A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game.
The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it
had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice
firm tuft of grass.
-- Donald A. Metz
%
A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in
the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the
rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between
the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be
penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such
uncontrollable physical phenomena.
-- Donald A. Metz
%
A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of
the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed
the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to
another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back
and forth.
"Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case
of carp-to-carp walleting."
%
A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the
beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden. Immediately,
one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods
like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game
Warden. After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with
his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the
Game Warden finally caught up to him.
"Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped. The
man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing
license.
"Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb
as a box of rocks! You didn't have to run if you have a license!"
"Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back
there, he don't have one!"
%
A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet.
His next biggest thrill is losing a bet.
%
A new 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon
discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet,
still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the
same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at
3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?"
The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING
ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?"
%
A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.
-- Yogi Berra
%
A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as
"you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if
the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants
to make a travesty of the game.
-- Donald A. Metz
%
A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter
carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're
doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?"
Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag,
which contained twelve more loons.
"Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked.
"Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage."
"What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?"
"Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan."
%
Accidentally Shot
Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago,
in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to
bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the
Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead.
-- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861
%
"Ain't that something what happened today. One of us got traded to
Kansas City."
-- Casey Stengel, informing outfielder Bob Cerv he'd
been traded.
%
All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
than others.
-- Alan Truscott
%
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants,
today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
-- Dave Barry
%
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping."
-- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)
%
Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig
[a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off
Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast
cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged.
Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on
them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention.
-- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast
cars across Europe.
%
[Babe] Ruth made a big mistake when he gave up pitching.
-- Tris Speaker, 1921
%
Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.
-- Yogi Berra in his rookie season.
%
Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates,
is my choice for team captain. Cincinnati was beating us 3-1, and I led
off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard
single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and
kept going, sliding safely into third base.
With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at
bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first.
Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy
took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third.
I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy
start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide
into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and
shouts, "Back to second if I can make it."
-- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
%
Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers...
they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key!
%
College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty
played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees
played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks,
and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
COONDOG MEMORY
(heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago)
Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as
old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot.
For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and
is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to
try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made
two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set
back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods,
come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air,
run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had
something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them
up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my
neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she
stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my
coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon
skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up.
Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow
was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the
air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the
Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog
is for sale.
-- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly
%
Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule
Sept 14 Pasadena Junior High
Sept 21 Boy Scout Troop 049
Sept 28 Blind Academy
Sept 30 World War I Veterans
Oct 5 Brownie Scout Troop 041
Oct 12 Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders
Oct 26 St. Thomas Boys Choir
Nov 2 Texas City Vet Clinic
Nov 9 Korean War Amputees
Nov 15 VA Hospital Polio Patients
%
Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really over-
whelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may
not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel,
or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants
(unless struck by a boomerang).
-- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc.
%
Don't let go of what you've got hold of, until you have hold of something else.
-- First Rule of Wing Walking
%
Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black.
Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of
side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath
-- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved.
-- Steve Rubenstein
%
Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book?
%
Ever feel like you're the head pin on life's bowling alley, and everyone's
rolling strikes?
%
Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.
-- Snoopy
%
Failed Attempts To Break Records
In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break
the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised
he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and
doesn't even shout at me."
In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the
record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours.
His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended
after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace.
"People complained I was too noisy," he said.
In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across
the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my
drone got waterlogged," he said.
A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000
dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes
had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off.
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
%
Flying is the second greatest feeling you can have. The greatest feeling?
Landing... Landing is the greatest feeling you can have.
%
Football builds self-discipline. What else would induce a spectator to
sit out in the open in subfreezing weather?
%
Football combines the two worst features of American life.
It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
-- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball"
%
Football is a game designed to keep coalminers off the streets.
-- Jimmy Breslin
%
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #15
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses."
And while you're at it, throw in a couple of those Dallas
Cowboy cheerleaders.
