It's Worth a Lot More Than a Baseball Card

It’s Worth a Lot More Than a Baseball Card

By MAL FLORENCE

Sept. 22, 1992 12 AM PT

After a tornado spun off by Hurricane Andrew had ripped through 16-year-old Coray Ruffin’s house in Reserve, La., last month, he said he was saddest to lose his collection of baseball cards--particularly the Bo Jackson card.

Last Thursday, a package showed up at East St. John High School for Coray, from Bo.

Inside was a baseball card from Jackson’s rookie year, “so you can start your collection over again,” along with an 8-by-10 photograph, and a baseball and bat. All were autographed.

“Hold your head up, everything is gonna be all right,” said the inscription on the Louisville Slugger. The letter urged Ruffin to keep his grades up and to hang in. Jackson included his own address so Ruffin could write back.

Way to go, Bo.

Trivia time: John Daly recorded a double eagle last year in the Centel Western Open on a 509-yard par-five hole. What club did he use for his second shot?

Bad rap: Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner says that 49er quarterback Steve Young suffers unfairly while being continually compared to injured Joe Montana.

Bill Walsh, the former 49er coach who is now Stanford’s coach, told Spander: “People around the Bay Area feed off Steve Young like there’s something wrong with him when I think if he were playing for the Raiders they’d go to the Super Bowl.”

Are you listening, Al Davis?

Really? Arizona State linebacker Brett Wallerstedt, analyzing his team’s 19-0 victory over Louisville Saturday night at Tempe, Ariz.:

“We figured if we shut them out, there’s no way we can lose,” he told the Arizona Republic.

Says it all: Headline in the Boston Herald on the reported feud between Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs: “Brats in Stats Spat.”

No thanks: George Foreman joined officials from the International Boxing Hall of Fame and U.S. Postal Service Friday in Canastota, N.Y., in unveiling a new stamp honoring Joe Louis.

“You know you have to be dead 10 years before you can get on one of these stamps,” said Foreman, who lost his bid to regain the heavyweight title last year against Evander Holyfield. “I never want to be on one.”

Open road: John Salley, the former Detroit Piston forward who is now with the Miami Heat, does stand-up comedy among his other off-the-court endeavors.

During one gig in New York, he quipped: “I was driving on the highway in New Jersey and saw a sign. It said, ‘Interstate 95, Nets 91.’ ”

Putt-down: From Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, quoting Chicago White Sox second baseman Steve Sax, who doesn’t like to play golf:

“You can’t call it a sport. You don’t run, jump, you don’t shoot, you don’t pass. All you have to do is buy some clothes that don’t match.”

Ageless: Vince Reel, former track coach at Claremont-Mudd and Redlands, who has international coaching credentials, is the new track coach at Webb School in Claremont. He’s 78.

Trivia answer: A five-iron.

Quotebook: Miami football Coach Dennis Erickson on his philosophy of recruiting: “We recruit athletes and then find positions for them.”