SPORTS QUOTES
Shooting from the Lip
Compiled by Bruce Arthur
“Steve Nash Sarcastically Asks Shaq To Slow Down.” — Headline from theonion.com, on fast-paced Phoenix’s acquisition of the plodding Shaquille O’Neal.
“Philip Rabinowitz, who died recently at age 104, once set a record in the 100-metre, uh, dash for men over 100. Rabinowitz hit the tape in 30.86, breaking the old record and four ribs.” — Scott Ostler, of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“If you took the goals out of it, I think it was pretty even.” — West Ham soccer manager Alan Curbishley, after Chelsea drilled West Ham 4-0.
“I guess you date Jessica Simpson, that makes you fearless.” — Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current Jessica Simpson boyfriend Tony Romo, on meeting two of her former boyfriends, singer John Mayer and comedian Dane Cook, at Cosmopolitan’s Fun Fearless Male of the Year Awards.
“Seems she couldn’t keep that racket down.” — Marc Tandan of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, on an Australian tennis club banning a 9-year-old girl for grunting too loudly.
“In the wake of Tuesday’s retirement announcements, the NFL Network is airing 30 hours of Brett Favre programming, and Warren Sapp is getting a couple hours on the Food Network.” — Comedian Torben Rolfsen, of The Vancouver Province’s Live@Five blog.
“I hope Dwight Howard is at the Olympics in China. Not to play basketball, but to fight a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.” — Ostler again, on the Orlando Magic centre whose new nickname is Superman.
“The Knicks don’t even have a point guard — coach Isiah Thomas runs a Microsoft Excel program just before tip-off and picks out the 10 most likely plays in which his team might get fouled.” — Syndicated columnist Norman Chad, on the sad state of New York hoops.
“Budget director blew most of your campaign funds betting on the Knicks.” — From David Letterman’s Top 10 Signs Your Presidential Campaign Is In Trouble.
“Don’t worry. If he strikes out too many times this season, Cubs fans will be more than willing to give him theirs.” — Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, on Chicago Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano breaking his middle finger.
“She could be adopted by Britney Spears and be better off. I want my 16-year-old daughter to have an enormous phone bill, a case of the giggles and to be pissed off at me for killing her first three boyfriends.” — Golf commentator and wit David Feherty, on the mistreatment of Michelle Wie.
“Is that a compliment?” — Feherty, on being called the funniest man in golf.
The Count300+ The number of pounds Sports Illustrated is reporting Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell is rumoured to weigh. The sophomore pivot is expected to take over the Raiders' starting job this year, but if he truly has been “ballooning” to that weight in the off-season, his career could be in jeopardy. Russell was said to also have “weight issues” in college. InsideBayArea.com, meanwhile, reports that no one has seen Russell this off-season to know if the weight gain rumours are true or not.
Theatre of the Absurd
Referee sent into hiding after lookalike attacked
Italian referee Mauro Bergonzi was sent into hiding by police after thugs tried to attack someone he looked like, the head of the country's referees' association has said.
Bergonzi awarded two contentious penalties in Napoli's 3-1 win over Juventus in October.
"A dangerous incident happened. A group of people encircled someone they thought was a referee, they tried to abduct him and continually punch him. The only thing was he just looked like the referee," Cesare Gussoni told Friday's La Repubblica newspaper.
"He was a bank manager, poor thing, and he managed to reveal this at the end to save himself from more blows. On the advice of the police, the referee was forced to live under protection and went to another province for two weeks."
Former leading referee Pierluigi Collina, who now appoints officials for Italian games, has been sent bullets in the post and has been given a police escort as supporters' anger grows following a number of controversial decisions this season.
Italy still remembers the 2006 match-fixing scandal, where Juve were demoted and other clubs had points deducted after being found guilty of procuring favourable referees for some matches.
Meanwhile, Bulgarian referee Valeri Petrovski is recovering in hospital after being beaten up near his home in Sofia, police said Friday.
