Canada Not Taking It Well at All

Oh, Canada. Feeling any better today about Ben Johnson?

It has been the better part of a week now since Johnson, the Canadian sprinter, was stripped of his Olympic gold medal in a drug scandal, and Canadian pride still seems deeply wounded.

How bad is it?

“It’s like Wayne Gretzky getting run over by a car,” said Pat Reid, the Canadian high jump coach.

John Furedy, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, assessed the national psyche for the Associated Press: “We’re feeling low. Some of us don’t want to accept what happened.”

Wrote columnist John Robertson of the Toronto Star: “It’s as if an entire country has gone into a period of national mourning on his behalf.”

And wrote the Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Western Star: “He has left Canadians hanging their heads in shame.”

Add Canada: The headlines in some newspapers reflected some of the national reaction to Johnson. Here is a sampling: “Fool’s Gold,” “Black Day For Canada,” “Seconds Of Glory, Years Of Shame,” “From Fame To Shame,” and “Big Ben Is Now Has-Ben.”

Second baseman Frank White of the Kansas City Royals is probably going to win his ninth Gold Glove, which no one at his position has ever done. But another record he had a chance for isn’t going to happen.

White has made only 3 errors all season, but he’s not going to play enough games to qualify for fewest errors by a second baseman in one season.

Even if he misses no more games the rest of the way, White, 38, is going to fall 2 games short of the 150 he needs to qualify for the record, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

So White was crushed, huh?

“I was kind of disappointed,” he said.

Hey, Frank, don’t take it so hard.

Language Lesson: What does anyong haseyo mean in Korean?Hello, how are you. Time is running out for anybody in Seoul who doesn’t already know this.

Slowdown: The Dodgers won’t even begin the National League playoffs until next week. But 34 years ago Thursday, the World Series had already begun. The New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians played Game 1 at the Polo Grounds.

It was in that opening World Series game that Willie Mays made his famous over-the-shoulder catch of Vic Wertz’s long drive to center field, and pinch-hitter Dusty Rhodes homered off Bob Lemon in the 10th inning to lead the Giants to a 5-2 victory over the Indians.

Maybe that’s why she took an early shower: This actually happened at the Olympic tennis venue in Seoul. Chris Evert, who has earned $34 million in her time smacking tennis balls, was told in no uncertain terms that she was allowed one towel a day and, if she didn’t return it, she would not be given another the next day.

Turns out she didn’t need one the next day, after all.

Quotebook

American light middleweight Roy Jones, given a 5-0 decision over a Czech boxer in the Olympics, said he was feeling sluggish during the bout:”I didn’t catch my second wind. I was just getting to the end of my first wind.”