Both Their Prayers Are Answered on Sunday

It’s hard to say who was more lucky Sunday afternoon in Arlington, Texas, Rafael Palmeiro, who hit home run No. 500, or the Rev. John Collet, the man who caught it.

Collet was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, snagging a little piece of history after it was bobbled by fans around him near the right-field foul pole.

Palmeiro was lucky because Collet, a man of the cloth, didn’t hold him hostage in negotiations to buy the ball back.

Collet, a professor at Holy Trinity Seminary at the University of Dallas, was hurried away by stadium security to meet with Palmeiro after the game.

Surely, the experience will make for a good sermon.

As for Palmeiro, he left with the ball, telling reporters that dealing with Collet “wasn’t bad.”

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Trivia time: Of the 19 members of baseball’s 500 home-run club, which six have never won the league most-valuable-player award?

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Floor(board)ed: Juan Pablo Montoya can race his Formula One car, but he has been banned by French authorities from driving his personal vehicle on their highways.

Montoya, 27, a Colombian who lives in Monaco, was caught speeding at nearly 128 mph in southern France on Sunday and officials said his license could be suspended for up to two months.

The 2000 Indy 500 winner has already been fined the equivalent of $1,157.

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Fish story: There’s big money in bass fishing, which is starting to get a fair share of coverage in newspapers, magazines and television.

So let’s get these anglers a media coach.

Ken Christ recently spoke with Associated Press about defending his title in the CITGO BASS Federation Championship, which runs through Friday in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“There’s a lot of fish there,” Christ said, “and I think it’s going to come down to who gets the big ones to bite.”

Sounds like a safe bet.

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Price is right: Kenyon Martin has posted impressive numbers this season -- and drawn a blank in one important department.

The New Jersey Net forward was neither fined nor suspended during the regular season, a significant accomplishment considering bad behavior cost Martin nearly $10% of his $3.5 million salary last season.

“It’s not like I went out of my way to do nothing,” the Nets’ leading scorer and rebounder in the playoffs told Bloomberg News. “I’m still playing hard. I’m still Kenyon.”

That’s a good thing for the Nets, whose coach, Byron Scott, credited Martin’s passionate play for sparking New Jersey to the NBA Finals last year. “It cost him a lot of money, but it did us a lot of good,” Scott said.

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One man’s prediction: New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters:” “There’s going to be a woman in Augusta National before there’s a black football coach at [Alabama].”

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Trivia answer: Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Eddie Mathews, Mel Ott, Eddie Murray and Babe Ruth.

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And finally: Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, on a 4-year-old horse whose record at New York’s Finger Lakes Race Track is 0-9: “Something tells me his owner wasn’t expecting much ... His name: Glue.”