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2002: The Year in Review

Foul Balls

© St. Petersburg Times
published December 25, 2002

We've all heard it. Most of probably have said it. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Athletic competition can bring out the best in us: grace, passion, agility, power, speed. It also can bring out the worst: greed, violence, rage, cheating and, well, just plain foolishness. Buffoons and malcontents carve out their own special niche every year. This year was no exception. We not-so-proudly present this year's by-no-means-complete collection.

PICK A COACH, ANY COACH

Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer and sons Bryan and Joel outdid Larry, Curly and Moe. They denied they considered firing Tony Dungy until after the playoffs, even though they already had a tentative deal with Bill Parcells. With Dungy gone, Parcells began assembling his coaching staff -- then bailed out.

By then, Steve Spurrier had signed with the Redskins. Other candidates were rejected. When general manager Rich McKay came to an agreement with Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, the Glazers said no -- and nearly lost McKay to the Falcons. Then the stunner. They got Jon Gruden from the Raiders for four high draft picks and $8-million. The saga, as painful and laughable as the Bucs of '76, was finally over.

SMILE, IF YOU HAVE TEETH -- OR A JOB

First round, American League playoffs, Yankees-Angels. Jason Giambi ($10.4-million): one home run, three RBIs. Mike Mussina ($11-million): a 9.00 ERA. David Wells ($2.25-million): a 15.43 ERA. After the World Series, according to Newsday, team owner George Steinbrenner threatened to reduce or eliminate the dental plans of about 150 employees to save about $100,000. The paper also reported that after the new baseball agreement was announced Aug. 30, Steinbrenner fired two scouts and cut the hours of Yankee Stadium elevator operators. They couldn't hit or pitch in the clutch, either.

NOT EXACTLY THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Tonya Harding, America's kneecap-loving, hubcap-throwing, booze-consuming, rent-nonpaying sweetheart, returned to the world of (ahem) "sports." She beat Paula Jones in a (ahem) "celebrity" boxing match. Actually, she beat on Jones' back when Jones turned away and covered her face to protect her surgically enhanced nose. Now Harding plans to make her (ahem) pro boxing debut in February on the Mike Tyson-Clifford Etienne undercard. Jay Leno tabbed her "The Great White Trash Hope."

NEXT: HICKORY SHAFTS

Charge Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson with a bogey. When Martha Burk, chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, sent a private letter to him urging that the club accept women, Hootie publicly overreacted, saying he would not be forced to do so "at the point of a bayonet." He also dropped the Masters' three TV sponsors to shield them from controversy. The women urged CBS not to televise it. Good luck with that.

NO SHOW SHAQ

Shaquille O'Neal was supposed to attend a dinner with Gov. Jeb Bush, to appear at a Tampa night spot, and to conduct a kids' clinic and coach a team of celebrity basketball players. The key words: Supposed to. Promoter Darryl Madison had no idea whether Shaq would show. Still, he sold hundreds of tickets, some costing $250. Local charities and a lot of kids got stiffed. Don't feel too bad. Shaq hasn't exactly shown for a lot of Lakers games, stiffing Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington ...

BETTER THAN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR?

North Florida track team members Matt Nelson, Jeff Hill and Jerry Reckhart and former member Adam Pugh, unhappy with a university newspaper story about the team, stole more than 1,600 copies of The Spinnaker. The papers, free on the Jacksonville campus, cost about $1,500 to publish. The four confessed to campus police, who didn't treat it as a crime. The student conduct committee disagreed, ordering them to pay $885 for the cost of reprinting most of the papers they stole. We wonder how they felt about that Spinnaker story.

IT'S NOT TOUCH FOOTBALL

Packers coach Mike Sherman didn't like the hit Warren Sapp laid on tackle Chad Clifton during a Bucs interception return. He told Sapp so -- on the Bucs sideline and on national television after the game. Sapp told Sherman what he could do with his indignation. A few weeks later, Antuan Edwards of Sherman's Packers flattened Minnesota's Chris Walsh and other Packers took cheap shots at any Vikings they could find at the end of a game. Sherman saw nothing wrong with that.

