Cheap Seats

By the hair of his chinny-chin, etc.

Diego Maradona, fighting to get back in soccer shape in time for a comeback once his drug suspension ends in September, has consulted a plastic surgeon. “I had my double chin done because after losing so much weight from dieting and training, that part wasn’t very aesthetic and looked inflamed,” he said. The former Argentine captain said his wife urged him to have the operation. “I wanted to look good for her,” he said.

Then we’d also prescribe ice packs to reduce that swelling of the head.

Little buddies

By now, you must have seen the Wimbledon promos Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi taped for NBC the ones in which Sampras says Agassi’s goatee is weird and Agassi says Sampras is a momma’s boy and they just can’t agree who’s better, Magic or Bird.

“I think you’re more of a Charles Barkley-type of guy,” Sampras says to his archrival.

Those are just some of the words NBC put into the mouths of the world’s two best tennis players. But it’s more interesting what the network couldn’t get them to say.

“Just to play up the differences in their personalities, we had a ‘Gilligan’s Island’ script in which Andre chooses Ginger and Pete chooses Mary Ann,” co-producer Brian Brown said. “It’s the age-old Ginger vs. Mary Ann question.”

Problem was, both players preferred the wholesome, if dull, Mary Ann to the flirtatious bimbo, Ginger.

“I was counting on Andre being a Ginger person,” Brown revealed, “but he said, ‘No way, I’d never be a Ginger person. She always thought she was it.”’

Whereas Andre’s always known he was it.

Here, we’ll loan you some fingers

The British Open will be back at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, next month. It won’t be surprising if controversy swirls around the 17th, the famous Road Hole that calls for a tee shot over the corner of a hotel at a green tilted toward a bunker.

It was there in 1978 that Tommy Nakajima dropped from the leaders when he putted off the green into the bunker and took four strokes to get out. After settling for a 9, he was asked if he had lost his concentration.

“No,” he said, “I lost count.”

And we think Marge should roll her own smokes

Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott has ordered her publicity department to scale back the daily game notes distributed to the media in order to save paper and copying time.

With a little ballcap on the celery stalk

If you’re longing for the good old days of baseball fashion, just remember that 20 years ago the Cleveland Indians were outfitted in solid red uniforms. They also had 6-foot-4, 235-pound Boog Powell at first base.

“I looked like the world’s biggest Bloody Mary,” he recalled.

The last word …

“My memory is so bad, my wife lets me hide my own Easter eggs.”

- Hollywood Park trainer Gary Jones, who couldn’t remember the last time he’d claimed a horse

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo