-- Did you happen to notice Jets and Eagles fans were booing their teams' draft picks "before" they were announced? ... NFL commish Paul Tagliabue, a fierce hoops rebounder at Georgetown, describing baseball: "It's about as exciting as standing in line at a supermarket!" ... Steelers' Jerome "The Bus" Bettis, an avid kegler who once rolled a 300 game, was recently inducted into the International Bowling Hall of Fame ... In the NFL, the team lawyer has become more important than the coach.
-- Since acquiring Doc Gooden, Hillsborough Correctional is now the pick to win the Florida Penal League ... Some good old-fashioned MLB nicknames: "Baby Doll" Jacobson, Bill "Rawmeat" Rogers and Amos "The Darling" Booth ... Reds pitcher Kent Mercker after the team traded for Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who released a rock album last year: "Our karaoke team just got better" ... Joe DiMaggio earned just over $700,000 in his entire career. The average salary in baseball used to be six or seven times the average worker. Now it's 60 times greater and greed is the creed ... Secret to Mets' Julio Franco's (age 49) longevity - "I get up every night at 3 a.m. for a protein shake" ... Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, who turns 81 next week, was asked what he thought of 80-year-olds when he was a young man. "I don't know--there weren't too many of them living at that time," he answered.
-- How about the California dad who is suing a softball coach for calling his teen daughter a "two-year-old"?
-- According to Flo Zimmerman, baby blue whales drink over one ton of milk every day.
-- Now Dick Vitale boasts he never doubted for a second George Mason would make it to the Final Four. Yeah, right ... When legendary basketball coach John Wooden (now 95) arrived at UCLA in 1948, he practiced on the third floor of an old gym with a tiny dressing room and one shower for coaches and players ... In this year's NCAA tourney, those LSU second stringers did a great job against Duke's McDonald's All-Americans. They proved they were no basketball "small fries".
-- Race car owner David Letterman on why he loves car racing: "It's all the excitement of driving like a New York City cab driver without the risk of getting shot."
-- In closing, Bunny Anika tells us of a sign spotted in a safari park: Elephants, Please Stay In Your Car!
(Some of the information in this column was obtained from other news organizations)