Another sexual harassment complaint at ESPN, this one involving the personalities on “Cold Pizza.” Maybe they should have renamed the show “Cold Shower.”
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Did you see the Celtics traded the fifth pick in the draft, Georgetown’s Jeff Green, for the fifth pick in the 1996 draft, erstwhile SuperSonic Ray Allen? Good thing the Wizards didn’t do that with Nick Young, the 16th selection. They would have wound up with Tony Delk (No. 16 in ’96), who averaged 7.5 points a game last season for a Greek team.
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The Knicks, I hear, are worried that they don’t have anybody to defend Allen. In fact, they’ve already offered Denzel Washington their mid-level exception.
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Thursday had to be one of the most eventful days in baseball history. You had Frank Thomas slugging his 500th home run, you had Craig Biggio collecting his 3,000th hit and you had A.J. Pierzynski annoying his 10 millionth fan.
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Strange, isn’t it, how they call Thomas “The Big Hurt,” and yet Biggio is the one who’s been hit by 284 pitches?
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I just love stats like this: Biggio is the only player in major league history with at least 600 doubles (658 through Friday), 250 homers (286), 3,000 hits (3,002) and 400 stolen bases (413).
Don’t get me wrong, Biggio has had a terrific career, but why this ridiculous compulsion to make it seem like he’s in A Class By Himself?
After all, you can play that game with almost anybody. Tommie Aaron, for instance, is the only player in major league history with 42 doubles, 13 homers, 216 hits, nine stolen bases and Hank Aaron as a brother.
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Funny story by the Los Angeles Times’ Jerry Crowe last week on Ernie Broglio, the Guy The Cubs Traded Lou Brock For in 1964. Seems Broglio spent his last two seasons in the minors, going 12-13 with a 3.69 ERA in ’67 for the Buffalo Bisons, a Cincinnati farm club. When the Reds didn’t call him up in September, he was a tad upset.
“I knew it was the end of my career,” he told Crowe, “so I asked the clubhouse guy if he had any lighter fluid. I took all my underpants, my jockstrap, shirts and a bunch of other stuff, piled them in the middle of the floor and lit them on fire. And I said goodbye to baseball.”
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Wonder whether the manager summoned his ace reliever to put out the flames.
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Quote of the Week (from Phillies fan Harold Herman, 90, in a Sports Illustrated piece “celebrating” the franchise’s imminent 10,000th loss):
“It figures we got Vince [DiMaggio], not Joe or Dom. When brothers played in the majors, the Phillies usually wound up with the one who produced less. We had Harry Coveleski instead of Stan, Irish Meusel instead of Bob, Frank Torre instead of Joe, Ken Brett instead of George, Mike Maddux instead of Greg, Rick Surhoff instead of B.J. and Jeremy Giambi instead of Jason. If there had been a Zeppo Alou, the Phillies would have signed him.”
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Actor John Turturro has been cast as Howard Cosell (in “Monday Night Mayhem”) and now Billy Martin (in the upcoming ESPN miniseries, “The Bronx Is Burning”). Which got me thinking: Maybe ESPN’s writers could work up a scene in which Cosell interviews Martin — and Turturro plays both parts.
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Hey, why not? Didn’t Woody Allen cross-examine himself — to hysterical effect — in “Bananas”?
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Turturro, I just remembered, also gave a memorable performance as a hotshot Hispanic bowler (Jesus Quintana) in “The Big Lebowski.”
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Former Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, one of the all-time whack jobs, is selling autographed baseballs for $175 bearing the inscription: “I threw a no-hitter on LSD.”
Dock’s feat was, indeed, amazing — if it actually happened. But I’d still rank it below Roger Federer’s 51 consecutive victories on grass.
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“Fifty is a great number to achieve,” Federer said after reaching the milestone. “I’m delighted about that, but I haven’t won the tournament.”
It must have taken incredible restraint, as spaced-out as he presumably was, not to use the word “groovy.”
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History will record that in his very next match after remarking, “I guess I’m the closest thing to a Brit left in this tournament,” American James Blake, whose mother is English, got bounced from Wimbledon.
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Admit it, boys, you’ve had a secret crush on Summer Sanders for years.
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The World League of American Football (as NFL Europa will always be known in This Space) has folded its tent after 16 years. According to reports, NFL owners are dismayed that their game hasn’t caught Europe’s fancy. (Translation: It hasn’t provoked a single riot.)
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At the end, five of the league’s six teams were located in Germany. But then, what did anyone expect? I mean, didn’t the Germans have a chancellor a while back named Helmut?
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The NFL will, however, stage a game between the Giants and Dolphins this October in London. It will be broadcast in two languages — Their English and Our English.
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Turning to golf, the Champions Tour says it will begin drug testing whenever the PGA Tour does. Finally, we’ll get to find out what Chi Chi Rodriguez has been geeked up on all these years.
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I’m guessing he’s a ginseng junkie.
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Fearless prediction: Given steroid component of many hair-growth products, the Champions Tour is about to get a lot balder.
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And finally …
Did you read about one of Joe Gibbs’ drivers, Aric Almirola, leading a Busch Series race for 43 laps and then having to turn the car over to Denny Hamlin, who was late arriving from a Nextel Cup event? Hamlin proceeded to take the checkered flag — and Almirola, I’m told, proceeded to book an appointment with Patrick Ramsey’s psychiatrist.
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