Some Questions Are Best When Left Unanswered

Some off-the-wall player responses from questionnaires in college football media guides, as published by the Sporting News:

Brock Huard, Washington freshman quarterback: What is the best thing about a Husky home game?

“Great showers, really. Even the hotels don’t compare--and with free soap and Pepsi, you can’t beat our showers.”

Kevin Carretta, Notre Dame senior tight end: My favorite pregame ritual is to: “Listen to [guard] Jeremy Akers vomit.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the major league record for grounding into double plays?

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Striking out: Politically, it doesn’t have much impact. Nonetheless, Ken Griffey Jr. has abandoned his presidential bid.

Nike has quietly pulled the plug on the tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign that had the Seattle Mariner center fielder running for the highest office in the land.

The Mariners’ probable failure to make it to the playoffs figured prominently in Nike’s decision.

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Hustling hackers: A group of about 100 golfers at the Tatnuck Country Club in Worcester, Mass., broke the world record on Monday for the fastest round of golf on a course at least 6,000 yards long with a time of nine minutes 28 seconds.

The speed formula: One person tees off. Four or five players wait in the fairway and one hits the second shot toward the green, where more people are waiting to hit the approach shot and putt.

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Spaceman? Is there no limit to college football recruiting? Apparently not. Penn State has received an oral commitment from Joe McKinney, a linebacker from Mars.

That’s Mars High School in western Pennsylvania.

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Stand-up guy: The New York Yankees’ once imposing 12-game lead in the American League East has shriveled to 3 1/2 games and General Manager Bob Watson told the New York Times that he and Manager Joe Torre deserve to be fired if the team continues to falter.

“We have the highest payroll in the history of the game,” Watson said. “If we can’t hold a 12-game lead, then the leadership is responsible. The pilots crash the plane, not the passengers. Joe and I are the pilots. We’re the ones who are responsible.”

No comment from Torre on the subject.

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Close enough: What would a baseball season be without Kinerisms? Here’s one from Met broadcaster Ralph Kiner during a New York-Montreal Expo game at Olympic Stadium:

“Down the left-field and right-field lines, it’s 99 liters, whatever that means.”

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Trivia answer: Henry Aaron, 328.

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And finally: Defenseman Kyle Haviland of the Austin (Texas) Ice Bats of the Western Professional Hockey League has had his nose broken eight times in various brawls.

Said Haviland, “On a windy day, I don’t know which side of my face my nose is going to be on.”