FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: sports.espn.go.com

BASEBALL QUOTES

It's all in the words

Updated: November 5, 2004

Ten favorite quotes of the year (regular-season division)

10. From Tigers humorist Dmitri Young, on trying to play while sick:
"My nose was running like an Olympic sprinter."

	King

9. From Cardinals reliever Ray King, who was so inspired by the sight of President Bush throwing out the first ball on opening day that he promptly ran 3-and-0 counts on the first two hitters he faced:
"The president threw one more strike than I did."

8. From Giants philosopher-manager Felipe Alou, trying to describe the appeal of the wild-card concept -- in his own, inimitable Lion King fashion:
"The wild card is the purgatory of the lost. It's a place souls go and wait millions of years until redemption."

7. From Padres manager Bruce Bochy, after sending Kerry Robinson up to pinch-hit with two men on -- only to watch him bounce into a triple play:
"You're thinking he's a good guy to stay out of the double play. Well, we did that."

	Berkman

6. From Astros slugger-quipmaster Lance Berkman, on his strategy for taking a bunch of pitches during the All-Star Home Run Derby:
"I told myself that at least that way, even if I didn't hit any home runs, at least I'd be on TV for 15 minutes."

5. From Andy Stewart, of Canada's Olympic baseball team, on how he estimated the attendance at a game against the Netherlands:
"I was looking for my wife and counting the people. After I got to one, I didn't have to go a lot higher."

4. From that modern-day Casey Stengel, Marlins manager Jack McKeon, after being asked when Josh Beckett would come off the disabled list and make his next start:
"It'll be anywhere from Sunday to Sunday -- but I doubt it'll be Sunday."

	Gardenhire

3. From Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, on how bench coach Steve Liddle saved the day after the Twins got an early-morning wakeup call in Kansas City because of a tornado warning:
"He just took a bag of our bats and put them in the window. He knew nothing would hit it."

2. From Red Sox first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, after hearing that Toronto pitcher Justin Miller had been banned from pitching in short sleeves because Major League Baseball ruled that his tattoos were too distracting:
"He should put a picture of Ricardo Rincon on there. If I see him out there, I guarantee you I'm going to swing and miss three times."

1. From Yankees manager Joe Torre, after a Kenny Lofton foul ball had roared into the dugout and conked him on the head:
"It didn't take any hair off. That had already been taken care of."

Three favorite quotes of the postseason
3. From Houston's Lance Berkman, on what the Astros and Cardinals could do to steal a little national attention away from That Other Series (Yankees-Red Sox):
"Maybe if we had two or three bench-clearing brawls. Turn this series into a mosh pit out there. Maybe hire Don Zimmer and get him to go after Tony La Russa right by their dugout. That would get some attention."

	Mulholland

2. From veteran Twins humorist Terry Mulholland, on the harsh realities of losing a postseason series to that team from New York:
"I thought the Yankees did well -- given their financial constraints."

1. From the self-proclaimed king of the Red Sox idiots, Johnny Damon, after the Red Sox found themselves one game away from winning the World Series:
"You know, a lot of people say they didn't want to die until the Red Sox won the World Series. ... Well, there could be a lot of busy ambulances tomorrow."

MVQ's of the year
There's no such thing as a Most Valuable Quotesmith award. But that doesn't mean we can't invent one. So we're paying tribute to two men who crank out funny lines as dependably as Toyota cranks out four-door sedans -- Phillies outfield-humorist Doug Glanville and Brewers coach-witticist Rich Donnelly.

Our favorite Glanville quips of the year:

On the theft of the Phillie Phanatic's head this spring: "I'm sure if this had happened back in the year 1300 or so, people would go, 'I don't know what all the commotion is about. People lose their head all the time.' "

	Glanville

After a week in June in which the Phillies waited out 8½ hours worth of rain delays: "They might start charging us rent. It could be a new revenue stream."

On ways players could kill time during those rain delays, but still fulfill their competitive instincts: "We should start building an ark -- maybe have a boat race: They build an ark. We build an ark. Then we can race down the Schuykill or something."

And now our most memorable Rich Donnelly quotes of the year:

After a stretch in which the Brewers played four extra-inning games in a span of nine home games: "We may be the only park that starts selling beer in the seventh inning."

After violating the age requirements to join a group of senior citizens for Seniors Stroll the Bases Day, Donnelly reported he'd turned around his social life: "I sold four season tickets, booked three appearances, and I've got two Parcheesi games in Appleton."

After hearing that Brewers minor leaguer Jeff Liefer had caused a 15-minute delay of game by getting locked in the dugout bathroom in Indianapolis: "Now that is what you call long relief."

Top five late-night baseball quips of the year

Fifth prize: From Craig Kilborn, on the implosion of Philadelphia's late, not-so-great Veterans Stadium:
"Over the weekend, Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia was blown up. Fans cried -- when they found out that the Phillies weren't in it."

Fourth prize: From Jay Leno: "Saddam Hussein is now reportedly depressed and begging for mercy. I didn't even know he was a Mets fan."

