If It’s Not the Rhine, It’s Not OK to Germans

Absence apparently has not made German hearts grow fonder.

German soccer Coach Jurgen Klinsmann -- who lives near Huntington Beach -- has been taking heat in German newspapers for his California lifestyle.

Nightclubbing in the Viper Room? Staying out till all hours at Sky Bar?

No, just doing something really terrible: jogging on the beach. His German critics are upset he lives in California, enjoying a life with his young family, even though he travels twice a month to Germany and remains in daily touch via e-mail.

Reuters reported that even Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stepped in, backing Klinsmann whose team had won two of its last five games, saying: “That’s so typical German. They’ll sing ‘Hallelujah’ as long as it’s going well, and there’s no doubt things were going really well. But then they crucify him very, very fast as soon as things weren’t.”

Trivia time: Who were the three players in the 1959 World Series who had either won the Cy Young Award that year or would go on to do so?

Clothes sense: Golden State’s Jason Richardson spoke to Associated Press about the NBA’s controversial new dress code: “You wear a suit, you still could be a crook. You see all that happened with Enron and Martha Stewart.

“Hey, a guy could come in with baggy jeans, a do-rag and have a PhD and a person who comes in with a suit could be a three-time felon.”

Help wanted: New York Yankee Manager Joe Torre, appearing on HBO’s “Costas Now” on Friday night, spoke about being on the proverbial hot seat in New York, with owner George Steinbrenner manning the temperature control. “Well, let’s put it this way, if the last five years were the first five years, I wouldn’t have been here for the last five years,” Torre said.

Costas asked him to write a job description.

Torre: “Well paid; no time off.”

Artful Dodgers: The Denver Post’s Bill Briggs took on the issue of coach-speak in the NFL, or in some cases (the Raiders), not speaking about dealing with the media.

On four ways to avoid a question, Briggs compared quotes from Denver’s Mike Shanahan, Kansas City’s Dick Vermeil, Miami’s Nick Saban and Dallas’ Bill Parcells.

* “I can’t speak for him ... what he’s done speaks for itself,” Shanahan said.

* “If I’m the genius everybody thinks I am, I should go solve those problems,” Vermeil said.

* “That would be like me answering a question about how Apollo 13 got back to Earth,” Saban said.

* “You need to be medicated,” Parcells said.

Trivia answer: Early Wynn of the White Sox (1959), Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers (1963, 1965, 1966) and Don Drysdale of the Dodgers (1962).

And finally: Alabama football Coach Mike Shula, joking with reporters about the extra visitors accompanying Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who did the coin toss before Saturday’s Alabama-Tennessee game: “There were a couple Secret Service people here [Friday] and I saw them again today. I’m still wondering whether they have any eligibility remaining.”