Historic, Infamous Make the Shirt List
You can have the shirt off Pele’s back.
Really.
The soccer shirt -- with the famous No. 10 on the back -- that he wore as a 17-year-old in the 1958 World Cup final will be auctioned Tuesday at Christie’s in London. It could be very expensive, considering the jersey Pele wore in the 1970 World Cup final went for $283,100 in 2002.
Then there’s this not-so-glorious item: The shirt worn by Italy’s Roberto Baggio is also on sale. It’s the one he wore when he launched a penalty kick well over the crossbar in the 1994 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl.
Anyone for Bill Buckner’s glove? Or Marty McSorley’s stick?
Trivia time: Whom did Bernard Hopkins fight in his professional debut?
High rollers: If the Pele item isn’t expensive enough for a very wealthy sports fan, there is always the lure of the International Space Station. Six months of training in Russia and a round-trip ticket into outer space goes for $20 million.
Only the wealthy -- and very healthy -- need apply, according to Outside magazine.
“You want someone who is in excellent health,” Stacey Tearne of Space Adventures told the publication.
“Lance Armstrong would be a great candidate.”
Tee time: Coaches and managers have complained for years that their players spend too much time golfing.
The bosses of the Scottish soccer team Hearts did something about it when two players went golfing the day before a game this month.
The truant players must hoist their golf bags -- complete with clubs -- and carry them during training runs around the track, according to BBC Sport.
Imagine if they’d gone to the track.
No ‘Cane mutiny: Chuck Culpepper of Newsday listed his top 25 college football stories of last week and in at No. 13 was Florida State’s loss to Miami:
“Another galling, revolting, logic-defying, stultifying, narrow loss to the Hurricanes. Another 60 years of this and they’re the Red Sox.”
Water world: Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on what will happen in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan: “How many SEC games will be played in boats this weekend?”
Heavy medal: Bike stunt rider Ryan Nyquist, competing in Cleveland in the Gravity Games, believes that the Olympics are in need of a major update.
“X Games and Gravity Games are kind of like the modern-day Olympics,” he told Associated Press. “A lot of kids nowadays just aren’t into the traditional sports like they used to be.
“Times are changing and I think the Olympics should adapt. When I look at some of the sports they have, it just makes me laugh.”
Trivia answer: Clinton Mitchell. The journeyman beat Hopkins in 1988 in a four-round decision.
And finally: The Denver Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony in the New York Post, plugging his commercial offering: “My new shoe drops in November. Go get it.”
