A Stroke of Genius This Wasn’t

During the third round of the 1953 Masters, Count de Bendern found his ball lodged in the bank of the brook in front of the 13th green at Augusta National. After carefully surveying the situation, the count decided, although the stream was running rather full, that he could play the ball.

He took off his left shoe and sock and rolled his pants leg above the knee. Then he very carefully planted the bare foot on the bank and stepped into the water with his well shod right foot.

The look on the count’s face as he realized what he had done was more memorable than his shot.

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Your average job: The average major league salary on opening day was $1,120,254 and the Toronto Blue Jays again had baseball’s highest payroll, averaging $1,707,963.

Only 49 players are making the minimum salary of $109,000.

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Trivia time: What was Babe Ruth’s highest salary?

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Trash talk: A single mother with a baseball-playing 7-year-old says her son’s league in Edison, N.J., won’t let her be a coach or scorekeeper because she’s a woman.

Christina Leslie told the News Tribune of Woodbridge that the manager of her son Jeremy’s team in the Edison Boys League said she couldn’t volunteer because the coaches’ meetings get too vulgar.

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Positive thinking: Tom McEwen, the old Mongoose of drag racing, has always had difficulty keeping his weight down. His thoughts on dieting:

“The problem is that we old guys like to eat. My crew chief is wanting me to think about reaction times and I’m thinking about chocolate sundaes.”

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Smelly Marlins: Charlie Hough, already two for two on predictions about the Florida Marlins, made one more.

“We’re going to have days where we stink,” the 45-year-old knuckleballer said after the expansion team’s successful debut against the Dodgers.

Hough had correctly predicted that his first pitch would be a strike and that the Marlins would beat his former team.

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Out of sight: Nolan Ryan was pitching in an exhibition game for the Houston Astros a few years ago in Cocoa Beach, Fla., when he gave up three home runs. He said he was walking back to the clubhouse when a missile went up at nearby Cape Canaveral and the guy in front of him asked a friend, “Is that a rocket going up?”

“No,” the friend replied. “Ryan’s still pitching.”

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The Big East: Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Sun notes that, “With its semi-impressive run through the NIT field to the tourney final (a defeat by Minnesota), Georgetown ended up No. 14 on the college hoops computer rankings. Evidently, all the regular-season losses and second-division finish in the Big East were mirages.”

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Trivia answer: $80,000.

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Looking back: On April 10, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson threw out the first ball on opening day in Washington, then watched Walter Johnson give up an unearned run in the first inning. It was the only run Johnson gave up until May 14, setting an American League record of 55 2/3 consecutive innings.

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Quotebook: Fred Couples on Nick Faldo: “To me, he’s very boring. He’s never in the trees or in the water. He’s not the best driver, not the best putter. He’s just the best at everything.”