Original Bad Boy of Tennis Looks Back With No Regrets

Is Jimmy Connors mellowing only five months before his 43rd birthday? Hardly.

Connors plays on tennis’ over-35 Champions Tour, and he told Tom Rife of the Scripps-Howard News Service that like always, he isn’t going to take back anything he might have done wrong in a career with 109 titles, including eight Grand Slam events.

“I took full credit for all,” Connors said. “I wasn’t going to slough off any of the bad things or say ‘I didn’t mean it’ or ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s all bull.

“What I did happened and I’m not going to look back and say I regret it. . . . I did step over the line, maybe a few too many times. But with no regrets.”

Trivia time: Vlade Divac is one of only four NBA players this season to have at least 100 points, 100 rebounds, 100 assists, 100 steals and 100 blocks. Who are the other three?

We’ll miss him: Howard Cosell, who died last Sunday in New York at 77, was a walking quote machine. Here are some samples:

--”I have found most baseball players to be afflicted with tobacco-chewing minds.”

--”The man has a cash register where a heart should be.” (On former Dodger owner Walter O’Malley).

--”There was a time for Avery Brundage--that of William of Orange.”

Fashion news: Alice Cushman, the first black to win an Olympic event--the high jump at the London Olympics in 1948--wishes she and her teammates could have been a la mode like Florence Griffith Joyner, who wore colorful, skintight outfits in 1988 at Seoul.

“We had all those old baggy suits on,” said Cushman, 73. “But thanks to Florence, now the girls look good on the track. . . . Never have any (material) to worry about, just run. Free at last.”

That’s fast: Texas sprinter Henry Neal said he could show some of the NFL’s fastest players a thing or two about running.

“Somebody asked me once if I could outrun Deion Sanders,” Neal told the Dallas Morning News. “Man, I could run 40 yards, hit the line and then run five yards back before Deion got to me.”

Trivia answer: Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Shawn Kemp.

Quotebook: Gordon Edes of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel speculated on how any success by Dodger pitcher Hideo Nomo would affect Manager Tom Lasorda: “A distinct possibility Lasorda will be doing sushi ads in Tokyo.”