That Color He Sees in Charger Jersey Is Yellow

Former Cincinnati Bengal tight end Bob Trumpy, now an NBC analyst, pulled no punches in rating today’s NFL receivers for Inside Sports. After praising Andre Reed of the Buffalo Bills, Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys, Wayne Chrebet of the New York Jets and Henry Ellard of the Washington Redskins for their fearlessness in making catches and taking hits, he saved his big hit for a category called “The most cowardly receiver.”

That went to Eric Metcalf of the San Diego Chargers.

“Metcalf is in a league of his own on this front,” Trumpy wrote. “I’ve never seen anyone else dive to the ground more often to avoid contact. I have no use for him.”

Trivia time: What is the longest uninterrupted series in college football?

Easy watching: What do baseball players do while waiting for rain to stop? Jeff Huson of the Colorado Rockies recalls sitting through a 7 1/2-hour rain delay at Comiskey Park on a Sunday in 1990.

“I saw 2,000 golf shots, 67 pass attempts, 300 yards rushing, 1,000 miles around a track and four crashes,” he said.

Playground ball: Cleveland Indian shortstop Omar Vizquel explains why he fields so many balls barehanded:

“Instincts take over sometimes. We used to play the game [in Venezuela] with no gloves. We played with tennis balls. It wasn’t necessary to play with a glove with a tennis ball.”

Fetch the liniment: An eight-man team of dart throwers scored 1,000,001 points throwing 36,583 darts over two days at Buzzy’s Pub and Grub in 1991 at Lynn, Mass.

Sweet tooth: St. Louis Blues’ wing Brett Hull is the latest athlete to have a candy bar named after him. Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe commented, “A good guess is that with one bite you feel like a millionaire--but a second later you decide a million isn’t enough.”

Frustrating: Have you ever wondered why NBC doesn’t show the score more often on NFL games?

Nationally syndicated columnist Norman Chad tells why: “NBC won’t show viewers the score and time remaining in order to keep them watching. This would be equivalent to Safeway not telling customers the price and product name in order to keep them shopping longer.”

Looking back: On this day in 1911, the Philadelphia Athletics scored seven runs in the seventh inning to beat the New York Giants, 13-2, and win the World Series in six games.

Change of pace: Cleveland relief pitcher Brian Anderson grew up watching the Indians in old Municipal Stadium, a far cry from today’s sold-out Jacobs Field.

“What I remember most is that there were so few people there, we could sit anywhere we wanted, so we could sit between two empty seats and bang them to try to get rallies started,” he said.

Trivia answer: 107 games, Lafayette-Lehigh.

And finally: Boston Bruin Coach Pat Burns, when he was a police officer in Gatineau, Canada, once served as a bodyguard for Celine Dion when she sang for the pope.