to speak in their native tongue and “let the AP worry about the translation.”

Light-headed: Cleveland pitcher Terry Mulholland says there’s a loophole in a rule regarding the inspection of opposing teams’ bats.

“You can check the ball anytime in a game,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “but the other team can only check an opposing player’s bat once. Once you check a bat, nine guys are going to be scurrying to their lockers for ‘Old Corky.’ ”

Another no-show: Kenyon Martin, who had just missed 20 shots and gone one for 19 in the last 44 minutes of New Jersey’s loss to San Antonio in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, was properly penitent until reminded of his comments about Keith Van Horn after the Lakers beat the Nets in the Finals last year.

Of Van Horn, Martin had said: “You are supposed to show up. It was the most important game of our lives, man, and people didn’t show up to play. I can live with losing, but I can’t live with people not showing up.”

“Why would you bring that up?” Martin asked the Newark Star-Ledger reporter. “I’m not going to answer that. I’m out of here.”

Spur him on? Maybe this will help motivate Shaquille O’Neal to work hard during his off-season conditioning program.

Dikembe Mutombo, asked to compare the NBA Finals most valuable player he faced in 2001 to the one he faced in 2003.

“You cannot compare Shaq to Tim Duncan,” he said. “They do not have a similar game. Shaq’s got a dunking game, Tim’s got a package.”

Trivia answer: Willie Brown and Darrell Green.

And finally: Wayne Gretzky, on reducing the size of goalie equipment to increase offense: “When you have a picnic table guarding the net, it’s pretty hard to score.”

--John Weyler