He Has Last Word, and Last Straw, on Games

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle poses some questions concerning the Winter Olympics:

* “If curling is truly an Olympic sport, why haven’t scientists found a way to develop illegal, high-performance brooms?”

* “What if a ski jumper caught a rogue thermal updraft and didn’t come down?”

* “No event has more mysteries than bobsledding. Over the years, more than one American downhill slider has been busted for steroids. Why would a bobsledder need steroids?

“Answer: For the lodge.”

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Trivia time: What is the longest winning streak in the UCLA-USC basketball series?

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Who was favored? Bob Halloran of ESPN.com on the Winter Olympics: “An actual news story previewing the Games read: ‘Pogue edges Klug for Olympic berth.’ Boy, that was a shocker! Didn’t you really think Klug was going to beat Pogue?”

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Party pooper: Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg Times, commenting on Super Bowl-winning Coach Bill Belichick:

“[He] is so painfully dull the suspicion is that moss grows on his north side.

“The joke [in New Orleans] was that Belichick ventured onto Bourbon Street, but a bartender asked him to leave so the place could have happy hour.

“And so what? Maybe the guy isn’t fun at parties. Maybe the part of his personality that tells jokes and dances on tables has been replaced by breakdowns of football tapes.”

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More Belichick: Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “He’s X to Bill Walsh’s O.”

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Tyson “tribute”: Hubert Mizell of the St. Petersburg Times, commenting on Mike Tyson: “Good for Nevada, putting a muzzle on Mad Mike. Tell me that no state will stoop to licensing this flesh-gnawing creep....

“He’s a boneheaded pig meriting nobody’s sympathy. We should allow him to slide, as quickly as possible, into oblivion.”

Don’t hold back, Hubert. Tell us what you really think of Tyson.

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Is it a trend? Brad Rock of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City: “There’s a lot of talk that the Patriots were destined to win the Super Bowl because these are patriotic times.

“It may even be true. In that case, I’m penciling in the George Washington Colonials as NCAA basketball champs.”

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A very big ouch: A couple of months ago during the installation of hardwood floors in luxury suites at Safeco Field in Seattle, a flatbed truck backed into the Mitt, a 9-foot-tall, 3,000-pound cast bronze sculpture.

Since the mishap, the dented thumb of the Mitt, mounted outside the stadium, has been wrapped with tape provided by construction workers.

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Trivia answer: The Trojans won 42 consecutive games from 1932 to 1943.

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And finally: After the Clippers rallied from an 18-point deficit to beat the New York Knicks, 112-110, Tuesday night, the Knicks’ Latrell Sprewell said: “They’re probably the youngest and most athletic team in the league. They’re just a bunch of young guys who haven’t been together a long time and they play real well. And you know these guys are just going to get better.”

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Mal Florence