– Cross-spectating: For about a half-hour Sunday, spectators in Comiskey Park’s skyboxes had the best of two sports worlds. They could watch Wilson Alvarez flirt with a no-hitter against Oakland, live, while watching the Bulls on the large color sets installed in every suite.
– Rest in peace: Remember how Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and the rest of the Trail Blazers were supposed to be the team to dethrone the Bulls last season? On the eve of the Chicago-New York series that opened Sunday, here was one of the big stories in the Oregonian sports section: Things for Portland fans to do-dog races, minor-league baseball, stock car racing-during the playoffs while their basketball team sat on the sidelines. More embarrassingly, book stores and airport newsstands still prominently displayed the latest issue of RIP CITY, the Blazers’ fan magazine, which obviously is preprinted long in advance. It showed Michael Jordan and Drexler on the cover with the subtitle, “Portland has its eye on the prize.” Maybe the magazine should be renamed R.I.P. CITY.
– Homeward bound: How worried should the Bulls be over New York’s home-court edge? It was a big deal in the Western Conference semifinal series, in which the Sonics won four at home and lost three on the road in eliminating Houston. Don’t forget: Seattle had home-court advantage because a referee’s error on a last-second shot by David Robinson cost the Rockets a win in their final regular-season game with San Antonio. During Game 6 with the Sonics, a fan sitting in the front row at Houston held up a sign throughout the game, visible to the refs, that said: “No call. No guts. Thanks for nothing, NBA.”
– Another no-no: We know Wilson Alvarez lost his no-hitter Sunday. Interestingly, at the same time Alvarez was mowing down batters in his hot start, farmhand Jason Bere had a no-hitter going for the Nashville Sounds. Bere lost it in the fifth inning with two outs before finally getting the win in a six-inning, 10-strikeout performance for the Sox’s Triple-A club. This raised his record to 5-1 with a 2.37 ERA. The search for another Sox starter may end with Bere. The 22-year-old right-hander was just named one of the best 10 prospects in the game by Baseball America. For inspiration, he carries a Roger Clemens card in his wallet at all times. Incidentally, Bere’s victory Sunday was against the Iowa Cubs.
Royal flush: The Royals come to Chicago for a three-game series starting Tuesday. This will be Kansas City’s first visit here since manager Hal McRae went ballistic earlier this season. Too bad the Sox are not having an appropriate promotion, like Helmet Day. Instead, nothing special is planned for any of the games. Royals GM Herk Robinson’s official line on McRae’s outburst: “The incident will make Hal a better manager and a more mature manager.”
– Here’s Johnny. . . Not! The Chicago area alumni of Iowa State hold a first-ever golf outing Thursday at Oak Brook Hills resort that should be interesting. Among the featured guests will be head football coach Jim Walden and head women’s basketball coach Teresa Becker. But head men’s basketball coach Johnny Orr was, according to an event spokesman, “a late cancellation.” Some organizers wonder if it has anything to do with Orr going into a recent pout over not making the school’s short list for interviews for the soon-to-be-vacant AD’s job. Well, at least it saves Johnny one embarrassment. He doesn’t have to explain about his program tying for the worst graduation rate among Division I schools, according to NCAA statistics released last week.
Stop n’think: Four books are in the works about Shaquille O’Neal. Just think if his team had made the playoffs. . . A lot of people in San Francisco still are in a funk over the loss of Joe Montana. We might’ve had a lot of people jumping from the Golden gate Bridge if the city also had lost the Giants, who came perilously close to becoming the Tampa-St. Pete Giants.
– Illini reunion: Former Illinois baseball coach Augie Garrido, who directed Cal State-Fullerton to the College World Series finals last year, just became the 10th coach at the Division I level to get his 1,000th career win. Attending the 12-1 victory over San Jose was former Illinois AD Neale Stoner, who brought Garrido to Champaign for a three-season run starting in ’88 that accounted for 111 of his wins. Stoner, like Augie, had been at Cal State-Fullerton before coming to Illinois to assume the AD’s position.
– Signature event: The annual Chicago International Antiquarian Book Fair opens Thursday in the Palmer House. Seemingly, it’s a high-brow event, including first editions, manuscripts, prints, etc., on subjects such as psychiatry, cooking, theater, decorative arts, history and architecture. A leaf from Johann Gutenberg’s “The Catholicon” goes for $4,000. An original copy of the Treaty of 1876, signed by 273 Indian chiefs, goes for a mere $275,000. For the more economy-minded, Eugene O’Neill’s first book, “Thirst,” is listed at $1,500. Apparently there are some real sports fans among members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America. Other autographed items will be a Bob Feller Hall-of-Fame postcard, a 1933 World Series press pass signed by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb’s bank check, Satchel Paige’s business card and a copy of “The Natural” with author Bernard Malamud’s signature.
