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TIME OUT
WITH TANY
QUICK QUIZ The floors for the last 14 Collegiate Final Fours have been made by Horner Flooring Company in what Michigan city? A. Ispheming B. Dollar Bay C. Hubbell D. Carrollton QUOTABLE QUOTES Golfer Greg Norman, "To control your mind and body throughout a round of golf with all its pressures and frustrations is probably the single biggest challenge in golf." * * * Umpire Bill Klem, on the occasion of Jake Powell throwing his bat in the air, "Young man, if that bat comes down . . . you're out of the game." * * * English critic Samuel Johnson, "Angling. I can only compare to a stick and string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other." IDLE THOUGHTS Friends who have known me all my life still don't know that I thoroughly enjoy the Little League World Series. I rank the annual tournament for 12-year-olds third on my list of favorite sports behind college football and professional hockey. I'm glad they finally got the Danny Almonte age dispute cleared up without an international incident. Almonte's father was charged in the Dominican Republic with falsifying a birth certificate to make his son appear to be 12 when he actually was 14. The favorite joke going around the Little League tourney was that the younger Almonte had his wife sitting in the parent's section of he stands. * * * With Christmas rapidly approaching (90-plus days and counting), I know a gift that sports-loving me would enjoy opening. ESPN: The Uncensored History by Michael Freeman gets down and dirty about the behind the scenes happenings at the sports media center and its anchors. A must buy. * * * If you're a fisherman, you've got to love Ron Mason. Yes, the same Ron Mason who has coached the Michigan State University hockey team for the past 23 years. Mason, a lifelong angler, owns a 25-foot Grady White with a 9 1/2-foot beam and twin 200 Evinrude engines on which he religiously fishes for salmon. He really only gets about a month of fishing because in early summer he's busy with a hockey school. So he fishes weekends until mid-July. From then on he is at it every day and if the weather is nice and the fishing is good he goes out in the evening also. Since he was born he spent the summers on the water where his father would take him fishing. He sums up fishing like this: "If you're playing golf and you make a bad shot, you blame yourself. If you're out fishing and you're not catching any fish, you blame the fish." * * * Phil Mickelson is one of the PGA's best putters. He practices by putting from 10 spots in a circle around a cup until he holes 100 three-footers in a row. If he misses one, he starts over. Mickelson says that if he's putting well, it takes about 20 minutes to make his 100. He said that when he does make 100 in a row, he knows his stroke is where it needs to be. * * * I read with great interest when Boston Red Sox reliever Hipolito Pichardo retired following a poor outing against the Baltimore Orioles. The Dominican-born hurler replaced starter Hideo Nomo with one out in the sixth inning of Boston's 13-7 loss and was charged with the defeat. Pichardo hit Melvin Mora with a pitch, gave up a double to Brian Roberts and surrendered back-to-back singles to David Segui and Jeff Conine, putting the O's ahead to stay. After the game, the 32-year old veteran went to manager Joe Kerrigan's office and told him of his decision to retire. Why did I find this interesting? That sounds like a typical outing for a Detroit Tiger relief pitcher. The Red Sox exercised a $1.66 million option on Pichardo's contract for this season. * * * How would you like to be in Michael Grimaldi's shoes? The General Motors Corp. employee won the $1 million prize for hitting a hole in one at a charity golf tournament in Lake Orion but will not get to keep the prize. GM has a strict policy, adopted in 1996, that prohibits employees from obtaining a personal windfall while acting on behalf of the company. Grimaldi, of Bloomfield Hills, hit a 4-iron 167 yards to ace the last hole at Indianwood Golf and Country Club during the second annual Richest Day in Golf fund raising event for the J.P. McCarthy Foundation. The entry fee for an individual was $5,000, but Grimaldi, GM's vice president for sales and service, played in one of four spots reserved for GM, which paid $150,000 to be a sponsor at the event, along with DaimlerChrysler and Ford Motor Co. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh was in his foursome. Can you say Early Retirement? * * * I knew Bill Walton marched to a different drummer. His house is a shrine to UCLA and coach John Wooden. He has a few Grateful Dead memorabilia pieces and Neil Young and John Lennon and Bob Dylan, but mostly he has pictures of coach Wooden. Wooden, arguably the greatest college basketball coach ever, once bailed Walton out of jail over his (Walton) protesting the Vietnam War. * * * Whatever happened to Earl Morrall? QUICK QUIZ ANSWER B. Dollar Bay. The hard maple floors that Horner Flooring Company produces are used by eight NBA teams and over 60 college programs.
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