And He Was About to Knock His Sox Off

Actor Robert Wuhl was at Saturday’s game between the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, sitting behind home plate with a friend, Bill Blumenreich, owner of a Boston comedy club.

Wuhl was telling Blumenreich it was a shame that Grady Little was fired as Red Sox manager last year for, as Wuhl put it, “leaving in the best pitcher in baseball for one pitch too long,” in Game 7 of the American League championship series.

At that point, Wuhl said, Theo Epstein, the Red Sox’s 30-year-old general manager, who was sitting in front of them, turned around.

Wuhl, thinking quickly, said, “And I have it on good authority you voted to keep him.”

Trivia time: What was significant about Lee Trevino’s victory in the 1968 U.S. Open at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.?

Counterpunching: It was pointed out to Bob Arum that his boxing promotion Saturday night at the Home Depot Center in Carson, featuring Marco Antonio Barrera and Paulie Ayala, is misnamed “Battle Under the Stars.” The double main event main bouts begin at 6:45 and should end around 8:45. It won’t be dark until about 8:30.

“You’re right,” Arum said. “But in L.A., the HBO telecast is shown on a three-hour delay.”

Foul play: A man identified by the Dallas Morning News as 28-year-old landscaper Matt Starr, a former youth minister, took a foul ball from 4-year-old Nick O’Brien at Texas’ home game Sunday against St. Louis.

Worse yet, as Starr dived for the ball, he knocked the boy against the seats.

“I couldn’t believe someone would do something like that to a 4-year-old boy,” said Nick’s mother, Edie, who turned and swatted the man with a cardboard fan.

But things turned out all right for young Nick. Cardinal outfielder Reggie Sanders gave Nick a bat and ball, and the Rangers gave him two bats and four balls, one signed by Nolan Ryan. Now Starr plans to give Nick the ball and buy the family tickets to a Ranger game, according to the team.

Purr-fect world: An Olympics for cat lovers, the Meow Mix Gold Medal Games, is being held in eight cities. Events include “litter box cleanup,” “hairball toss” and “feeding time.” The second stop is in New York on Tuesday, and former Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug will be among the competitors.

“If my gymnastics training involved tossing hairballs, unwinding balls of yarn and lapping up bowls of water, I might still be competing today,” she said.

Trivia answer: All four rounds were in the 60s -- 69-68-69-69.

And finally: Charles Barkley was quoted in Morning Briefing this week saying, “You can go down to the 7-Eleven store, take a fat, bald guy from behind the counter and teach him to play golf. But you ain’t going to teach him to make the NBA.”

Says reader Andrew Robbins of La Jolla: “Fat, bald guys can play in the NBA. Prime example, Charles Barkley. Fat, bald guys cannot always be taught to play golf. Prime example, Charles Barkley.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.