There’s Always Room at This Inn

Whenever they described Clint Murchison, late owner of the Dallas Cowboys, one word they invariably used was unassuming.

Dick Hitt of the Dallas Times Herald recalled a time the National Football League was holding a meeting in Palm Springs. Murchison called a business associate in Palm Springs and said, “I don’t want to stay at the hotel where the others are staying. Do you have some influence out there? Can you get me into some place?”

“Clint,” said the associate, “you own the Palm Springs Racquet Club.”

Murchison paused.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I do, don’t I?”

Joe Hillman, after helping Indiana win the NCAA basketball title, has joined the baseball team. The former Glendale Hoover High School star, playing the outfield, is hitting .417 after four games.

The Hoosiers have an overall record of 31-8, best in the Big Ten.

Trivia Time: What four schools have won NCAA titles in both basketball and baseball? (Answer below.)

Darryl Dawkins, in his book, “Chocolate Thunder,” recalls his early days in Philadelphia: “I had a big, bad Cadillac with big, bad whitewalls. When I went cruising down Broad Street, I would take along Doug Collins’ little boy. Guys would pull up at a traffic light, look in and see this big black guy in a white suit and plantation hat, and they would start to imagine all kinds of things about what business I was in. Suddenly, a little freckle-faced white kid would pop up wearing a Sixers T-shirt.”

Said Mychal Thompson of the Lakers, after the Portland Trail Blazers signed ex-St. John’s guard Ron Rowan to a 10-day contract: “The (Trail) Blazers sign Ron Rowan, huh? That’s pretty good. When Fernando Martin comes back from his injury, they can have a ‘Laugh In’ Rowan and Martin.”

64 Years Ago Today: On April, 18, 1923, in the first game played at Yankee Stadium, Babe Ruth hit a home run to help the New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3, before a major league record crowd of 74,209.

From Wallace Matthews of Newsday, giving Angelo Dundee an assist for Sugar Ray Leonard’s win over Marvelous Marvin Hagler: “As the fight was slipping away from Hagler, Pat and Goody Petronelli (unkindly referred to as ‘the two cement mixers’ by an anonymous boxing man) offered little advice except to tell Hagler that everything was going fine. But across the ring, a frantic Dundee never let up on Leonard. ‘Keep boxing, you’ve got him out of his mind,’ he shouted at one point.

“Throughout the fight, Dundee could be heard taunting the frustrated Hagler--’Where’d he go, Marvin? Where’d he go?’--exactly the way he had taunted George Foreman, frustrated by Muhammad Ali, 13 years before in Zaire.”

Add Fight: Said Don King of his postfight scuffle with Bob Arum in a battle of promoters: “I think he has seen too many Dirty Harry movies and just wanted to make my day.”

Trivia Answer: California, Holy Cross, Oklahoma State and Ohio State.

Quotebook

Former Baltimore Orioles Manager Earl Weaver, on the importance of coaches: “They’re an integral part of any manager’s team. Especially if they’re good pinochle players.”