Beck Had the Right Vehicle for Recreation

There are a few more open parking spaces beyond the right-field wall of Sec Taylor Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa, and a bigger void for some fans of the triple-A Iowa Cubs.

Their beloved “Shooter� is back in the big leagues.

“Shooter� is Rod Beck, who until last weekend was living in his 36-foot Winnebago, which was parked behind right field -- by one count, exactly 159 steps from his locker in the clubhouse.

Beck used to be among baseball’s best closers, but he couldn’t catch on with a major league team this spring after missing all of 2002 because of reconstructive elbow surgery.

Then, on Monday, the San Diego Padres signed him, hoping to shore up their bullpen.

Beck will be missed in Iowa, where he was 1-1 with a 0.59 earned-run average and had become a folk hero as word of his living arrangement and open door -- and bar -- policy spread.

After games, it was common for Beck to share cold beer with fans at his RV. He had one rule: When the martini-glass-shaped blue neon light was on, the bar was open. When it was off, it was time for visitors to go home.

Add Beck: Now 34, he has been in professional baseball half his life. He signed at 17 out of Van Nuys Grant High.

His fastball, once 90-plus mph, now tops out in the mid-80s, but he still gets batters out -- modestly.

“I think half the time, I was throwing my fastball,� he told ESPN.com, “but they thought it was a change.�

Trivia time: Since 1926, when the Stanley Cup became emblematic of supremacy in the NHL, the Montreal Canadiens have won it 22 times. What other Montreal team won it twice?

Sequel: While some matches on center court at the French Open this week have been played before mostly empty seats, John McEnroe showed he could still pack them in.

McEnroe, 44, is playing in the Legends Trophy, which is part competition, part showboating.

Typically, part of McEnroe’s shtick has been yelling about calls. “I used to get fined for insulting umpires,� he told Bloomberg News, “but these days they fine me if I don’t insult them.�

Cold hitting: John Henry Williams, Ted Williams’ controversial son, has been released by the Schaumburg (Ill.) Flyers of the Northern League after going 0 for 7 with five strikeouts.

Henry, you might recall, recently caused a stir by sending his late father’s body to a cryonics lab to be frozen.

Question: With all the fuss about genetics, how to explain John Henry’s 0-for-13 lifetime record as a hitter?

Call her “ace�: Greg Norman designed the course; his mother conquered it.

Toini Norman, the defending club champion at Pelican Waters Golf Club in Caloundra, Australia, recently fired a hole-in-one on the course’s par-three 14th hole, then e-mailed her son to gloat a little -- for good reason. Toini is 72 years old.

Trivia answer: The Montreal Maroons, in 1926 and 1935.

And finally: Sportspickle.com reported satirically that Nike followed its $90-million endorsement deal with basketball phenom LeBron James by “inking Santoso Praman, an 8-year-old Indonesian boy, to a $9-per-year contract to work at its sweatshop outside of Jakarta.�

-- Mike Hiserman