"I was in the car, waiting for my wife, when two men attacked me with baseball bats and knuckledusters," Petrovski told reporters.
The 43-year-old Petrovski, considered one of the country's leading referees, began officiating matches in the Bulgarian top division in 1996.
Police said the incident was under investigation but did not confirm the attack was soccer related.
— Reuters © 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: usatoday.com
Golf fans' screams spark 'hate' from ESPN's Rome
Here's a quick way to improve golf telecasts. Give fans something, anything, to yell besides "You da man!" and "Get in the hole!" During Sunday's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship on NBC, two fans were in such a hurry to shout "Get in the hole!" after Tiger Woods hit his tee shot, they screamed it in unison.
Fans should be free to boo or cheer whoever they want. But fans are now screaming "Get in the hole!" when Woods, Phil Mickelson and others tee off on par-4 and par-5 holes, ESPN's Jim Rome says. "If you're saying these things, stop doing it immediately," Rome said during Friday's Jim Rome Is Burning. "The players hate you, other fans hate you and, most importantly, I hate you. You're bringing everybody down, and you're embarrassing yourself."
TV networks can't edit out the screams without losing audio of player reactions and conversations with their caddies, NBC spokesman Brian Walker says. "You can't stop the gallery, you can only contain them," he jokes.
After Woods thumped Stewart Cink with an 8-and-7 victory Sunday, NBC's Roger Maltbie nailed Cink with a pretty tough question: "What's it like standing on the first tee when you know your opponent is better than you, he knows he's better than you and everybody else knows he's better than you?" Cink admitted it was "a tough task."
FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: sports.aol.com
CELEBRITY OWNERS OF SPORTS TEAM
Drew Carey is a minority owner of Seattle Sounders FC, a MLS team that will start play in 2009. He wants fans to purchase membership in the club and have a say in operations.
Bill Murray is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints, an independent minor-league baseball team, as well as the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades and the Brockton Rox.
Jon Bon Jovi is a founder and primary owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League with Richie Sambora, a member of his band.
Rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z is a part-owner of the New Jersey Nets. He paid a reported $4.5 million for his share, and is known to be interested in relocating the team to Brooklyn.
David Letterman is co-owner of the Rahal-Letterman IRL team (auto racing).
Three legendary players from the 1980s and 1990s are owners today - Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Wayne Gretzky of the Phoenix Coyotes and Michael Jordan of the Charlotte Bobcats.
Former Duke University basketball teammates, Christian Laettner and Brian Davis supported majority owner Victor B. MacFarlane in his purchase of D.C. United.
R&B singer and actor Usher is a minority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.
Rapper Nelly is a part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats along with Michael Jordan and Robert L. Johnson.
Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan leads the ownership of two minor league baseball teams, the Corpus Christi Hooks and the Round Rock Express.
Boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya owns a 25 percent share of the MLS team Houston Dynamo.
Tom Clancy, a US author of bestselling political thrillers, is also part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and the team's Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs.
Donald Trump owned the United States Football League's Jersey Generals.
FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: fahran.com
2004 Olympic Quotes
"Horses are only Human."
- Equestrian commentator Lucinda Green
*
"The fourth heat to be preceded by the third."
- Bruce McAvaney proves he's no mathematical dope
*
"Ooh shit! Oh, mustn't say that."
- Lucinda Green gets a little excited when a fence goes down during the show jumping
"That's history repeating itself...just differently."
- Mick on AFL Grand Final history
Donald: "I hope they show the Sevens [during the 2006 Commonwealth Games]."
Leah: "Is that rowing?"
Donald: "No, rugby."
Bellamy: "Sevens Rowing - that would be interesting."
Donald: "The Australian Womens Eight would be good at that."
FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: nonstriker.wordpress.com
SPORTS QUOTES
The King Of The Sports Page
The thing about Jim Murray is that he lived “happily” but somebody ran off with his “ever after.” It’s like the guy who’s ahead all night at the poker and then ends up bumming cab money home. Or the champ who’s untouched for 14 rounds and then gets KO’d by a pool-hall left you could see coming from Toledo.
