It Wouldn’t Have Been ’91 Without Them

Before we let 1991 fade from memory, let’s take one last look back, courtesy of the National Sports Review magazine.

Some tidbits from their year-end report:

Best deal--The New York Rangers got Ray Sheppard off the wavier wire for $1. He scored 24 goals in 59 games.

Worst deal--The Boston Red Sox signed pitcher Matt Young to a three-year, $6.4-million contract. Young finished with a 5.18 earned-run average and had no victories after May 30.

Strangest deal: Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter, was hired as a batting instructor by the Angels.

Most unusual play: Rodney McCray, an outfielder for Vancouver in the Pacific Coast League, ran through a fence while chasing a fly ball in June.

Worst event: The U.S. Track and Field Championships in New York, where organizers failed to provide a wind gauge--mandatory for certifying records--for the first two events of the decathlon and first event of the heptathlon. The person who went to get a gauge was stopped by police for trying to exit a highway via an entrance ramp.

Choke of the year: Del Ballard Jr., who needed to knock down seven pins to win the Fair Lanes Open in Randallstown, Md., uncorked a gutter ball.

Dunce of the year: Vance Johnson of the Denver Broncos spent a week in jail after ramming his car into his wife’s car, and two paternity suits were filed against him. Johnson also showed up in training camp with a haircut one reporter described as “Prince meets Little Richard during Hurricane Bob.”

Ugly statistic of the year: The Detroit Tigers’ Rob Deer smashed the record for fastest to reach 1,000 strikeouts. Deer completed the task in 868 games, erasing Dave Kingman’s mark of 950 games.

Most unusual statistic: Deer established a major league record for most home runs, 25, and runs batted in, 64, by a hitter with an average of less than .200.

Trivia time: What was the last Big Ten team to win a national football championship?

Odd bedfellows: Tom Selleck recently was inducted into the Little League Museum Hall of Excellence, presumably for past performances in the Sherman Oaks Little League instead of his portrayal of Magnum in the TV detective series.

Also inducted was Nolan Ryan.

Forget the low: Northeast Conference officials looking for a fresh perspective devised a scheme in which players from its nine schools wrote preseason outlooks.

From Joe Griffin of Long Island University, as reported in the NCAA News: “The 1990-91 basketball season for the Blackbirds was full of highs and lows. LIU was trying to rebound from a 3-23 campaign the year before, and rebound we did, turning out a 10-18 record last year. That was the high.”

Romance at the greens: David Kindred of the Sporting News notes that England’s leading golfer, Tracy Lovey, has become engaged to pro John Dovey, which means her name will soon be Tracy Lovey Dovey.

Science fiction: Orlando Magic Coach Matt Guokas told the Boston Globe’s Peter May that it is difficult to evaluate 7-foot rookie center Stanley Roberts, adding: “He seems a little lost in space. He’s a pleasant fellow, but this just isn’t a high priority for him now.”

Trivia answer: Ohio State in 1968. The No. 1 Buckeyes defeated No. 2 USC, 27-16, in the Rose Bowl to finish 10-0 and win the national title ahead of undefeated Penn State.

Quotebook: Bucky Buckwalter, vice president of the Portland Trail Blazers, commenting on speculation that the Trail Blazers were about to trade Jerome Kersey, Kevin Duckworth and Danny Ainge to the Philadelphia 76ers for Charles Barkley: “We’re not that stupid.”