There’s Something Rotten in Big Apple

It hasn’t been a good week for New York newspapers.

A day after the New York Times’ computer-ranking system inexplicably dropped USC into the No. 5 spot in its college football rankings, New York’s two tabloids Tuesday ran conflicting stories about the Mets’ desire to acquire Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers.

“NAY ROD,” said the main sports headline in the Daily News, followed by: “MVP Open to Trade, but Mets Say Don’t Call Us.”

“METS WANT A-ROD,” screamed the Post. “Amazin’s to Make Pitch for MVP.”

Presumably, one of the tabloids had it right. The same can’t be said for the New York Times’ computer.

Trivia time: “When passing, three things can happen, and two of them are bad,” was a quote by what former coach?

Fat lady issue: Monday’s trivia question about the origin of the quote, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings,” brought many e-mails from readers.

Douglas Rohrbough pointed out that singer Kate Smith used to end her national radio show with, “When the moon comes over the mountain,” and said the quote refers to her.

Mitchell Lane, thinking along the same line, claimed the quote got into sports lexicon because Smith used to sing, “God Bless America” at Philadelphia Flyer games in the mid-1970s.

Kermit Sutherland e-mailed to say, “Bull corn!” Sutherland said he was born in 1941 in Boston and remembers that after Celtic Coach Red Auerbach would light up his victory cigar in the late 1950s, announcer Johnny Most would say, “But it’s not over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

One last word on this issue: It’s over.

The teeth of the matter: Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne (Ind.) News-Sentinel on the Colgate football team’s 17-game winning streak: “Four out of five dentists still prefer Oklahoma.”

Fear factor: Petros Papadakis and Matt Stevens, who have been trading barbs this week on Fox Sports Net’s “Southern California Sports Report,” recently had this exchange:

Papadakis: “I have agoraphobia [a fear of crowds and public places.]”

Stevens: “What do you have against Agoura?”

Post pattern: Stevens, UCLA’s radio commentator, had this to say after Oregon’s Samie Parker got past Bruin cornerback Matt Ware on a 40-yard touchdown pass play: “Parker went to the post ... and he went by Ware like he was a post.”

Hey, bidder, bidder: Bloomberg News reports that the ball that Chicago Cub fan Steve Bartman deflected away from Moises Alou goes up for auction on mastronet.com Dec. 1, with bids starting at $5,000.

“The winning price, we assume, includes shipping and mishandling,” wrote Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times.

Trivia answer: Woody Hayes.

And finally: Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune, on Warren Sapp and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers probably missing the NFL playoffs: “It couldn’t happen to a bigger mouth.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.