They’ll Have a Doggone Time

If the Denver Broncos think they can send the Browns’ season to the dogs by winning Sunday’s AFC championship game at Cleveland, they’re barking up the wrong tree.

After all, the Browns are the NFL’s original kennel club. Just consider:

--Their cornerbacks, Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield, bark at opponents after making a good play.

--Cleveland fans bark back. Loudly.

--One section of Cleveland Municipal Stadium--the bleachers at the open end--is known as the Dog Pound.

--Many of the Dog Pound’s inhabitants wear dog masks to the games and throw dog biscuits to the two cornerbacks.

--Against the New York Jets last weekend, the fans threw dog biscuits onto the field as the Jets went through their pregame warmups. Bones, too, are sometimes thrown.

--Last season, the Dog Pound featured a wooden doghouse in the stands--until a security guard found a keg of beer inside it.

And the Broncos think they’re going to be able to curb these folks?

Add Dogs: Lindy Infante, the Browns’ offensive coordinator, told the Denver Post’s Buddy Martin his reincarnation wish.

“I want to come back as my dog, Copper,” Infante said. “Dogs never have any third-down calls. They don’t work late nights making up game plans. They don’t have to deal with sportswriters. And as long as they’ve got a bed and something to eat, they’re happy.”

Trivia Time: Of all the major league managers in baseball history, only Bobby Valentine has accomplished this feat. What is it?

A not-so-sweet deal: When British champion jockey Pat Eddery rode 20-1 outsider De Rigeur to victory in the Balmoral Handicap at Ascot race course last September, no one gave it a second thought. It was just another example of how a top-flight jockey can improve a so-so horse’s performance.

But the 4-year-old gelding’s win was denied this week because a 17-year-old stable employee had given De Rigeur a treat, specifically a 30-cent candy bar, the day before the race.

Unknown to the stable boy, the chocolate in the candy contained trace amounts of a stimulant called theobromine which is prohibited under the sport’s anti-doping laws. That cost De Rigeur the race, even though the manufacturer said the horse would have to eat hundreds before being affected by the stimulant.

And the real cost of that 30-cent candy bar?

About $15,860.30--including the $15,000 lost prize money and the $860 fine with which the trainer got saddled.

If the Redskins play the Browns in the Super Bowl, it will be a victory for all vagrant kickers, says the Washington Post’s Gary Pomerantz.

Mark Moseley was working in a travel agency only six weeks ago, and Jess Atkinson was working as a mortgage-loan broker three weeks ago.

Who were they? “ . . . running roughshod over the NFL while introducing a Fat Albert look-alike in the defensive line, a punk-style anti-hero at quarterback and a manic head coach who battled for headlines with his chief assistant.”

Who else but the 1985 Chicago Bears as decribed by Newsday’s Joe Gergen.

Trivia Answer: When he took over the Texas Rangers on May 16, 1985, Valentine became the first Little League graduate to become a major league manager.

Quotebook

New York Giants General Manager George Young, after last weekend’s win over the San Francisco 49ers: “The farther you go in the playoffs, the deeper the wound when you lose.”