%
FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #14
The Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after George Herman "The Babe"
Ruth, but after the oldest daughter of President Grover Cleveland.
%
From 0 to "what seems to be the problem officer" in 8.3 seconds.
-- Ad for the new VW Corrado
%
George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let
me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration.
"Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway."
At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet
and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address.
No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog.
George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at
the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff."
Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home.
"Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George
yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?"
"Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're
gonna get on Labor Day."
%
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish,
and he'll invite himself over for dinner.
-- Calvin Keegan
%
Give me a fish and I will eat today.
Teach me to fish and I will eat forever.
%
Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
%
Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us
all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for
its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs
romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any
wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They
amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses.
We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes.
We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon."
-- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"
%
HARVARD:
Quarterback:
Sophomore Dave Strewzinski... likes to pass. And pass he does, with
a record 86 attempts (three completions) in 87 plays.... Though Strewzinksi
has so far failed to score any points for the Crimson, his jackrabbit speed
has made him the least sacked quarterback in the Ivy league.
Wide Receiver:
The other directional signal in Harvard's offensive machine is senior
Phil Yip, who is very fast. Yip is so fast that he has set a record for being
fast. Expect to see Yip elude all pursuers and make it into the endzone five
or six times, his average for a game. Yip, nicknamed "fumblefingers" and "you
asshole" by his teammates, hopes to carry the ball with him at least one of
those times.
YALE:
Defense:
On the defensive side, Yale boasts the stingiest line in the Ivies.
Primarily responsible are seniors Izzy "Shylock" Bloomberg and Myron
Finklestein, the tightest ends in recent Eli history. Also contributing to
the powerful defense is junior tackle Angus MacWhirter, a Scotsman who rounds
out the offensive ethnic joke. Look for these three to shut down the opening
coin toss.
-- Harvard Lampoon 1988 Program Parody, distributed at The Game
%
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
-- W. C. Fields
%
How can you think and hit at the same time?
-- Yogi Berra
%
I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments.
The front page has nothing but man's failures.
-- Chief Justice Earl Warren
%
I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in
the world is fixed.
-- Frank Deford, sports writer
%
I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling.
-- Florence Henderson
%
I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter
quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it wrecks
the National League for five years. This is the United States of America
and one citizen has as much right to play as another.
-- Ford Frick, National League President, reacting to a
threatened strike by some Cardinal players in 1947 if
Jackie Robinson took the field against St. Louis. The
Cardinals backed down and played.
%
I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took
time enough to figure out where the goal line was -- what it meant to
win -- or even how you won.
-- Cash McCall
%
I guess the Little League is even littler than we thought.
-- D. Cavett
%
I just know I'm a better manager when I have Joe DiMaggio in center field.
-- Casey Stengel
%
I like your game but we have to change the rules.
%
I never met a man I didn't want to fight.
-- Lyle Alzado, professional football lineman
%
I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as
Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet
trucks. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to
go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports
that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
%
I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that
it took seven others to beat him!
%
I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one,
but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already
because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even
after we've been home a long while.
-- Casey Stengel
%
I would rather say that a desire to drive fast sports cars is what sets
man apart from the animals.
%
I'd rather push my Harley than ride a rice burner.
%
I'm a lucky guy, and I'm happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to
thank everyone for making this night necessary.
-- Yogi Berra at a dinner in his honor
%
I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade.
-- Golfer Bobby Jones on being told that it was 105 degrees
in the shade.
%
I've only got 12 cards.
%
If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped.
The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position
in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of
gravity supercedes the law of golf.
-- Donald A. Metz
%
If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude.
If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the
game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of
course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make
goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry?
-- Sparky Anderson
%
If people concentrated on the really important things in life,
there'd be a shortage of fishing poles.
-- Doug Larson
%
If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the
way they do?
%
If you do your best the rest of the way, that takes care of
everything. When we get to October 2, we'll add up the wins, and then
we'll either all go into the playoffs, or we'll all go home and play golf.
