Now Here’s a Real Home Run Derby Worth Its Salt

Monday’s All-Star home run derby in Cleveland was OK, but Florida Marlin coach Rich Donnelly figures he has a better idea.

Donnelly told the Philadelphia Inquirer he’d like to hold an all-comers home run competition “at the Bonneville Salt Flats. And we’ll have a bunch of little guys out there with rain hats and rain slickers, like at the Olympics.

“We’re not going to have any estimates. And we’re not going to have any erasers. . . .

“No more of that pi-r-squared. No more scientists saying, ‘You’ve got to figure the wind coefficient.’ No more of that stuff where Babe Ruth hit the ball over the fence, then it bounced three times, then it landed in the back of a truck and they found it 8,000 feet away. That stuff’s over.”

Donnelly said he would ask every long-distance company in the country to pledge $1 million to sponsor a hitter, with the winner receiving a $1-million prize.

And the rest of the money?

Donnelly: “Oh, the rest would go to me.”

Trivia time: Who was the first Angel pitcher to win 20 games in a season?

The other all-stars: Newsday’s Jon Heyman proposes these awards for baseball’s biggest midseason underachievers:

“AL LVP (Least Valuable Player): Dean Palmer, Texas Rangers. With free agency looming, he picked the wrong time to lose his stroke.

“NL LVP: Gregg Jefferies, Phillies. [Gary] Sheffield would be a shoo-in if the Florida Marlins fell out of the race. Runner-up: Todd Hollandsworth, Dodgers.

“AL Cy Old (Worst Pitcher): Mike Mohler, Oakland Athletics. Anyone on a pace to go 0-16 can’t be ignored.

“NL Cy Old: Fernando Valenzuela, Cardinals. Showing signs of his age, whatever that is.

“AL TTR (Time to Retire): Eddie Murray, Angels. Can’t wait to hear his Hall of Fame speech.

“NL TTR: Ryne Sandberg, Chicago Cubs. He retired when he could still play; now he keeps playing after he’s done. A rare combination indeed.”

Thanks for nothing: Two more awards from Heyman:

“What Are They Thinking Award: Cubs. First they start 0-14. Then they give $42.5 million to the guy who helped lead the team there--Sammy Sosa.

“Unwarranted Support Award: Darryl Strawberry. He received 391,970 All-Star votes. Imagine how he’d have done if he actually had a hit.”

A bloke’s got to eat: Dean Sturridge, striker for the English Premier League soccer club Derby County, recently lost his appeal against a six-month driving ban, arguing that the ban would cause him “exceptional hardship” because he couldn’t afford a chauffeur on his salary of 3,000 pounds (about $5,000) a week.

That ought to cover enough taxi fares to get Sturridge around.

Trivia answer: Dean Chance, in 1964.

And finally: Steffi Graf on Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis:

“Martina’s got a really unremarkable game. I never thought she’d manage to get the speed into her service that she’s achieved. Apart from that, she plays in such a devil-may-care fashion, but she hardly makes any mistakes.”