A Laugh to Take All the Way to the Bank

Racing car designer Carroll Shelby and former Formula One champion Phil Hill were honored with the Eagle One-Shav Glick Award for distinguished contributions to motorsports before the recent Auto Club 500 at California Speedway.

Roger Penske -- who built the Fontana track, won 13 Indianapolis 500s as a team owner and is recognized as an astute businessman -- was overheard by The Times’ Martin Henderson offering Shelby his congratulations.

As Penske walked away, Shelby shouted, “You’re the only guy I know who thinks a million dollars is minimum wage.”

Trivia time: What is the origin of the term “March Madness”?

Whoa, Canada: An 8-6 victory Wednesday by Team Canada that left Team USA on the brink of elimination from the World Baseball Classic prompted responses across the country.

Among them:

* Dave Barry of the Miami Herald: “We need to go back to the old traditional style of World Series, wherein only teams from the United States are permitted to play.”

* Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press: “World Baseball Classic, eh? You never care about things like that until the U.S. loses. It’s the America’s Cup of baseball.”

Tennis anyone? Wrote Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic: “Bjorn Borg is selling his five Wimbledon trophies. John McEnroe should get first dibs.”

Weighing in: Amid more allegations of Barry Bonds’ steroid use, Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune wrote: “It takes massive amounts of ego and self-righteousness to perpetrate a scam of the magnitude that Barry Bonds has perpetrated on the American public. Maybe steroids boost megalomania levels too.

“To look into the country’s eyes and have the nerve to say you’re as clean as Pat Boone’s rap sheet takes the kind of practiced delusion that used to be the private realm of disgraced corporate leaders. Bonds is no bush league con artist. He’s a pro.”

Double-dribble: NBC’s Jay Leno on the report of a Phoenix teacher setting a record for dribbling a basketball for 26 consecutive hours: “The old record was held by Kobe Bryant, who dribbled 25 hours before finally passing the ball to a teammate.”

Looking back: On this date in 1983, Walter Alston, who led the Dodgers to World Series titles in 1955, 1959, 1963 and 1965 during his 23 seasons as manager, was named to the Hall of Fame by the veterans committee.

More Walt: Jim Murray, the late Times sports columnist, once wrote that Alston was “the only guy in the game who could look Billy Graham right in the face without blushing and who would order corn on the cob in a Paris restaurant.”

Trivia answer: Originally applied to the Illinois high school tournament, it first appeared as an essay’s title in the March 1939 issue of the Illinois High School Athletic Assn.’s magazine.

And finally: A definition of courage from the Seattle Times’ Dwight Perry: “The McDonald’s cashier with the guts to ask Barry Bonds, ‘Wanna supersize that?’ ”