Notes on a Scorecard - Dec. 6, 1989

Hottest ticket in Orange County in years is the sold-out Ram-49er game Monday night at Anaheim Stadium. Brokers are asking as much as $400 for choice locations. . . .

However, plenty of seats remain in all price categories for the Raider-Cardinal game Sunday at the Coliseum. Ticket-holders are advised to keep their stubs. It could be the last Raider game played in Los Angeles. . . .

Maybe a couple of other seniors, promoter Bob Arum and Mirage Hotel owner Steve Wynn, should fight on the Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran card. Arum is unhappy about not being able to run the show alone and says Wynn is “trying to reinvent the wheel.”. . . .

Nobody works a fight better than Richard Steele, the former light-heavyweight from Los Angeles who has been named to referee the main event Thursday night. . . .

Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who will be part of the pay-per-view TV announcing team in Las Vegas, has been cast in “Godfather III” along with old adversary Vito Antuofermo. . . .

Watch out, George Foreman. Your former sparring partner, Sacramento heavyweight Stan Ward, is 2-0 in his comeback at age 40. . . .

Joe Carter has gotten more ink the past week than during his entire career with the Cleveland Indians. . . .

Cub Manager Don Zimmer, on the National League Championship Series: “We didn’t get good pitching, we didn’t hit and every move I made was wrong.”. . . .

The trades made in the newspapers are a lot bigger than those made at the winter meetings. . . .

Junior Seau broke into tears when he received the USC most-valuable-player award at the football banquet and said, “That’s for you, Sal babe.” He had dedicated the season to his cousin, Sal Aunese, the Colorado quarterback who died of cancer. . . .

When he was given the team’s defensive-player-of-the-year award earlier in the evening, Seau said, “No matter what happens in the future, I’ll still be a Trojan.” He is thinking about applying for the NFL draft although he has a year of eligibility left at USC. . . .

Junior still has his shoulder in a sling from an injury suffered in the UCLA game but is expected to start in the Rose Bowl against Michigan. However, another linebacker, Scott Ross, is questionable because of sprained knee ligaments. . . .

Among those interested in the Nevada Las Vegas football coaching vacancy are Frank Kush and Craig Morton. . . .

Wisconsin needs a tireless recruiter to resurrect its program, and Artie Gigantino would fit perfectly. Gigantino, Ram special teams coach, was ranked as the second-best recruiter in the nation by Sports Illustrated when he was at USC. . . .

The state of California (USC, UCLA, Stanford, California) was 18-24-2 this football season. . . .

Look-alikes: Vlade Divac and Yakov Smirnoff. . . .

A thousand yards rushing doesn’t mean much in the NFL now that the season lasts 16 games and an average of only 62.5 yards gets the job done. . . .

The Associated Press (writers) and United Press International (coaches) final regular-season college football top 10s were identical except that Auburn and Arkansas were flip-flopped in the No. 9 and No. 10 positions. . . .

Detroit won the game over the Lakers, but Pat Riley was given a slight edge over Chuck Daly in the fashion show last week at the Forum. . . .

Chris Davenport, the 23-year-old apprentice who became the first female rider to win two races on the same Hollywood Park program Saturday, holds a degree in agriculture from Ohio State. . . .

Playing on a line with Wayne Gretzky has done wonders for Mikko Makela’s game. He has four assists in two games since being traded to the Kings, one more than he had in 20 games with the New York Islanders. . . .

Three years ago, Phil Esposito replaced Craig Patrick as general manager of the New York Rangers. Tuesday, Patrick replaced Phil’s brother, Tony, as general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins. . . .

Most Soviet skaters are making the transition to the NHL slowly because back home they play a 36-game regular season, don’t travel much and have plenty of practice time. . . .

Former Laker center LeRoy Ellis is overseeing recreation and maintenance at Julian and Gladys Parks on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles for SRO Housing. . . .

I hope you will understand if I’m not counting down the days until the Army-Navy game.