Murray is a 750 word column, and 600 of those are laughs and toasts. How many sportswriters do you know who once tossed them back with Bogie? Wined and dined with Marilyn Monroe? Got mail from Brando? How many ever got mentioned in a governor’s state of the state address? Flew in Air Force One? How big is Murray? One time he couldn’t make an awards dinner so he had a sub - Bob Hope.
Murray may not be the most famous sportswriter in history. If not, he’s at least in the photo. What’s your favourite Murray line? At the Indy 500: “Gentlemen, start your coffins”? Or “[Rickey Henderson] has a strike zone the size of Hitler’s heart”? Or that UCLA coach John Wooden was “so square, he was divisible by four”? How many lines can you remember by any other sportswriter?
His life was all brass rails and roses - until this last bit, that is. The end is all wrong. The scripts got switched. They killed the laugh track, fired the gag writers and spliced in one of those teary endings you see at Cannes. In this one the guy ends up with his old typewriter and some Kodaks and not much else except a job being funny four times a week.
They say that tragedy is easy and comedy is hard. Know what’s harder? Both at once …
ARNOLD Palmer had two of them bronzed. Jack Nicklaus calls them “a breath of fresh air”. Groucho Marx liked them enough to write to him. Bobby Knight once framed one, which is something like getting Billy Graham to spring for drinks.
Since 1961, a Jim Murray column in the Los Angeles Times has been quite a wonderful thing. (He’s carried by more than 80 newspapers today and at one time was in more than 150.) Now 66, Murray has been cranking out the best written sports column this side (some say that side) of Red Smith.
But if a Smith column was like sitting around Toots Shor’s and swaping stories over a few beers, a Murray column is the floor show, a setup line and a rim shot, a corner of the sports section where a fighter doesn’t get beaten up, he becomes “sort of a complicated blood clot.” Where golfers are not athletes, they’re “outdoor pool sharks.” And where Indy is not just a dangerous car race, it’s “the run for the lilies.”
In press boxes Murray would mumble and fuss that he had no angle, sigh heavily and then, when he had finished his column, no matter how good it was, he would always slide back in his chair and say, “Well, fooled ‘em again.”
Murray must have fooled all he people all the time, because in one stretch of 16 years he won the National Sportswriter of the Year award 14 times, including 12 years in a row …Marilyn Monroe and Murray were having dinner at a Sunset Boulevard restaurant. This was not exactly an AP news flash. Murray was Time magazine’s Hollywood’s reporter from 1950 to ‘53 and you could throw a bucket of birdseed in any direction at Chasen’s and not hit anybody who didn’t know him. He had played poker with John Wayne (”he was lousy”), kibitzed with Jack Benny (who gave him an inscribe, solid-gold money clip) and golfed with Bing Crosby (Crosby sent him clippings and column ideas.)
On this particular night, somewhere around dessert, Monroe started looking as if she’d swallowed her napkin. “What’s wrong?” Murray asked.“Jim,” she said, “would you mind if I left with someone else?”“Not as long as you introduce me”“O.K.” She waved to a man across the room, who, sheepishly, made his way to the table. “Jim, I would like you to meet Joe DiMaggio…”
Murray was always a sucker for a pretty face, And in those days, in a town with pink stucco houses and restaurants shaped like brown derbies, every nightclub window was filled with pretty faces. One night, Murray and a cohort were entertaining two of them when Jim went to call his best friend.
The friend had good news.“You know that girl over at the Five Seventy Five Club that you’re always saying melts your heart? The one who plays the piano?”“Yeah so?” Murray said.“If you can get over here in the next five minutes, she said she’d like to meet you.”
Murray threw $2 on the table, grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Outside his nightclub buddy caught up with him.“I’m coming too” he said.“Why?” Murray asked.“Because those two girls were mad enough to kill one of us, and it wasn’t going to be you.”