Both those things sound pretty good to me.
-- Sparky Anderson
%
If you don't know what game you're playing, don't ask what the score is.
%
If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're
the sucker.
%
If you want to see card tricks, you have to expect to take cards.
-- Harry Blackstone
%
If you're carrying a torch, put it down. The Olympics are over.
%
In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call
this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
%
In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series
just something that came later.
-- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner
%
It gets late early out there.
-- Yogi Berra
%
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another --
but which one? Differences are crucial.
-- Lazarus Long
%
It's like deja vu all over again.
-- Yogi Berra
%
It's not whether you win or lose but how you played the game.
-- Grantland Rice
%
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game.
%
Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
%
Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:
(1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
force is technically termed "car suck").
(2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
than "Watch this!"
(3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly
proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a
Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or
a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
(4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the
cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the
Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you
in the head and knock you silly.
%
Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.
-- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"
%
Life is a game of bridge -- and you've just been finessed.
%
Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more
important than something else. If what already is, is more important
than what isn't, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what
isn't, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll.
-- Werner Erhard
%
Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.
%
Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us
to pay income taxes, too?
-- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox
%
Love means nothing to a tennis player.
%
Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man
picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and
whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire.
What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
%
MARTA SAYS THE INTERESTING thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives
connected by a thin strand.
Come on, Marta, grow up.
-- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
%
MARTA WAS WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME with me when she said, "You know most
of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its
territory from invasion by another group."
"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny.
-- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
%
Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills.
Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max."
[So is that punchline.]
%
Most people's favorite way to end a game is by winning.
%
My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh
Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the
New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors
and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can
somebody think of something to help us win a game?"
"I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit
to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul."
-- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
%
My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
-- Muhammad Ali
%
Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection.
-- '76 Olympics
%
Never play pool with anyone named "Fats".
%
NEWS FLASH!!
Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault
champion.
%
Nothing increases your golf score like witnesses.
%
Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win
or you can lose or it can rain.
-- Casey Stengel
%
"Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the
dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time
and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but,
you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the
ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he
wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning
last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and
buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them.
He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth
and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for
their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for
another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa
said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't
know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog."
-- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning"
%
On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the
same moment -- halftime.
%
Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during
a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin
parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So,
to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the
end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the
page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more
inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he
was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth;
the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out.
%
One thought driven home is better than three left on base.
%
One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
%
Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the
maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out
in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty
good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know
for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging
over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for
three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in
their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving
an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without
ever considering whether there were men on base.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
%
P-K4
%
Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984
when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame. Second
baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws. Other players were
diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch. At the same time, Guerrero,
at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager
Tom Lasorda's stomach. Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous
motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third
base like that? You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball.
What is it?"
"I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said. "First, `I
hope they don't hit the ball to me.'" The players snickered, and even
Lasorda had to fight off a laugh. "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball
to Sax.'"
-- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
%
Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid.
-- Indiana University football cheer
%
Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?"
Yogi Berra: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back."
%
Rick: "How can you close me up? On what grounds?"
Renault: "I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on here."
Croupier (handing money to Renault): "Your winnings, sir."
Renault:"Oh. Thank you very much."
-- Casablanca
%
Rube Walker: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?"
Yogi Berra: "You mean now?"
%
Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week,
he might have lasted a long time and become a great star.
-- Tris Speaker, commenting on Babe Ruth's plan to change
from being a pitcher to an outfielder.
Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak"
%
Sailing is fun, but scrubbing the decks is aardvark.
-- Heard on Noahs' ark
%
San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the
people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When
they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me.
One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo.
-- George Halas, professional football coach
%
Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a
swank hotel in New York. Most of the major stars of the chess world were
there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages
retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment. In the lobby,
some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the
fastest, and the best chess player in the world. The argument got quite
loud, as various players claimed that honor. At that point, a security
guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's
anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."
