He Has Math Down, Now He Needs Homers

Steve Marantz of the Sporting News predicts that Cleveland’s Albert Belle will break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record of 61.

Asked about the possibility of hitting 60 home runs, Belle said: “Easy. If you hit 10 home runs a month for six months. Sounds like a piece of cake, doesn’t it?” Then he added, more seriously, “It can be done with a lot of luck.”

Belle hit 50 home runs last year in a strike-shortened 144-game schedule.

Often dour and antagonistic toward reporters, Belle was described by Marantz as “the Sultan of Surly.”

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Trivia time: What is the lowest winning score in the UCLA-USC basketball series?

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Waiting champion? Glenn Dickey in the San Francisco Chronicle on Stanford basketball Coach Mike Montgomery:

“Montgomery is a throwback to an era when coaches really coached. His style is reminiscent of Pete Newell when he coached championship teams at Cal--though Montgomery’s own coaching model is John Wooden.

“Next year, the Cards have as much talent as anybody in the conference and they’ve already got the best coach. It almost doesn’t seem fair.”

Was it fair, then, when Washington State upset the Cardinal Thursday at Stanford, 68-59?

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Political savvy: Dennis Rodman was asked by Christopher Leray of Inside Sports magazine if he votes.

“Hell no!” Rodman replied. “If I made a choice, it’d be the wrong one anyway. I don’t care about politicians. We’re all going to die anyway, so if someone wants to screw you, why help him?”

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Fans beware: If you heckle John Brophy, coach of the Hampton Road (Va.) Admirals of the East Coast Hockey League, prepare to duck.

Brophy threw a hacksaw at a fan who was heckling him at a recent game.

He was suspended for three games.

Wonder what he would have gotten if he’d thrown a chain saw?

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Hee haw: Charles Finley, the former owner of the Oakland Athletics who died Monday, once took his mule, Charlie O., the team mascot, to a World Series lunch for baseball writers and said: “I just wanted to see what happens when one mule confronts 300 asses.”

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Trivia answer: UCLA defeated USC, 19-17, in the 1931-32 season.

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Quotebook: Kevin Paul DuPont in the Boston Globe: “Hockey is playing too big a part in your life if you’re looking into the night sky, wondering when the comet-tailed Fox puck will dash across the Milky Way.”