Murray married the girl at the piano, Gerry Brown and theirs was a 38 year old date. Folks say they’ve never seen two people carry on so …
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to die first….,” he wrote in his column on April 3, 1984. “I had my speech all ready. I was going to look into her eyes and tell her something I should have long ago. I was going to tell her : ‘It was a privilege just to have known you.’ I never got to say it. But it was so true.
Toward the end, because of the treatments, Gerry wore a wig. One day, on the way to Palm Springs, they stopped at a coffee shop and for some reason, she wanted a milkshake, the first she’d had since high school. They sat there and had a few laughs. And when they’d stopped laughing, Gery tipped her wig cockeyed for a few more laughs.
Two nights later she got up in the middle of the night and fell; she faded into a coma and stayed there from January through March.
Four times a week Murray would write his column, get an interview at lunch and then spend the rest of his time at the hospital at Gerry’s bedside. Sitting down at the typewriter with sorrow staring back at him was de rigeur for Murray. Through it all - his blindness, the death of his son, Ricky, Gerry’s death - the show went on.
“I have sat down and attempted humour with a broken heart,” he says, “I’ve sat down and attempted humour with every facet of my life in utter chaos ….Carmen was announced. Carmen will be sung.”
What was hard was trying to write over those infernal voices, trying to forget the doctor’s voice on the phone. The first X-rays showed the cancer hadn’t spread. But there had been a mix-up at the radiology clinic, just like in the movies. What in fact had happened was just the opposite. “Sorry,” the doctor said. “The cancer has metastasized”.The cancer has metastasized.“The most terrible collection of syllables in the english language,” Murray says.
Gerry died on April 1. That figures. You write punch lines your whole life, and then the last joke is on you …
When this moving tribute by a former colleague and longtime admirer, Rick Reilly was published, Jim Murray was America’s premier sports columnist, a man who left ‘em laughing even as he endured unthinkable losses - April 21, 1986.
The King Of The Sports Page
The thing about Jim Murray is that he lived “happily” but somebody ran off with his “ever after.” It’s like the guy who’s ahead all night at the poker and then ends up bumming cab money home. Or the champ who’s untouched for 14 rounds and then gets KO’d by a pool-hall left you could see coming from Toledo.
Murray is a 750 word column, and 600 of those are laughs and toasts. How many sportswriters do you know who once tossed them back with Bogie? Wined and dined with Marilyn Monroe? Got mail from Brando? How many ever got mentioned in a governor’s state of the state address? Flew in Air Force One? How big is Murray? One time he couldn’t make an awards dinner so he had a sub - Bob Hope.
Murray may not be the most famous sportswriter in history. If not, he’s at least in the photo. What’s your favourite Murray line? At the Indy 500: “Gentlemen, start your coffins”? Or “[Rickey Henderson] has a strike zone the size of Hitler’s heart”? Or that UCLA coach John Wooden was “so square, he was divisible by four”? How many lines can you remember by any other sportswriter?
His life was all brass rails and roses - until this last bit, that is. The end is all wrong. The scripts got switched. They killed the laugh track, fired the gag writers and spliced in one of those teary endings you see at Cannes. In this one the guy ends up with his old typewriter and some Kodaks and not much else except a job being funny four times a week.
They say that tragedy is easy and comedy is hard. Know what’s harder? Both at once …
ARNOLD Palmer had two of them bronzed. Jack Nicklaus calls them “a breath of fresh air”. Groucho Marx liked them enough to write to him. Bobby Knight once framed one, which is something like getting Billy Graham to spring for drinks.
Since 1961, a Jim Murray column in the Los Angeles Times has been quite a wonderful thing. (He’s carried by more than 80 newspapers today and at one time was in more than 150.) Now 66, Murray has been cranking out the best written sports column this side (some say that side) of Red Smith.
But if a Smith column was like sitting around Toots Shor’s and swaping stories over a few beers, a Murray column is the floor show, a setup line and a rim shot, a corner of the sports section where a fighter doesn’t get beaten up, he becomes “sort of a complicated blood clot.” Where golfers are not athletes, they’re “outdoor pool sharks.” And where Indy is not just a dangerous car race, it’s “the run for the lilies.”
