Sir Charles Heeds Call to Walk Away

By MAL FLORENCE

Nov. 28, 1999 12 AM PT

Charles Barkley is 36 and says--as he has before--that this is his last NBA season. For sure, playing for the struggling Houston Rockets doesn’t inspire him.

“I’m sick of us having team meetings and hearing cell phones and beepers ringing in the middle of them,” he told Fran Blinebury of the Houston Chronicle.

“We used to come into this locker room before games and watch videotape of previous games or scouting tapes of that night’s opponent. Now we’re in here watching and listening to BET.

“We have a bus that’s supposed to leave at 4 o’clock, and I know every time we’ll have guys show up at 4:30.”

Yes, Charles, those cell phones can force anyone into retirement.

Trivia time: Who holds the NFL single-game records for passes and completions?

Agitated: Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune: “Here’s why John Madden and Pat Summerall have to go: The Bears and Lions are nearly in a fight, and we’re stuck watching that turkey tour of the fat guy’s bus.

“Tell Fox we’re watching the game, not some drooling announcer’s grub.”

Aw, Steve, it’s Madden’s traditional Thanksgiving routine.

More Madden: John Madden, the director of last year’s hit movie “Shakespeare in Love,” is not related to the Fox commentator and former Raider coach.

Said comedy writer Alex Kaseberg: “Could you imagine that Madden directing Shakespeare? ‘OK, this guy’s got the tights and then, bam, he fakes being poisoned, and then, boom, boom, she stabs herself. and then, pow, he kills himself . . . ‘ “

Take a break: ESPN college football commentator Beano Cook, during an Internet chat, when asked how it feels to be a thorn in the side of business, with about 750 people glued to their computers instead of being productive:

“It could be worse, they all could be watching local news--speaking of a waste of time. Or listening to a pledge drive on PBS.”

Metrodome maniacs: From the Morning Line column of the Dallas Morning News: “Following alcohol-fueled rowdiness during the Vikings’ Monday night [Nov. 8] home game against the Cowboys, the team plans to cut off beer sales at halftime and hand out educational pamphlets at its next Monday night game Dec. 20 against Green Bay.

“Ever see a person reading while drinking beer?”

Fun to watch: NBA Commissioner David Stern has called the streaking Sacramento Kings the Y2Kings, “the prototype team entering the new millennium.”

Trivia answer: Drew Bledsoe of the New England Patriots, 70 and 45 against the Minnesota Vikings in an overtime game Nov. 13, 1994.

And finally: Nebraska’s expansion franchise in the Indoor Professional Football League is to be known as the Omaha Beef.

Said Jim Bainbridge of the Colorado Springs Gazette: “And just how long will it be before some headline writer refers to them as ‘dead meat’?”