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Time Out With Tany by Jack Tany THIS COLUMN WAS WRITTEN IN FRONT A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE QUICK QUIZ Name the player whose jersey is the top seller in the National Hockey League. A. Joe Sack B. Steve Yzerman C. Mario Lemieux D. Don Bethune QUOTABLE QUOTES Professional golfer Patty Sheehan, "I like the idea of playing for money instead of silverware. I never did like to polish." Mickey Rivers, on Reggie Jackson's claims that he has a 160 IQ, "Out of what, a thousand?" Jean Cruguet, French-born jockey, "When I first came here, I worked the Florida tracks. It's hard to learn English when everybody is speaking Spanish." IDLE THOUGHTS More than 50 years ago, Frank J. Zamboni built and drove the first ice-resurfacing vehicle across his family's Southern California rink. Earlier this year the company that bears his name sold its 7,500th machine, which was sold to an arena in Thorburn, Nova Scotia. The company, now run by Zamboni's son Richard, is based in Paramount, California (about halfway between Los Angeles and Anaheim), and has become synominious with cleaning ice surfaces. Sure, there have been competitors (remember the Olympia brand?), but the Zamboni is the top dog. Heck, they even sell items including keychains, Christmas ornaments and board games (under a licensing agreement with the National Hockey League). The cost for a new Zamboni machine is about $60,000. Remember former Detroit Lions player Brock Olivo? He was a back-up fullback in his playing days and a special teams' demon for four seasons. Well, he retired from the National Football League at the ripe age of 26 and joined the band SugarTree. I always knew he marched to a different drummer. Olivo is singing lead vocals and playing rhythm guitar for SugarTree, a four-piece rock band that plays the club scene around Metro Detroit. Olivo, a classically trained pianist, nixed a base salary of $525,000 for his music career. What's next, Bobby Ross on bass guitar? Even though I can't stand the New York Yankees, Mickey Mantle has been my favorite player since I was a kid. Heck, he's even got a great-sounding name. I have numerous books on Mantle, an autographed baseball and an autographed 14 x 22 color photograph. I recently came across another book, The New York Yankees Illustrated History (St. Martin's, $29.95) which has a number of stories from New York Times's sportswriters Dave Anderson, Murray Chass, Robert Lipsyte, Buster Olney and George Vecsey. Joe DiMaggio and Mantle are depicted in 1951 (DiMaggio's last season and Mantle's first) and Lipsyte reveals that DiMaggio never gave Mantle the time of day. In my last column I wrote about the great tradition they have in Bay City with the Golden Helmet Award, which is awarded annually to the top prep gridder in the Bay City Times coverage area. Why can't a local company from Saginaw step up to the plate and start its own Golden Helmet Award? I bet if you ask some of Bay City's past award winners they will tell you it is quite an honor. Some people really don't care for Rick Neuheisel, the head football coach at the University of Washington. But those same people probably don't know what he did for Alcorn State's football program this past year. The Alcorn team wore uniforms plaid for largely by Neuheisel. Alcorn defensive coordinator Karl Morgan and Neuheisel were teammates at UCLA in the early 1980s and have remained friends. Morgan asked Neuheisel for help because the Braves needed new uniforms and it just wasn't in the budget. Neuheisel gave $7,500, which covered 55 percent of the cost of 80 purple home jerseys, 80 white road jerseys and 80 pairs of gold pants. I was emailed this the other day: 1. The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL. 2. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING. 3. The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL. 4. The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL. 5. The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS. 6. The sport of choice for corporate officers is GOLF. CONCLUSION: The higher you are in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become. I, like many, was disappointed at the showing of our area cage teams in the high school basketball tournament. When the local squads get ousted, it's no fun to watch the finals. Whatever happened to Willie Huber? QUICK QUIZ ANSWER C. Mario Lemieux's jersey is the top seller in the National Hockey League. Pavel Bure is second, Steve Yzerman is third, Curtis Joseph is fourth and Joe Sakic fifth.
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