In press boxes Murray would mumble and fuss that he had no angle, sigh heavily and then, when he had finished his column, no matter how good it was, he would always slide back in his chair and say, “Well, fooled ‘em again.”
Murray must have fooled all he people all the time, because in one stretch of 16 years he won the National Sportswriter of the Year award 14 times, including 12 years in a row …Marilyn Monroe and Murray were having dinner at a Sunset Boulevard restaurant. This was not exactly an AP news flash. Murray was Time magazine’s Hollywood’s reporter from 1950 to ‘53 and you could throw a bucket of birdseed in any direction at Chasen’s and not hit anybody who didn’t know him. He had played poker with John Wayne (”he was lousy”), kibitzed with Jack Benny (who gave him an inscribe, solid-gold money clip) and golfed with Bing Crosby (Crosby sent him clippings and column ideas.)
On this particular night, somewhere around dessert, Monroe started looking as if she’d swallowed her napkin. “What’s wrong?” Murray asked.“Jim,” she said, “would you mind if I left with someone else?”“Not as long as you introduce me”“O.K.” She waved to a man across the room, who, sheepishly, made his way to the table. “Jim, I would like you to meet Joe DiMaggio…”
Murray was always a sucker for a pretty face, And in those days, in a town with pink stucco houses and restaurants shaped like brown derbies, every nightclub window was filled with pretty faces. One night, Murray and a cohort were entertaining two of them when Jim went to call his best friend.
The friend had good news.“You know that girl over at the Five Seventy Five Club that you’re always saying melts your heart? The one who plays the piano?”“Yeah so?” Murray said.“If you can get over here in the next five minutes, she said she’d like to meet you.”
Murray threw $2 on the table, grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Outside his nightclub buddy caught up with him.“I’m coming too” he said.“Why?” Murray asked.“Because those two girls were mad enough to kill one of us, and it wasn’t going to be you.”
Murray married the girl at the piano, Gerry Brown and theirs was a 38 year old date. Folks say they’ve never seen two people carry on so …
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to die first….,” he wrote in his column on April 3, 1984. “I had my speech all ready. I was going to look into her eyes and tell her something I should have long ago. I was going to tell her : ‘It was a privilege just to have known you.’ I never got to say it. But it was so true.
Toward the end, because of the treatments, Gerry wore a wig. One day, on the way to Palm Springs, they stopped at a coffee shop and for some reason, she wanted a milkshake, the first she’d had since high school. They sat there and had a few laughs. And when they’d stopped laughing, Gery tipped her wig cockeyed for a few more laughs.
Two nights later she got up in the middle of the night and fell; she faded into a coma and stayed there from January through March.
Four times a week Murray would write his column, get an interview at lunch and then spend the rest of his time at the hospital at Gerry’s bedside. Sitting down at the typewriter with sorrow staring back at him was de rigeur for Murray. Through it all - his blindness, the death of his son, Ricky, Gerry’s death - the show went on.
“I have sat down and attempted humour with a broken heart,” he says, “I’ve sat down and attempted humour with every facet of my life in utter chaos ….Carmen was announced. Carmen will be sung.”
What was hard was trying to write over those infernal voices, trying to forget the doctor’s voice on the phone. The first X-rays showed the cancer hadn’t spread. But there had been a mix-up at the radiology clinic, just like in the movies. What in fact had happened was just the opposite. “Sorry,” the doctor said. “The cancer has metastasized”.The cancer has metastasized.“The most terrible collection of syllables in the english language,” Murray says.
Gerry died on April 1. That figures. You write punch lines your whole life, and then the last joke is on you …
When this moving tribute by a former colleague and longtime admirer, Rick Reilly was published, Jim Murray was America’s premier sports columnist, a man who left ‘em laughing even as he endured unthinkable losses - April 21, 1986.
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