A Dash of Nash Feeds the Family in a Hurry

How fast is the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash?

Esquire magazine writer Chuck Klosterman didn’t get a total appreciation of Nash’s speed until after their interview outside a restaurant in Manhattan. It came when Nash’s wife requested -- via text message -- that he needed to purchase some food for their twin girls.

So long turned into so fast.

“I reached down to get my umbrella off a chair,” Klosterman wrote in the November issue. “By the time I returned to an upright position, Steve Nash was already on the other side of the street. It was like someone had taken a laser beam, obliterated every atom in his body, and instantaneously reconstructed him 40 feet to the west....

“But the bottom line is that Steve Nash can accelerate in a way that you cannot possibly comprehend. Have you ever seen a college pitcher get struck by a line drive that was hit off an aluminum bat? He’s like that line drive.”

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Trivia time: Which World Series was the first to have no complete games by a starting pitcher?

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Oh, Roy: Via satellite, from Houston, Roy Oswalt, Astro pitcher and the most valuable player of the National League championship series, appeared on the “Late Show With David Letterman” and did the top-10 list on Thursday.

Here are the top “Perks of Getting Into the World Series.”

No. 2. (Roger) Clemens used his AARP card to get us cheap hotel rooms.

No. 1. If (George) Steinbrenner wants me next year, my price is now a billion dollars.

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Scooter, silenced: The Sporting News conducted a staff poll, asking, “What best summarizes your feelings for Scooter, the animated talking baseball on Fox?”

* “I get a kick out of the little guy.” 10%

* “Send him down to the minors.” 19%

* “I’m not a fan of him, but he doesn’t bother me.” 26%

* “Send him to a slow, painful death.” 45%

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My generation: Morning Briefing, already feeling a little creaky, should have been listening to the Who (“I Hope I Die Before I Get Old”) as it read columnist Gary Shelton’s amusing riff in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times on being old: “Sportswriters as golf officials made me old. The BCS made me old. Movies that portray Adam Sandler as a great athlete made me old....

“You know what makes me want to take up whittlin’? Young people.

“Freddy Adu is 16 and is talking about a trade. Delmon Young is ticked off he isn’t in the majors at 19. Despite a couple of guys named Cal Ripken and Alex Rodriguez, B.J. Upton has decided at 21 he doesn’t want to move to third. Michelle Wie is 16 and has $10 million in the bank, which means my 10-year-old daughter has some work to do.”

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Trivia answer: 1959, with the Dodgers and the White Sox.

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And finally: Former World Cup slalom champion Rainer Schoenfelder to Associated Press, on Bode Miller’s earlier comments that doping should be legalized in skiing: “It’s a stupid thing to say. He argues that allowing doping would make it safer for racing downhill.

“I suggest he should practice a bit more on the glacier in the summer instead.”