THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290642
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
TV timeout: Have you seen ESPN's new commercial, ``It's Baseball and You're an American''? I didn't realize that Pat Buchanan had been put in charge of promotions at ESPN.
Idle thought: If the game between UMass and Kentucky lives up to its billing, it will be one of the few in this year's tournament that has.
Recently read: The Wall Street Journal reports that stock-car king Richard Petty, running for North Carolina secretary of state, is fond of referring to the Founding Fathers as ``George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and all those cats.''
Quick hit: Nobody asked, but I think I know a way the organizers of the PIT could guarantee that Maryland's Duane Simpkins shows up. Offer free parking.
Worth a try: Billy Packer believes Final Four teams should be re-seeded so that two No. 1s, like Kentucky and UMass, don't have to meet in the semifinals. Who would do the seeding? Anybody but the people responsible for Purdue's No. 1 seed in the West.
Tough ticket: Although it's playing off-Broadway, it is no wonder the Final Four is the toughest ticket in town. Of the 18,500 seats at the Meadowlands, only 1,000 were available to the general public, via lottery. Now you know why they prefer to play this thing in a dome, bad sightlines and all.
For what it's worth: The distribution of Final Four tickets goes something like this - 10,000 to the four schools, about 2,800 to college coaches, about 4,500 to NCAA administrators and other college and state officials.
Brought to you by Xerox: What's taking place in Charlotte - the return of all four schools from the '95 women's Final Four - has never happened in the men's tournament.
Name game: The most intriguing name of any player in either Final Four belongs to Stanford stalwart Kate Starbird.
School daze: The story goes that, last summer, Mississippi State star Dontae' Jones made up 36 credit hours, including 13 hours of correspondence courses, to remain eligible for basketball. Right. And there's a bridge in Brooklyn that you can buy for a song.
Net-working: What the tennis rankings don't tell you is that Michael Chang is having the best year of any player.
In passing: It's not even a story anymore when figure skating thumps basketball in the TV ratings game, though it does tell us who controls the remote in American homes.
Second thoughts: White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, on Tony Phillips' on-again, off-again retirement: ``He discovered there were no vacancies for a microbiologist at the Mayo Clinic.''
Here, at last: As a 31-year-old rookie, Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis is impressing NBA insiders with his all-around game, leading people to wonder how good the 7-foot-3, 292-pound import could have been had he signed with Portland in 1986, the year he was drafted in the first round.
Baseball's Pride: By making the Detroit Tigers roster, Curtis Pride, a deaf outfielder who also played basketball at William and Mary, provides baseball with the sort of inspirational story it could use. by CNB