You Can Never Be Too Deep at Mascot

Feathers flew last weekend when Virginia Tech and Miami played football. And because of it, another Hokie was suspended--it has been a trend this year at the Virginia school--for fighting.

Except this time, the banished student is the guy who dresses as the team’s mascot, Hokie Bird, not a football player.

Todd Maroldo, who was Hokie Bird for last Saturday’s game at the Orange Bowl, got into it with Miami’s mascot, Sebastian the Ibis, who looks a lot like Donald Duck.

“The Hokie Bird has been suspended for conduct detrimental to the game,” said Danny Monk, Virginia Tech’s assistant athletic director. “But we will have a backup bird for the rest of the season.”

No word on what, if anything, happened to Sebastian.

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Trivia time: Where did the victory bell, given annually to the winner of the UCLA-USC football game, come from?

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Good riddance: The departure of controversial left fielder Albert Belle, who signed a five-year, $55-million contract with the Chicago White Sox, hasn’t exactly caused a wave of regret in Cleveland.

Dick Feagler, a columnist for the Plain Dealer, wrote that the Indians “will be better without Belle and his demons. . . . His absence is demonstrably survivable.”

Bill Needle, a sports talk-show host on WKNR, said about 70% of the people calling to comment on Belle’s departure were largely unemotional, chalking it up to a business decision by the slugger.

The rest were highly emotional--most apparently happy that Belle is gone.

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Eyes on the Tiger: Australian golfer Peter McWhinney, a playing partner of Tiger Woods in the Australian Open, is tired of all the attention the American tour rookie is getting.

“I’ve had enough of it,” McWhinney said. “It’s boring. It’s just a publicity thing and you’d really think there was no one else in the field.”

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Trivia answer: The bell was originally on a Southern Pacific locomotive. Given to UCLA as a gift in 1939, it was stolen by members of a USC fraternity in 1941. It surfaced a year later when the schools agreed it would remain in the possession of the game’s winner until the next game.

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And finally: The San Francisco Chronicle ran a headline Thursday that read, “Frustrated Raiders Look Lost.”

Several players, insisting on anonymity, told the Contra Costa Times that Coach Mike White has lost control of the team, which is in last place in the AFC West at 4-7. The players are complaining about owner Al Davis and demanding that he “clean house.”

They’ve changed cities, stadiums and coaches, but it sounds as though nothing has really changed.