Cheap Seats

Just a gut feeling

The sanctions are over at Cal State Northridge, but the jokes aren’t. Athletic director Paul Bubb has served a five-day suspension meted out by the school president and football coach Dave Baldwin has been disciplined for lying about the injury that will keep running back Shayne Blakey sidelined this season.

Blakey was shot at a party on Aug. 9. When the Matadors began fall practice, Baldwin told the media that the player had had an appendectomy. Bubb was a party to the coverup.

“I’m a disgrace to myself,” Baldwin said.

Only the player seemed unrepentant.

“The coaches thought that it would be the best way to protect me,” Blakey said. “I’m not too familiar with the policies for protecting a program, but I don’t think it was a bad decision.”

Neither did Los Angeles Daily News columnist Michael Ventre.

“If I were going to shoot someone,” Ventre wrote, “I think I’d take him over to Cal State Northridge and do it, because then I’d only be charged with an appendicitis attack.”

Perfect for those dirtbag collectors

There’s going to be some dirt in a new Cal Ripken trading card - from the infield at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.

Last Friday was the first anniversary of Ripken’s momentous game at the park, his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s ironman record.

Fleer/SkyBox made a deal to acquire some of the infield dirt and packaged it in a card called “Diamond Dust.”

Included in the package is a statement from the head groundskeeper at Camden Yards, Paul Zwaska, verifying the dirt is the real thing.

And you thought the bubble gum tasted awful.

Image is everything

Before the second game of the Mariners’ recent doubleheader against the Indians on ESPN, Ken Griffey Jr. begged manager Lou Piniella not to start reserve catcher John Marzano.

“You’ll have a national TV audience thinking Marzano is a regular,” Griffey argued.

The gospel according to Walsh

Guy Benjamin, a former Stanford quarterback who is now the offensive coordinator at the University of Hawaii, calls it the “Grail.” Another Hawaii assistant, former Stanford wide receiver Ken Margerum, has kept it for 19 years.

It’s a notebook of Bill Walsh’s original diagrams and writings of what is now known as the West Coast offense.

Unimpressed is Hawaii defensive coordinator Don Lindsey, who once held that position at USC and long ago coached at Washington State.

“You couldn’t pay me to read it,” Lindsey said. “Besides what’s the big deal about Bill Walsh? I’m 4-0 against the man.”

So why are you still coaching at Hawaii, Don?

The last word …

“He would probably be a 400-meter runner and he’d be kicking Michael Johnson’s butt. If you think his swing is pretty, you ought to see him run.”

- Earl Woods, on what his son Tiger could do if he hadn’t taken up golf

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo