The Clippers could learn from them

A struggling German soccer team just set a precedent that ought to cause Clippers management some anxiety: Energie Cottbus of Germany’s Bundesliga is offering an apology to the more than 600 fans who traveled to another city to watch Energie lose to Schalke, 4-0.

The loss was the sixth in seven games for Energie, which is second from the bottom in the Bundesliga and struggling to avoid relegation to a lower league -- another concept the Clippers hope the NBA never adopts.

Energie posted a Web statement headlined, “Sorry, Energie Fans!”

In it, the team said its players “did not manage at any time to stand up to a high-class opponent with our particular qualities of passion, dedication and one-on-one duels.” “Certainly one can lose at Schalke,” the team’s manager, Steffen Heidrich, said in the statement. “Nevertheless, we did not put up enough defense against the class of the individuals of this opponent.”

Trivia time

In the 1954 World Series, Willie Mays made his famous back-to-the-plate catch on a 450-foot drive hit by Vic Wertz. Who was the Giants’ pitcher, who reportedly said as he sat down in the dugout after the play, “Well, I got my man”?

Yogi Berra

quote of the day

Yogi Berra made baseball’s Hall of Fame on the strength of hitting and catching ability, but Cooperstown ought to add a separate wing for the seemingly endless supply of Yogi-isms.

Lindsay Berra, one of Berra’s 11 grandchildren and a writer for ESPN the Magazine, recalled Yogi’s reaction when she told him she wrote an article about a handsome tennis player.

“You should date him,” Yogi told her. “Gramps,” Lindsay said, “he dates a swimsuit model.”

“You got swimsuits,” Yogi said.

And then there are Madden-isms

John Madden is not in the same league with Berra when it comes to malapropisms, but during his broadcasting career he contributed more than a few colorful quotes to the sporting landscape.

A few examples: “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.” “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” “I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I never really had a job. I was a football player, then a football coach, then a football broadcaster.”

Trivia answer

Don Liddle. (Question and answer provided by reader Mark Diamond.)

And finally

John Keating of Fox Sports Detroit, on the Stanley Cup playoffs: “Playoff hockey is not exactly hockey. It is hockey’s older, snarling brother who just got out of prison.”

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