The lighter side of sports

last updated: October 06, 2008 02:34:31 AM

Cigar plan grounded: Things were bad enough for the players and coaches of the French soccer club Olympique Marseille last week when they were beaten by Atletico Madrid in a European Champions League game in Spain.

But when they got to the airport to fly home, they found that their charter flight was grounded because the pilot's credit card had been rejected by Exxon and he couldn't refuel the plane.

What to do? The players and coaches passed the hat and came up with the necessary 3,000 euros ($4,090) to buy the fuel.

Marseille coach Eric Gerets, a former Belgian World Cup player, was not amused.

"I wanted to buy two cigars, but I gave 100 euros, which meant I was not able to smoke today," he said. "I felt as though I was in a film, a bad one. Had we won, I would not have cared, but because we lost it was a little more difficult to take."

Brew ha-ha: John Anderson, the baseball coach at the University of Minnesota, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press of his summer encounter with panhandler outside Yankee Stadium holding up a sign reading, "Why lie? I need a beer."

"I told him I needed a beer, too, but they're $9.50 inside the stadium and I can't afford one."

Hand it to him: Roy Jones Jr. is generally considered to have the fastest hand speed of any boxer ever. It's what led him to boxing in the first place, he told BBC's Radio 5 Live.

"God has gifted me with incredible hand speed as a tool to be used," he said. "What else am I supposed to do but fight? There ain't no hand-racing competitions."

Complicated: How confusing are the Bowl Championship Series formulas? According to Washington Post columnist Norm Chad, "Under the BCS system, Hillary Clinton could still be our next president."

100 is nothing: Enough, already, about the Chicago Cubs and their 100 years of futility.

To fans of soccer's Notts County, the Wrigley Field outfit is merely a newcomer to the frustration game. Notts County was founded in 1862, and 146 years later it is still waiting to win its first English league championship.

The last and only time the Magpies won England's other big prize, the F.A. Cup, was in 1894.

Trivia answer: She won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris, the first filly in 15 years to capture one of horse racing's premier events.

-- LOS ANGELES TIMES

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