Cash in Class A: Not Chipper With Clippers

If you’re a fan of the Batavia, N.Y., Clippers, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Class A team in the New York-Penn League, you already know that former manager Dave Cash has been reassigned to his previous position as a roving minor league infield instructor. The Phillies’ former All-Star second baseman was the Clippers’ manager for less than a month.

Stuff happens. But how?

During a game with Oneonta last Monday night, the view of the field for Cash’s wife, Pamela, was blocked by the team’s mascot, Chipper the Clipper, a blue-feathered, yellow-beaked Big Bird sort of creature.

She said she asked Chipper to move, then tapped him on the shoulder.

“He shook his behind in my face in front of my two young children,” Pamela Cash said. “I thought that kind of behavior by a mascot at what’s supposed to be a family-oriented place was totally uncalled for. This wasn’t the first time he shook his butt in my face.”

She said she then got into a fight about the incident with a club official.

Cash commented on his brief tenure as manager: “From my perspective, we experienced a lot of rudeness. It’s best that we no longer are in this situation.”

Trivia time: Which NFL quarterback attempted the most passes in 1989?

Postponed, darkness: Thursday, nine months after an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale hit the Bay Area, Seton Medical Center in San Francisco reported a 25% increase in births.

“We can only surmise that the two must be connected,” said Dr. Gwen Marcus, director of nurseries at the hospital.

Stay tuned for the birth statistics nine months after the resumption of the Giants-A’s World Series.

Sartorial supremacy: An item in Saturday’s Morning Briefing noted that Inside Sports has rated UCLA’s home uniforms third best in college football.

The magazine’s top two: “1. Florida State. The combination of garnet and gold is macho but not macabre, and the helmet design is one of the most distinctive around. 2. Michigan. Really now--is there a more discernible symbol in college football than the maize-and-blue’s winged headgear?”

Wait a minute: Memo to Inside Sports’ fact-checkers: Wolverines have wings?

Perfect agreement: National League umpire Eric Gregg, interviewed Friday on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air,” recounted a time he called a Dodger baserunner out at second in front of a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium.

The play wasn’t close, Gregg said, but when he looked up he saw manager Tom Lasorda charging out of the dugout.

Gregg: “Lasorda says to me, ‘Are we on national TV?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘OK, let’s go.’ ”

Add Gregg: Asked how he calls a play at first base, he said that he watches the runner’s foot touch the bag and listens for the sound of the ball in the first baseman’s mitt.

Could he remember when this technique failed him?

“One time I blinked,” Gregg said. “You pick one. You can’t tell if it’s right or wrong. ‘Uh-oh. Here they come . . . No one comes . . . I guess I got that one right.’ ”

Trivia answer: Green Bay’s Don Majkowski, 599.

Quotebook: Jose Canseco, when asked to describe his ideal personal bodyguard: “A black belt who knows how to use an Uzi.”