Why Not Hire the Boy Who Gave Babe Herman His Bats?

Applicants hoping to serve as batboys for the expansion Florida Marlins must be at least 16 and supply copies of their birth certificates and most recent report cards.

One who can supply neither would still like to be considered.

“I’m a senior citizen, so obviously I’m over 16, and I haven’t seen my report card in about 55 years,” said Arthur Klein, 78, who was a batboy for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1931, a year after he left high school.

Klein, though, believes that he is qualified and would like fans to write to the Marlins to implore them to give him a chance.

“A lot of guys my age are either underneath the ground or in a nursing home,” said Klein, whose daily activities include swimming, walking and involvement in a repertory theater. “I’m in good condition.”

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Trivia time: Who are the six major league managers who won more than 2,000 games?

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Say ‘cheese’: Bob Samuelson, the bald middle blocker who helped the U.S. men’s volleyball team win a bronze medal in the Barcelona Olympics last summer, told Volleyball magazine: “The only reason I ever went out for volleyball my senior year (at Westchester High) was so I could get another picture in the high school yearbook.”

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Twenty years ago: On Feb. 27, 1973, Inglewood Morningside High, unbeaten in 28 games and the top-seeded team in the Southern Section 4-A Division, was upset by Glendale Hoover in the second round of the playoffs.

It was Jim Harrick’s last game as Morningside’s coach.

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Hard times in Big D: Wrote Mitch Lawrence of the Dallas Morning News: “More and more, the Mavericks are being called the Clippers of the ‘90s.”

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Jane and Ted’s excellent adventure: From Newsweek magazine: “Between the team’s nickname and the ‘tomahawk chop,’ you’d think the Atlanta Braves would run out of ways to fan (politically correct) controversies. But last week the team’s flagship radio station, WGST, announced a contest offering five couples a chance to spend a spring training weekend in Florida with the Braves and the right-wing radio-and-TV gabber Rush Limbaugh.”

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Plug in, guys: After the Portland Trail Blazers kept driving on him, and he kept blocking their shots, 7-foot-7 Manute Bol of the Philadelphia 76ers wondered aloud, “Don’t you guys get cable?”

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Trivia answer: Connie Mack (3,776 victories), John McGraw (2,840), Joe McCarthy (2,126), Bucky Harris (2,159), Walter Alston (2,040) and Leo Durocher (2,010).

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Quotebook: Kansas football Coach Glen Mason, on his team’s chances of beating Florida State in the Kickoff Classic this August: “Nobody gave Buster Douglas much chance of beating Mike Tyson, but he did beat him.”