It Will Be a Historic Day in Spain When Torero Becomes a Billboard

Race drivers do it, and so do tennis players. Likewise golfers. So why can’t bullfighters use their apparel to advertise?

Luis Reina, a Spanish torero, will make history today at a bullfight near Madrid when he displays the logo of a Japanese electronics manufacturer on the sleeves and legs of his sequined costume.

Akai, the manufacturer, is paying Reina $16,000 per fight. He says he can use it.

“After taxes and expenses, you’re lucky if you take home half your fees,” he says.

Traditionalists, of course, are outraged.

“Advertising and bulls don’t mix,” said Paco Corpas, a former torero and an official of the Madrid-based Bullfighters Union. “It just isn’t serious.”

Says United Press International: “What next, bulls wearing sandwich boards?”

Carmen Franco, wife of Cleveland shortstop Julio Franco, told Jeff Lenihan of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “He wants to quit baseball and become a professional musician. The problem is, he can’t sing or play an instrument.”

Told that her husband was planning to take saxophone lessons, she said: “That’s bad news for me. He blows enough hot air as it is.”

From Brian Bosworth, saying he wouldn’t mind playing for the Giants or the Jets: “I like New York fans. They open the doors of the asylums on game days. You see people without clothes on in 30-degree weather who like getting hit in the head with bottles. To me, this is what spectator sport should be.”

Trivia Time: Who are the only two managers who have won 100 or more games in a season in both the National League and American League? (Answer in column two.)

Add Trivia: Responding to Monday’s item on MVPs who wore No. 32 in 1963, a number of readers called to say Buffalo Bill running back Cookie Gilchrist in the AFL and Jerry Lucas of the Cincinnati Royals in the NBA should have been included. Not so. Gilchrist wore No. 34, and Lucas wasn’t the MVP. Bill Russell, No. 6, was.

Wait a Minute: From Larry Holmes, saying Mike Tyson still lacks experience: “These guys who have a lot of knockouts never learn the basics.”

Said trainer Angelo Dundee: “Early in his career, stiffing guys in one or two rounds may have been a mistake.”

Rocky Marciano, the only unbeaten champion in history, won his first 12 fights in three rounds or less. Eight of them were first-round knockouts.

A graybeard’s lament: “It’s amazing how fast you grow old in this game. At first you’re the rookie right-hander; next season you’re that promising right-hander; then suddenly you’re the Old Man.”

Don Sutton said it--in 1977.

Iowa football Coach Hayden Fry, on 6-foot 8-inch sophomore quarterback Dan McGwire, a Claremont High product and brother of Oakland slugger Mark McGwire: “He has the strongest arm of any professional, college, high school or junior high school player I’ve ever seen. He can literally take one step and throw the ball 90 yards. The problem is we don’t have anyone who can run fast enough to catch it.”

Trivia Answer: Sparky Anderson (Cincinnati and Detroit) and Whitey Herzog (St. Louis and Kansas City).

Quotebook

New York Yankee Manager Lou Piniella, recalling an argument he had as a player with umpire Armando Rodriguez: “I cussed him out in Spanish, and he threw me out in English.”