Cheap Seats

Ebony and Ivory

Mike Blankenship and Grady Fallon, Central Washington University basketball players, went to see the school’s vice president for student affairs to ask when a new coach would be hired - and couldn’t believe the answer.

“I believe if we had a few more players of color, we would have won more of those close games (the team lost last season),” Blankenship recalled Sarah Shumate telling him.

Fallon remembered the quote this way: “Maybe if you had a few more guys of color, you could have made up those points somewhere in there.”

“I thought to myself, ‘I cannot believe she’s saying this stuff,”’ Fallon said.

Shumate issued a statement denying the comment.

The Wildcats went 15-15 under interim coach Greg Sparling. The team had two minority players, both black: Jason James and Carlos Carson.

“We do have a commitment to diversity in all our programs,” said CWU president Ivory Nelson, who is black. Asked if he would talk to Shumate about her alleged comments, Nelson responded, “As far as I know, there’s no reason why I should.”

Because there’s a difference between a commitment to diversity and a commitment to imbecility, perhaps?

Hold the mayo

Just when you think you’ve heard all the Marge Schott stories, Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post supplies us with one more.

It seems that last year, the Reds owner had a party for someone in the front office. The buffet was mostly cold cuts and white bread. Schottzie 02, the enormous drooling St. Bernard owned by Schott, started licking the bowl full of mayonnaise.

“Marge,” said the wife of one Red, “Schottzie’s gotten into the food.”

“That’s terrible,” Schott said. “That’s expensive mayonnaise.”

So Schott got a knife, stirred the mayo until the evidence - three big doggie tongue prints - disappeared. Then, Schott said loudly, “Come on everybody. Eat up.”

Is that kibble in the party mix, Marge?

You’ve been a stranger too long, Ralph Kiner

Our favorite baseball announcer is in midseason form. When Pirates relief pitcher Dan Plesac came in to finish a game against New York last week, he was not in a save situation, which the Mets’ malapropcaster explained in his classic fashion: “Plesac is trying to pick up his first save of the year - and he can’t do that.”

He meant it in the nicest way

Being Don Cherry means never having to say you’re sorry.

The Canadian Broadcasting Company’s hockey mouth that roars rarely cares what he says, so it was no surprise that he refused to take back a nationally aired slam of “Hockey Night in Canada” host Ron McLean.

“Do you apologize, by the way, for calling me a twerp?” MacLean asked during a recent broadcast.

“No,” Cherry replied. “Sometimes I call them as they are. Or is.”

The last word …

“I figured Boston has more colleges than any city in the country, so it must have more smart people. So I wanted to look more intelligent.”

- Red Sox outfielder Alex Cole, on why he switched from goggle-like glasses to wire rims

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo