Maybe They Needed a Sense of Humor

Former Miami Dolphin running back Ricky Williams, who ran away from the NFL before the season and who reportedly had failed several drug tests for marijuana, was found earlier this week by the San Francisco Chronicle, which located him attending classes at the California College of Ayurveda.

That prompted Associated Press to report that while the Dolphins were in San Francisco preparing for Sunday’s game against the 49ers in a matchup of 1-9 teams, Williams “was taking holistic medicine classes at a school about 180 miles northeast of the Bay Area.”

AP’s geography was not quite as amusing as it might have been.

As Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times pointed out, the college actually is “located in the town of Grass Valley -- or, as the smoke flies from Interstate 5, about 160 miles south-southeast of Weed.”

Trivia time: Sir Alex Ferguson coached his 1,000th Manchester United game this week. How many has he won?

No, Jake, no! In England, there’s a soccer-playing terrier named Jake who reportedly is able to bounce a ball on his head up to 20 times in a row without it hitting the ground.

Jake was supposed to show fans this trick at a recent Plymouth Argyle game, but health and safety folk stepped in and banned the performance.

“We thought Jake would be great entertainment,” a Plymouth spokesman told the website UEFA.com, “but there were concerns he might do what all dogs do on grass and pose a risk to players.”

Way to go: Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald took time Thursday to list the things he was thankful for, including:

“Randy Moss, going long.

“Carlos Beltran, going deep.

“Dwayne Wade, going up.

“Hockey, going away.”

Traffic-stopping: A “six” in cricket is the equivalent of a home run in baseball -- in other words, a ball knocked out of the playing field.

In Hong Kong recently, Pakistani batsman Hussain Butt hit 36 “sixes” in a remarkable inning for his Hong Kong University team at the Hong Kong Cricket Club in Happy Valley.

Unfortunately, two of Butts blows hit passing cars while 10 other balls were lost in traffic.

Butt was due to play in another match the next day, but it was called off for “public safety” reasons while officials figured out how to protect motorists and pedestrians.

Busch league: Kurt Busch might be NASCAR’s new champion, but that doesn’t make him any more popular, according to Jenna Fryer of Associated Press.

“Busch doesn’t really fit in with his rivals--he looks as if he should be playing with a chemistry set, not wrestling with a 3,400-pound stock car,” Fryer wrote. “And he has a propensity to use big words, albeit incorrectly. That’s made him somewhat of a misfit throughout the garage.”

Trivia answer: 564.

And finally: Terry Bradshaw, doing a quick comparison on television Thursday in the wake of Peyton Manning’s six touchdown passes: “My passing rating? It was four Super Bowls.”