Baseball Fan Doesn’t Get Away With Kid Stuff

Baseball’s All-Star game has often been criticized for ballot-box stuffing, but Chris Nandor of Boston has taken it to a new level.

When Nandor heard last month that Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra was 20,000 votes behind the New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter in the American League voting, he took advantage of the newest way of voting--via the Internet.

Nandor cast about 25,000 votes for Garciaparra. When the American League team was announced, Garciaparra was at shortstop, 20,446 ahead of Jeter.

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More ballots: As it turned out, Garciaparra won the starting position fair and square.

Fans were allowed to vote 22 times on the Internet, the average number of home games for each team during the balloting.

“We know all about him,” said Alex Kam, baseball’s director of new media, reeling off Nandor’s name, address, age, place of employment and computer number.

“On May 19, he voted 14,702 times for Garciaparra. We caught all of them and filtered them out.”

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Trivia time: If outfielder Larry Walker of the Colorado Rockies, who was hitting .377 through Tuesday, keeps up his pace, he will have hit at least .360 for three consecutive seasons. Who was the last major leaguer to do that?

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New ideas: An item in Morning Briefing that a street in Edmonton would be renamed either Wayne Gretzky Way or Wayne Gretzky Drive has brought forth another suggestion.

“It should be Wayne Gretzky Crease,” e-mails a reader from Big Bear Lake.

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Have you noticed? Manager Davey Johnson’s ban of facial hair for the Dodgers has been rescinded.

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Looking way back: On this day in 1898, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in the 75th round for the heavyweight boxing championship in Richburg, Miss. It was the last bare-knuckle bout.

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Say it ain’t so: When the Baltimore Orioles’ Harold Baines drove in a run last Saturday, he moved past Joe DiMaggio on the all-time RBI list.

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Trivia answer: Al Simmons, 1929-31.

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And finally: Doug Flutie’s Flutie Flakes proved to be such a hot item in Upstate New York last year that a bit of a cereal craze is in the making in the NFL.

Arizona Cardinal quarterback Jake Plummer is introducing Jake’s Flakes in the Arizona market, and New York Jet receiver Wayne Chrebet has Chrebet Crunch going into New York stores.

Proceeds from Jake’s Flakes will go to Plummer’s charity foundation, and a portion of the proceeds from Chrebet Crunch will go to a foundation that funds research for childhood neurological disease.

“You look back to where I started, and the next thing you know, I have a cereal with my name on the box,” Chrebet said.

Where will it end? Who knows?

Among other athletes’ comestibles have been Pittsburgh Penguin Jaromir Jagr’s creamy peanut butter, Nolan Ryan steak sauce, and a cereal and four types of mustard named after Denver Bronco Ed McCaffrey.

Hmm. Wonder if they ever thought of candy bars?