%
Show me a good loser in professional sports and I'll show you an idiot.
Show me a good sportsman and I'll show you a player I'm looking to trade.
-- Leo Durocher
%
So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.
-- Yogi Berra
%
Son, someday a man is going to walk up to you with a deck of cards on which
the seal is not yet broken. And he is going to offer to bet you that he can
make the Ace of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ears.
But son, do not bet this man, for you will end up with a ear full of cider.
-- Sky Masterson's Father
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Support Bingo, keep Grandma off the streets.
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Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
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Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to
shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable.
When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his
entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a
seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out
of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a
word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket
and handed the others to Dutsky.
"Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen."
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Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill went to the office of the Dean
of Academics because he was concerned about his players' mental abilities.
"My players are just too stupid for me to deal with them", he told the
unbelieving dean. At this point, one of his players happened to enter
the dean's office. "Let me show you what I mean", said Sherrill, and he
told the player to run over to his office to see if he was in. "OK, Coach",
the player replied, and was off. "See what I mean?" Sherrill asked.
"Yeah", replied the dean. "He could have just picked up this phone and
called you from here."
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That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows
returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball.
-- Bill Veeck
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The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off
this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next
hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell,
the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned
it to his master.
"Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
"Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim."
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The Fastest Defeat In Chess
The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess
master.
In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a
Monsieur Lazard. Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so
chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort
of their own homes.
Lazard was black and Gibaud white:
1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3
2: Kt-Q2, P-K4
3: PxP, Kt-Kt5
4: P-K6, Kt-K6
White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve
either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen.
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
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The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he
wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke.
"Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to
you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made
the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for your information, I used to play
center at Notre Dame."
"Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five
times."
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The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the
biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to
them were fishermen.
-- Arthur Binstead
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THE OLD POOL SHOOTER had won many a game in his life. But now it was time
to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing go the floor.
"Sorry," he said with a smile.
-- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
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The one sure way to make a lazy man look respectable is to put a fishing
rod in his hand.
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The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball...
You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years
old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You've got to let it
grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're
bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now.
-- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium
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The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter
swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the
batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The
center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his
eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it.
-- Dizzy Dean
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The real problem with hunting elephants is carrying the decoys.
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The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more.
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The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie
Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said
to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision
to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
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The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable
that I assume it must be evil.
-- Heywood Broun
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The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting proposition.
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There's a couple of million dollars worth of baseball talent on the loose,
ready for the big leagues, yet unsigned by any major league. There are
pitchers who would win 20 games a season ... and outfielders [who] could
hit .350, infielders who could win recognition as stars, and there's at
least one catcher who at this writing is probably superior to Bill Dickey,
Josh Gibson. Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, the
pigmentation of their skin. They happen to be colored.
-- Shirley Povich, 1941
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They also surf who only stand on waves.
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To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
call it the target.
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Trust everybody, but cut the cards.
-- Finlay Peter Dunne, "Mr. Dooley's Philosophy"
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Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great
deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is.
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Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them
whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed
like hours.
"I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward
the women. Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel
and went back to where his companion was waiting.
"Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly. "One of them's my wife
and the other's my mistress!"
"I'll ask," said Jim. He started off, only to turn and come back
before reaching the green.
"What's wrong?" Bill asked.
"Small world, isn't it?"
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We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson]
comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well,
he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the
empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin'
the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the
glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call.
"You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh."
-- Satchel Paige
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When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and
inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats
blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes
screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he
stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing
himself to destruction.
-- George Plimpton
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When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and
the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in
the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who
comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says
he's in shape. Old hat. I was the onliest boxer in history people asked
questions like a senator.
-- Muhammad Ali
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When in doubt, lead trump.
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Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything.
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Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.
-- Vince Lombardi
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Woman: "Is Yoo-Hoo hyphenated?"
Yogi Berra: "No, ma'am, its not even carbonated."
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