Murray Understood Right Way to Say Uncle

When Hollywood Park named today’s $350,000, 1 1/2-mile turf race the Jim Murray Handicap in 1990 in honor of The Times’ sports columnist, Murray said it would have been more fitting had the race been named after his Uncle Ed.

“Uncle Ed tried to beat the horses two ways -- as a bookmaker and as a horseplayer,” said Murray, who died in 1998. “He didn’t have much luck either way.”

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Trivia time: Besides the Murray Handicap, the $150,000 Mervyn LeRoy ‘Cap will be contested today. Why was the purse money about $60,000 more when this race was first run in 1980?

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Riding and writing: After Kent Desormeaux had won the 2002 Jim Murray Memorial Handicap aboard Skipping, the jockey likened his trip to a Murray column.

“I couldn’t have been given a smoother run,” the jockey said. “It was nice and poetic ... like the way that Jim wrote.”

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An obvious solution: Former Utah basketball coach Rick Majerus was hired as a commentator by ESPN this week. So what does Majerus think of new colleague Dick Vitale? “I’ve often said they should send Dick Vitale into hostage negotiations,” Majerus said. “Everyone would come out with their hands up.”

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Rivals, not friends: Asked if he had watched the last episode of “Friends,” Majerus said he had never seen the show.

“I wasn’t interested because I figured it didn’t have anything to do with our relationship with BYU,” he said.

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Longtime rivals: Joe Montana, in a motivational speech in Las Vegas, said that during the winter months as a youngster in western Pennsylvania, he would throw snowballs at passenger-side windows of passing cars until his dad put a stop to such “practice sessions.”

Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Montana, many years later, during an appearance on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” harked back to his snowball days.

Letterman challenged Montana to throw a football into the window of a passing New York City taxicab, and Montana threw a strike into the window.

According to FitzGerald, Montana told his Las Vegas audience, “You know, when Steve Young went on ‘Letterman’ and tried that, he missed.”

Apparently, Young never had a snowball’s chance.

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Looking back: Fifty years ago today, two days after Roger Bannister had broken the four-minute barrier in the mile, USC graduate Parry O’Brien became the first to put the shot more than 60 feet with a heave of 60 feet 5 1/2 inches at the Coliseum.

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Trivia answer: The inflated purse money in 1980 was an inducement to get 1979 Kentucky Derby winner Spectacular Bid to participate.

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And finally: Of the recent “Take Your Daughter to Work Day,” Jay Leno said, “Actually, a pretty embarrassing day for the Clippers. They were going to take their daughters to work, and then they realized, ‘Oh, it’s the playoffs. We never work during the playoffs.’ ”

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