Third prize: From Leno: "ABC and ESPN, which are both owned by Disney, are combining forces to start a new reality show called 'Extreme Makeover at the Ballpark.' You go to baseball game, you sit next to the Texas Rangers bullpen, and they give you a nose job with a folding chair."

	Johnson

Second prize: From David Letterman, on Randy Johnson's perfect game: "He retired 27 men in all -- which is a record previously held by J-Lo."

First prize: From Letterman, on the forecast for Game 7 of the Yankees-Red Sox series: "The good news for the Red Sox is, tonight's weather definitely favors the Red Sox. The forecast is breezy -- with about a 60 percent chance of hell freezing over."

FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: home.att.net

SPORTS QUOTES

"Income taxes have made more liars
out of the American people than golf."
-- Will Rogers

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything
like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the
game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to
hate your enemies.
Will Rogers


In Hollywood you can see things at night that are fast enough
to be in the Olympics in the day time.
Will Rogers

When should a college athlete turn pro? Not until he has
earned all he can in college as an amateur.
Will Rogers

I never expected to see the day when girls would get
sunburned in the places they now do.
Will Rogers

A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing
and missionaries.
Will Rogers

FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: willrogerspolo.org

AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL: Will Rogers, beloved humorist and accomplished poloist, was happiest on horseback.
by
Robert Bryce
Tommy Hitchcock, the great ten-goal player of the 1920s and '30s, had hit the ball to within 60 yards of the goal. Charging after the ball, Hitchcock was followed closely by a more famous teammate, a three-goal player better known for his horsemanship than his shot-making. As Hitchcock bore down on the ball, raising his mallet for an easy score, teammate Will Rogers, riding tight on Hitchcock's tail, yelled, "Leave it." Rogers raced to the ball with his mallet cocked for the uncontested goal. He whiffed. Later, Rogers, wearing a sheepish grin, told Hitchcock, "I just wanted to see what it felt like to have a ten-goal player leave a ball for a rube like me."

Seven decades have passed since Rogers laid chase to Hitchcock on that field on Long Island, but the event, recalled by Rogers's son Jim, illustrates the great humorist's passion for polo. It also indicates how proficient--and confident--Rogers was while on horseback. A well-known movie star, radio personality, newspaper columnist, and expert roper, the joke-cracking Rogers also was an accomplished poloist whose ardor for the game was unequaled. Rogers worked to popularize and support polo programs throughout the 1920s and '30s while playing with and against some of the most famous people on the planet. Guests who mounted for practice games at Rogers's Santa Monica ranch included Hollywood types such as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Darryl Zanuck, and Walt Disney. Rogers was introduced to the game about 1915 during a stint in New York with the Ziegfeld Follies, and over the next two decades, played polo every chance he got, in Mexico, the Philippines, England, Spain, even with the Maharaja of Jaipur in India.

Extraordinarily skilled in the saddle, Rogers had a natural talent for polo and seldom found time for other sports. He disdained golf. However, if visitors to his ranch wanted to practice their strokes, Rogers often would shag their golf balls on horseback, smashing them back with his polo mallet.

Rated as a three-goal player at his death, Rogers had played as high as five goals. In a 1929 match at the Uplifter's Club, while playing with his longtime friend, movie producer Hal Roach (a three-goal player), Rogers scored eight of his team's 14 goals, including four goals in a single chukker. His passion made him excel, says his son Jim. "He was terribly competitive," recalls the younger Rogers. "You did things one way, and that was full out. What do they say about golfers? 'He was a money player.' Well, that was Dad when it came to polo." But as soon as everyone dismounted, his father's competitive edge immediately softened. "Dad never cared who had won the game," recalls Jim. "What mattered was that you played hard."

Rogers certainly did. He was known for playing a rough-and-tumble game and often was thrown from his mount. In one spill, he broke two ribs when his horse rolled over him. Jim recalls a 1934 match, held at the Santa Barbara Polo Club, in which he played on the same side as his father.

As his father raised his mallet for a near-side back shot, his mount suddenly turned its head and the Oklahoma cowboy broke two fingers when his mallet hand hit the horse's skull. Later, commenting on the rough nature of the sport, he wrote, "They call it [polo] a gentleman's game for the same reason they call a tall man 'Shorty.'"

Although Rogers played on some of the most elegant polo fields on earth, he was not a typical poloist. One-quarter Cherokee, he was born in 1879 on his family's ranch near Oolagah, a smudge of a town in what was then known as Indian Territory, and began riding soon after he could walk. His deft horsemanship and roping soon enabled him to leave Oolagah for Argentina, where he planned to strike it rich in the cattle business. Quickly impoverished by his venture, he ended up taking a slow boat across the South Atlantic as an animal tender aboard a livestock ship. Upon arrival in South Africa, he joined Texas Jack's Wild West Circus, working as a bronc rider and trick roper. He then made his way to New Zealand, where a reviewer in the Auckland Herald deemed Rogers capable of lassoing anything from "a wildly galloping steed to the business end of a flash of lightning."

