New Slogan for Shoe: Take Money and Run

Why are the Puma shoe people so hard up for celebrity endorsements?

The firm recently announced it had signed soccer’s Diego Maradona to a deal, presumably for zillions. Puma put out a release, identifying Maradona as “a hero to soccer fans in Argentina and around the world.”

Maybe so, but the guy has a world-class rap sheet too.

Highlights of the Maradona clip file:

--In April of 1991, charged with cocaine possession, weeks after being suspended 15 months on another cocaine case.

--At the end of his suspension, a South Korean group paid him $1.75 million to play his first game in Seoul. He stiffed everyone there, including 1,000 parents and children at a coaching clinic.

--In February of 1994, charged with shooting air gun pellets at reporters. The case is pending.

--In July of 1994, he was kicked out of the World Cup for testing positive for five types of banned substances.

At least, Puma is up front about Maradona’s drug history. The release states he’s now helping to prevent drug abuse.

*

Trivia time: Why is Pittsburgh’s baseball team called the Pirates?

*

Quiet Cal: Billy Ripken, brother of Cal: “He’s a terrific guy and the world’s quietest person. The night he broke [Lou] Gehrig’s record, he went out and painted the town beige.”

*

Forget it, guys: Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post, observing that at least four high school players are talking about forgoing college for the NBA:

“Somehow, they see themselves as Kevin Garnett. But they don’t appear to see Yinka Dare, who after two years of college can’t play a lick on the pro level with the Nets.

“They don’t see Scotty Thurman, who can’t play dead in the NBA, hanging on in the CBA when he should be a senior in college.

“They apparently don’t see Dontonio Wingfield, who stayed all of one year at Cincinnati. They also don’t see Jerrod Mustaf, who left Maryland after two seasons . . . or John Williams, who left LSU after two years to be ‘the next Magic’ but is now out of basketball at 29.”

*

No uniform unity: The furor at Kentucky over the new Rick Pitino-designed denim uniforms isn’t going away. Many Wildcat partisans think the hue is too akin to hated Carolina blue.

But at a recent game, a Wildcat fan held up a sign: “It’s not the denim--it’s what you put in ‘em.”

*

Trivia answer: Because the club was said to have “pirated” two players in 1891 from Philadelphia.

*

Quotebook: Motor sports promoter Bill Doner, talking in 1970 about weather troubles when he promoted drag races in the rainy Northwest: “The perfect ending to your life is for your money and your life to run out at the same time, and the way things are going, that’s going to be about a week from Thursday.”