So, It’s Spare the Rod and Spoil the . . . Bruins?

Scene and heard. . . .

OK, OK, so Jelani McCoy and Kris Johnson are a couple of knuckleheads.

This season’s UCLA basketball team will be just fine despite their suspensions.

Maybe even better.

Coach Steve Lavin thrives on adversity speeches, right? What does he have now, two months’ worth?

So the Bruins lose to North Carolina in November while the knuckleheads are in the penalty box. Maybe struggle against Illinois in December.

Everybody comes back, they beat Louisville in January, beat Duke in February, get a good NCAA seeding, all is forgotten.

Well, maybe not all.

First, Johnson and McCoy are going to have to learn to play under constant harassment in opposing arenas. The stain of their screw-up--whatever it was--will not end until this season does.

Second, what is this with the UCLA drug policy for scholarship athletes, anyway?

Are there any parents out there who would give their children three chances to screw up with something that can wreck their lives before disciplining them?

Shouldn’t those parents expect the same low tolerance from the people being paid big bucks to educate these children?

By the way, you might think it’s a shame that Schea Cotton is not around to fill the knuckleheads’ void.

Think again.

He plays for a while, then goes to the bench when McCoy and Johnson get back, and here comes the griping.

Or, at least, a transfer.

This is a team that doesn’t need any more distractions and, for now, Cotton is a walking distraction.

*

Here’s guessing Rupert Murdoch’s people were just a little bit giddy at the Dodgers’ collapse.

The Dark Lords just became White Knights.

A controversial purchase has become a rescue mission.

Now we’ll see how much armor they have.

Will they have the guts to support the trading of Eric Karros?

And after that, Hideo Nomo?

The Karros move is a no-brainer. Nice guy, big numbers, but something has to change. This group has had three full seasons to get the job done and failed.

You trade the best player for whom you have a replacement, and this is Karros, and even if Paul Konerko is as bad as Wilton Guerrero, at least we’ll have fun watching him.

In the last three seasons, has anybody had fun?

Now, about Nomo.

The rest of the league has figured him out better than his own team.

He is probably as good as he’ll ever be.

Trade him now, give his place in the rotation to Darren Dreifort, pick up somebody who will give as much to the organization as it will give to him.

If all else fails, trade the interpreter.

Fred Claire stays; he made only one error he could not correct, the Dodger bench.

Anybody who blames Bill Russell for asking Eddie Murray to do something he has never done before--pinch-hit--is looking in the wrong place.

Russell also stays; he was essentially a rookie, he realized his mistakes, and he deserves another chance to figure this out.

A chance to win with his type of players and coaches, instead of those left over from the Tom Lasorda era.

If nothing else, get him a bench coach.

No, John McGraw never needed help, but expansion has diluted the talent such that the game has become impossibly situational.

With so many players unable to do so many things, you could call a special play or bring in a substitute on every at-bat. . . .

Love Mark McGwire saying he couldn’t enjoy his home run chase because of media harassment in his one-newspaper town. . . .

Hope the Kings’ Matt Johnson is as good on the ice as he is on the radio. . . .

And just who is that loose screw who came up with the idea of national rankings for high school sports teams?

Just the other day, saw a national girls’ soccer poll and thought, what sportswriter would be so skewered as to vote on that? Then noticed it was a coaches’ poll.

The same goes for football, basketball, all of them. To rank teams on a national basis is to create yet another superficial stat, adding more pressure on coaches and participants, widening the gap between student and athlete. . . .

Let’s see, what would happen if the baseball playoffs began without Greg Maddux and Barry Bonds because they were committed to playing in other leagues?

This is why Major League Soccer is often bush-league soccer.

I know the Galaxy is in the playoffs beginning today, but wake me when Jorge Campos and Mauricio Cienfuegos show up.