Upon his return to America for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Rogers quickly found work in Wild West shows and vaudeville. In 1905, making $20 a week, he appeared in New York's Madison Square Garden for the first time. His blend of shy humor, political commentary, and trick roping enchanted East Coast audiences. In one of his signature tricks, Rogers threw three lariats at one time: The first ensnared the horse's head, the second the rider's body, and the third, the horse's legs. Ten years after his arrival in New York, he was making $750 a week with the Ziegfeld Follies. Hollywood beckoned. By 1930, Rogers was making $200,000 per film, appearing with stars like Myrna Loy and Mickey Rooney, usually portraying himself in parts for which he often wrote the scripts and ad-libbed the dialogue. He eventually made 50 silent films and 21 talkies.

Given his humble roots in Oklahoma, it's not surprising that Rogers rebelled against some of polo's formal conventions. He often wore chaps or dungarees during games instead of the traditional whites, a matter that was a source of continuing consternation for his wife, Betty. Shortly after Rogers was killed in a 1935 plane crash, Los Angeles Times reporter Frank Finch wrote, "He erased the tea-drinking and 'high society' ideas about the mallet sport by appearing at swank polo clubs donned in overalls, cowboy boots,hatless and coatless, his $1.98 shirt open at the throat."

While working to popularize polo, Rogers also undertook philanthropic efforts, paying for polo teams from schools in New Mexico and Oklahoma to travel to California to play the Stanford University team and sponsoring tournaments in Santa Monica for prep school programs. In 1933, he helped finance and mount the West Team so that it could compete against the East in Chicago. Led by Eric Pedley and Cecil Smith, the West won the series 15-11, 8-12, 12-6.

An aviation enthusiast, Rogers once wrote he had "found a real, legitimate use for my polo field. We landed on it." Rogers played polo for the last time in Seattle, just days before heading to Alaska aboard an experimental seaplane with famed aviator Wiley Post. At the time of his death on August 15, 1935, Rogers was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and undoubtedly the most famous man in America. The New York Times devoted four pages to the story of the Rogers-Post crash.

Rogers's legacy--both philanthropic and paternal--continues to advance the sport of polo. The field and stables he built at his ranch a few blocks off Sunset Boulevard are now the Will Rogers Polo Club. It is the only grass polo field in Los Angeles County. The polo fields at the Uplifter's and Riviera clubs, where Rogers often played, have long since fallen to the bulldozer. The field Rogers built, located inside the Will Rogers State Historic Park, currently hosts regular tournaments and has become a regional center for polo.

Following in their father's footsteps, Rogers's sons learned to play polo. Jim Rogers, now 85, became a three-goal player as did his father Will Jr. Two of Jim's children continue to play. Charles E. Rogers, a two-goal player who played professionally for 20 years, teaches polo in Scottsdale, and Kem, a zero-goal player who raises cattle in Winters, Texas, occasionally finds time for games in Midland.

While Will Rogers enjoyed the competition and camaraderie of polo, he truly loved horses and was at his happiest on horseback. Polo offered him the perfect opportunity to escape his admiring fans. It also allowed him to compete, exercise, and, most of all, ride his favorite horses. "Polo," he wrote, is played "by us lazy ones, because the horse does all the work and we love to just go for the ride."

FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ abc.net.au

Polo with Pachyderms

Polo is an ancient game traditionally played on horseback. Swap elephants for horses and you have something else entirely!

Elephant polo was invented in India during the early 1900s. At the time India was a part of the British Empire and the first people to play were members of the English aristocracy.

The World Elephant Polo Association (WEPA) was formed in 1982 by an Englishman and a Scotsman in the small Asian kingdom of Nepal, high in the Himalayan Mountains. WEPA now holds three international tournaments each year, one in Sri Lanka, another in Thailand, and finally the world championships in Nepal.
Elephant polo is big in South East Asia, where there is a native population of Asian elephants, but WEPA has also welcomed teams representing Australia, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong and New Zealand. The current world champion is Scotland, with back-to-back wins in 2004 and 2005.

Don't Play and Drive
Elephant polo is played between two teams of three or four elephants. Each elephant is ridden by two people, a player and a mahout.
Mahouts are professional elephant handlers who work for many years with an individual animal to develop a close rapport. They are able to communicate quickly and effectively using spoken commands and by pressing behind the elephant's ears with their feet.
Players are tied onto the back of their elephant in rope harnesses, so they can concentrate on hitting the ball without fear of falling off. The players give directions to the mahouts and the mahouts give directions to the elephants.

Never Forget
Elephant polo is played on a smaller pitch than horse polo because although the animals are much larger they are also much slower. The rules are very similar, with only a few exceptions. For example, elephants are not allowed to lie down in front of the goals, pick up the ball with their trunk or kick it with their feet.
A game consists of two 10 minute chukkas with a 15 minute break in between. The team with the most goals wins. A draw is settled much like a soccer match, with five minutes of "sudden death" extra time and a penalty shootout (if needed).
At the end of every match, the elephants are rewarded with a tasty treat of sugar cane or rice balls filled with molasses and rock salt.

Wow!
Early WEPA matches used a soccer ball but the elephants liked to stand on them and squash them. Now a normal polo ball is used..

Dung collectors stand on the sidelines, ready to clear the pitch of any unpleasant obstacles.