These Athletes Must Provide Thrills, Not Go Seeking Them

Roger Clemens can’t play jai alai. Will Clark can’t crawl in caves, chop wood or go ice-boating. Wayne Gretzky can’t play lacrosse. Jose Rijo can’t play polo, go hot-air ballooning or try hang-gliding.

As athletes’ salaries increase, management takes a dim view of losing a player to an off-season, or off-day, activity that might result in injury. So certain activities are banned.

“When you guarantee a contract for two, three or four years, it’s a tremendous risk,” said Lou Gorman, general manager of the Boston Red Sox, after barring outfielder Mike Greenwell from driving a race car. “You have to put in provisions to protect the player and the ballclub in the long run.”

Standard NHL contracts prohibit players from participating in football, basketball, softball, lacrosse, boxing and wrestling. Gretzky, however, has a clause in his contract with the Kings that allows him to play baseball, softball or touch football.

Sound advice: Phil Mickelson, the golfing wunderkind who chose to return to Arizona State rather than turn professional after winning the U.S. Amateur, gets a lot of advice from people on how to plan his career.

Hubert Green might have been the most honest. “Hubert told me to go to graduate school,” Mickelson said with a smile.

Trivia time: Who won the Sullivan Award the two years Jesse Owens was snubbed by the Amateur Athletic Union in its selection of the athlete of the year?

Speedy slugger: Babe Ruth was jailed one day in 1921 for speeding. He was going 26 m.p.h. in downtown New York and it was his second offense. After spending more than four hours in jail, Ruth paid a $100 fine and headed for the Polo Grounds, where the Yankees played their home games at the time.

“I’m going to drive like hell to get to the game,” Ruth told a cellmate. “Keeping me late like this will make a speeder of me.”

He arrived in time to pinch-hit in the sixth inning. Reporters calculated that he had to average 30 m.p.h. to make it from jail to the ballpark. And a third speeding offense could have meant 60 days in jail.

If he had missed the game, a clause in his contract would have cost the Babe $500.

Oh, those Brits: Emily Smith found herself barred from the stewards’ enclosure at the staid Henley Royal Regatta because her skirt was too short--even though she is only 11.

“I think it is a stupid rule,” said Emily, who was there to watch her godfather row.

Trivia answer: In 1935, the year Owens set six world track and field records, golfer Lawson Little was selected. In 1936, when Owens won four Olympic gold medals, the award went to Glenn Morris, the Games’ decathlon champion.

Quotebook: Tim Tackett, a Boston Red Sox minor league catcher, to his agent after being told that his batting instructor would be Carl Yastrzemski: “Did he ever play in the big leagues?”