Next Gig for These Folks Could Be With WWE

And you thought a baseball player throwing a folding chair into the stands was unsporting.

In Rome, a soccer fan threw something at Swedish referee Anders Frisk during a Champions League game involving AS Roma and Dynamo Kiev on Wednesday, drawing blood and causing the match to be suspended. The Italian newspaper, Gazzetta dello Sport, in a banner headline, called the incident, “Disgrace in Rome.”

Then there was an altercation between Australian Olympic teammates at a welcome-home dinner at Sydney on Wednesday. Rower Catriona Oliver reportedly slapped Sally Robbins on the arm. Robbins had drawn the ire of her teammates during the Athens Olympics when she quit rowing in the final of the women’s eight.

The Australian media called Robbins “Lay Down Sally” after her Olympic meltdown. No word on whether she is an Eric Clapton fan.

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Trivia time: Who is depicted atop the Ryder Cup?

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More Ryder Cup: The man responsible for the Cup itself was Samuel Ryder, a British seed merchant and entrepreneur, who donated the trophy in 1927. He started playing golf late in life, after making his mark in the business world by selling seeds in small packets.

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Ryder Cup, Part III: Practice was held up briefly the other day while Sergio Garcia put charm bracelets, made of twisted fiber, on the wrists of some of his European teammates.

“They’re blessed by the monks who make them and are very popular in the part of Spain where I come from,” Garcia told reporters.

“When they start to wear out, you are supposed to burn them so the good feelings can be released back into the air and find their way back for the next person who wears one.”

Keep the fire department on speed dial.

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Numbers game: Running back Darius Walker wears No. 3 at Notre Dame. After he’d scored two touchdowns last Saturday against Michigan, local reporters wanted to know why.

“I wanted a single-digit number,” he said. “I was No. 7 in high school and that was something I was pushing to get. Carlyle Holiday kept the number and three was the only single-digit number left.”

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Looking back: On this date in 1984, Reggie Jackson, at 38, became the 13th player in major league history to hit 500 home runs. No. 500 came off Kansas City pitcher Bud Black and came exactly 17 years after he got his first career hit.

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Trivia answer: Abe Mitchell, the instructor who taught Samuel Ryder how to play golf.

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Hold the juice: Comic actor Bernie Mac, who plays the lead in “Mr. 3000,” was asked about fellow thespian Paul Sorvino, who plays one of his coaches in the movie. The Sporting News threw this question at him: Who’s the better spitter?

“He spits more naturally,” Mac told Steve Greenberg. “But I can spit farther.”

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And finally: Manchester City soccer manager Kevin Keegan, on the rules against celebration: “The game is just going mad at the moment. With rules like this, they are trying to turn us into robots.”