IT WAS TAKE-YOUR-KID-TO-JAIL NIGHT

Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa was minding his business in a game in Chicago when William Ligue Jr., and his 15-year-old son ran onto the field and began pounding him. The entire Kansas City team rushed to pull them off Gamboa, who sustained a large cut on his forehead. The elder Ligue was charged with aggravated battery, a felony, the younger with two juvenile counts of aggravated battery for hitting Gamboa and a security guard. The father said Gamboa had provoked them with an obscene gesture. Perhaps they had mistaken him for the third base coach. You know how complicated the hit-and-run sign can be.

YOU CAN'T BUY ADVERTISING LIKE THIS

Late in a Monday Night Football game in Seattle, 49ers receiver Terrell Owens caught a game-winning touchdown pass, pulled a Sharpie pen out of his sock, autographed the ball and tossed it to his financial adviser in a front-row. The uproar was immediate and absurd. Fans and media chose up sides: Owens was either having fun or making a travesty of the game. The NFL immediately warned teams that carrying foreign objects would bring a 15-yard penalty. Two months later, Owens celebrated another touchdown by grabbing a 49ers cheerleader's pompoms and doing an impromptu routine with them. No word on where the pompoms were made.

THE SPLENDID SPLINTER? POP-SICLE?

After the death of baseball icon Ted Williams, his children's fight over his body began. Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell sued siblings John-Henry Williams and Claudia Williams to carry out the wish in his 1996 will that he be cremated. She accused her younger brother and sister of defying their father's wishes by freezing his body hoping it can be cured in the future. John-Henry and Claudia produced a scrap of paper with a handwritten note supposedly signed by Williams saying he had agreed to being cryonically preserved. They're also fighting over their inheritance. What this shows is that the children haven't inherited one of their father's traits: dignity.

CONTRACTING THE ALL-STAR GAME

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, the man who brought you the threat of contraction a year ago, called a sudden halt to this year's All-Star Game with it tied after 11 innings. Both teams were out of pitchers. What is incomprehensible is that nobody gave a moment's thought to such a situation until the middle of the 11th, when managers Bob Brenly and Joe Torre conferred with Selig, after which the crowd was told the game would end if the National League didn't score in the bottom of the inning. It didn't. Fans booed Selig and littered the field. Selig bailed out of a scheduled interview. The first Ted Williams MVP award went to . . . nobody.

DIAL 1-800-NITWIT

Three months after the death of St. Louis pitcher Darryl Kile, Phoenix radio "personality" Beau Duran called Kile's widow and asked, on the air, if she had a date for a Cardinals playoff game. The stunt outraged just about everyone. Duran was fired. He should have been ordered to apologize to the Cardinals in person. They'd have knocked the "personality" out of him.

THEY SHOULD TREAT FUMBLES THIS WAY

For 14 months after Barry Bonds hit his 73rd home run on the last day of the 2001 season, Patrick Hayashi, who said he caught the ball, and Alex Popov, who wound up with it after the melee in the Pac Bell Park stands, fought over it. With the wisdom of Solomon, Judge Kevin McCarthy ordered them to sell it and split the profits, which could be well over $1-million. Minus the lawyers' fees, they'll probably wind up with enough to buy tickets to a few of next season's Giants games.

AFTER REVIEWING THE PLAY ...

It took 3 hours to complete the Indianapolis 500 and more than 51/2 hours more for the Indy Racing League to decide who won it. Helio Castroneves and Paul Tracy roared into the third turn in the next-to-last lap just as two other cars crashed well behind them. Passing is prohibited under a yellow caution. Tracy passed as the lights went on. Castroneves, awarded the victory, said Tracy passed too late. Videotapes were, as NFL referees say, "inconclusive." The IRL decided to let Castroneves' victory stand. Tracy accepted the decision as a gentleman.

NASCAR drivers do things differently at Indy. Tony Stewart, upset at finishing 12th in the Brickyard 400 at his home track, punched a photographer trying to take Stewart's picture after he climbed out of his car. Stewart won $185,953 but was fined $10,000 by NASCAR and $50,000 by Home Depot, his principal sponsor. He has enough left over to buy that hammer he saw at Lowe's.

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