SUPER BOWL XXI : THE AFTERMATH : Now, Back to the Usual (Grim) News

“Attention citizens! The Super Bowl is over. I repeat, the Super Bowl is over. The dangerously high levels of hype and hoopla have decreased and are no longer life-threatening. It is safe for you to resume normal activities, to leave your homes and to watch your TVs and read your newspapers. Schools and businesses will re-open, although this has been declared a legal holiday for bookies. Stay tuned for more information.” --Bulletin of the Emergency Imaginary Broadcast System.

Fed up with the Super Bowl, are you? Itching to see your favorite newspaper get back to its regular sports coverage, are you?

So was I, until I happened across a schedule of “sports” news sent by wire services one day last week. It’s non-Super Bowl stuff that got pushed out of the news by the latest-breaking Mark Bavaro interviews.

The following is a digest of the sports news you might have missed last Thursday if you were zoned in on the big game. Remember, these stories all rolled across the ticker in one day , and they’re all legit, although the little postscript comments are mine.

TAMPA, Fla. (UPI)----Lawyers for New York Met pitcher Dwight Gooden were believed to be negotiating a plea bargain . . . Film at 11, along with the usual nightly roundup of the day’s criminal proceedings against New York Met ballplayers.

PASADENA --New York Giant defensive back Kenny Hill, who was fined $5,000 for spearing San Francisco wide receiver Jerry Rice, made a tongue-in-cheek appeal to the media to help pay the fine. Hill . . . sat behind a large milk jug bearing a sign that read: “Kenny Hill Fine Relief Fund. All Contributions Accepted.” What a yuk! It would have been even funnier if Rice had suffered a serious injury.

LYON, France --Twenty people, including France’s soccer captain, Michel Platini, have been indicted for their involvement in a tax evasion case when they were with the French St. Etienne soccer team . . . No Americans were implicated in the alleged wrong-doing. Dominic Frontiere has an air-tight alibi.

DENTON, Tex. --Veteran Dallas Cowboy kicker Rafael Septien was indicted Thursday on charges of aggravated sexual assault, accused of molesting a 10-year-old girl, authorities said. Say it ain’t so, Rafael. (He said it wasn’t).

MEMPHIS, Tenn. --Former Memphis State basketball coach Dana Kirk failed to list on his income tax returns the fees he received from radio and television programs and product endorsements, documents filed in the U.S. District Court revealed Wednesday. U.S. Attorney Hickman Ewing Jr. listed 21 items that prosecutors claim the former coach left off his 1982 and ’83 tax returns. Picky, picky, picky.

MONTREAL, Canada --The NHL said Wednesday that a report on a league investigation into Pat Quinn’s contracts with two clubs won’t be ready for at least a week. My sources tell me the report starts out like this: “It was the best of contracts, it was the worst of contracts.”

NEW YORK (UPI)--John Lucas, with two strikes against him, has stepped back in the box to take another swing. I just slipped in this positive item to see if you were paying attention. As Anne Murray sings, “Sure could use a little good news today.” Here’s hoping the drug-troubled Lucas knocks his cocaine habit over the fence and trots home with a grand-slameroo of a new life.

We now return to regularly scheduled bad-news programming.

HATTIESBURG, Miss --University of Southern Mississippi officials would not comment Thursday on a $10-million damage suit filed by the family of a former university football player who collapsed during a practice and later died. Continuing on . . .

MELBOURNE, Australia (UPI)--Wimbledon champion Boris Becker, who lost his tennis coach overnight, may also be without his manager in the near future . . . The West German, whose histrionics at the Australian Open cost him $2,000 in fines, played down the impact of (his coach’s) departure. “I don’t need a coach . . . I can play my own game,” Becker said. Is this the Boris Becker? The All-American West German boy? Huck Finn with a racket?

What next? Magic Johnson refuses to pass to his teammates? Wally Joyner gets his ears pierced? Have mercy.

SAN DIEGO (UPI)--A cable television technician has testified at a pretrial hearing that a 1972 Heisman Trophy winner (Johnny Rodgers) charged with three felonies had threatened to shoot him for disconnecting his service. “I was in the process of disconnecting the line,” technician Jaime Toxas testified Wednesday, “and I heard someone yelling, ‘Hey you.’ The gentleman told me either I come down, or he shoots me down from the pole.” Eat hot lead, cable-disconnecting dog!

Hello, operator? Person-to-person call for a Mr. Mark Bavaro. It’s an emergency.