That would be some serious hang time

Squeezing a football field inside Tropicana Field, the domed home of the Tampa Bay Rays, posed an issue that needed investigating during the run-up to the inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl between the University of South Florida and Memphis.

Could a football possibly hit one of the four circular catwalks that hang above the playing field?

The St. Petersburg Times dispatched a reporter and enlisted a punter, former South Florida goalkeeper and semi-pro kicker Mike Pepper, to see if any of the concentric rings were reachable.

Pepper was able to hit only the D ring, which never crosses the field of play. The ball then ricocheted off the restaurant in center field and bounced into the tank in right-center field, where spectators can touch live cownose rays.

Conclusion: Saturday’s game ought to be obstruction-free.

Trivia time

Which punter bounced a football off the television screen suspended above the Superdome field during the 1976 Pro Bowl?

Flip-flops don’t fly

President Bush was talking with the Washington Post about the 2005 White House visit of Northwestern’s national champion women’s lacrosse team, which was marked by players arriving in flip-flops.

“I thought it was cool!” he said. “Look, I’m the father of young girls -- now professional women. But I thought it was great; it didn’t bother me in the least. When you’re president, you get used to all kinds of characters.”

Better still, none of the players took off their flip-flops to fling them at the president.

Mission impossible?

Michael Phelps wants to star in his own video game, but what can you do with swimming? Back and forth in the pool, back and forth, game over in a matter of seconds. What then?

Adam Kline, president of 505 Games, the company releasing the video, told the Baltimore Sun that “Swimming will be a part of it, but it won’t be set in an Olympic pool going back and forth. . . . This is a pure action game.”

Although dangerous, it is presumed that action won’t include being the host of “Saturday Night Live.”

Trivia answer

Ray Guy of the Oakland Raiders.

And finally

From Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Now Terrell Owens is beefing that Tony Romo and Jason Witten, on the road, don’t invite him to their pillow fights.”

-- Mike Penner