A Manager Who Knew How to Get the Most Out of a Pitcher

If it wasn’t true, Tom Lasorda wouldn’t repeat it:

According to the Dodger manager, while playing for a team in a Cuban winter league in the early 1950s, he had a locker next to pitcher Terry McDuffy’s. McDuffy was approached before a game one day by Manager Adolph Luque, described by Lasorda as “the meanest . . . I ever played for.”

When Luque told McDuffy he would be pitching on two days’ rest, McDuffy balked, telling his manager, “I’m going home” and beginning to pack his equipment.

Luque retreated to his office, emerging with a pistol, which he aimed at McDuffy.

“Now, where you going?” he asked.

Said McDuffy: “I’m just getting ready to pitch.”

According to Lasorda, McDuffy threw a three-hit shutout.

Trivia time: Since the 1978-79 season, when Arizona and Arizona State joined the conference, which is the only team in the Pacific 10 that has not made a trip to the NCAA basketball tournament?

Horse sense: From Paul Moran of Newsday, previewing the Preakness Stakes: “(Bruce) McNall’s celebrity partners in the ownership of Honor Grades are Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson, which makes the colt the third-best athlete in the group.”

Blowing his cover: At a news conference to announce that he would remain at Stanford for his senior season, rather than make himself available for the NBA draft, Adam Keefe told reporters: “This will be my last year of being a kid here. It kind of suits me, being as immature and childish as I am.”

Wrote C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle: “If you really wanted us to believe that, Adam, you shouldn’t have let it slip that you scheduled your press conference for 9 a.m.--so you could make your 10 o’clock class.”

Scooter the homer: From Stan Isaacs of Newsday: “An example of why Phil Rizzuto is so popular with New York Yankee fans but scorned as a professional broadcaster: When the Yankees hit two doubles and two singles in the fourth inning of a game with the Oakland Athletics . . . (commentator) Tom Seaver summed up the inning by pointing out the Yankees had gotten only one run despite all the hits. Rizzuto said, ‘But that’s a big run.’ ”

Holy one-liner, Jayman: Jay Greenberg of Sports Illustrated, on Mario Lemieux: “In the first period of his first NHL game, he broke away to score and immediately surpassed Burgess Meredith as the greatest Penguin of all time.”

All style, no substance: According to Magic Johnson, too many players are coming into the NBA these days without a fundamental knowledge of basketball.

“They think it’s all athletic ability,” he told David Aldridge of the Washington Post. “That’s Michael (Jordan). And there’s only one guy out there doing that. I have 450 kids (in a basketball camp) and I tell them, ‘I don’t see any Michaels out there. You guys ever see Doctor J? He’s not here. So you better learn how to play. You better learn to box out.’ ”

Trivia answer: Oregon, which hasn’t gone since 1961.

Quotebook: Columnist Ray Sons of the Chicago Sun-Times, on the prospect of an all-Chicago World Series between the Cubs and the White Sox: “Do I believe this can happen? Of course. But I believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the presidential prospects of George McGovern.”