And if Bradley Were a Bowler, They’d Say He Was Jordanesque

Those NBA scouts raving about Shawn Bradley, the 7-foot-6 former Brigham Young center, have provided nothing but laughs for Mike DeCourcy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

“The best was the guy who breathlessly said Bradley was ‘an athlete’ and backed it up by saying he ‘plays baseball and golf,’ ” DeCourcy writes.

“Well, Bernhard Langer won the Masters, and John Kruk is hitting .362, but neither is dunking on Charles Barkley any time soon.”

Trivia time: What do Kevin Altenhof, Oswald Drawdy and Barry Cheesman have that Ben Crenshaw doesn’t?

Her happiness bubbles over: Patty Sheehan bought champagne for the media after winning the LPGA championship last Sunday, then toasted herself by drinking out of the LPGA trophy.

“It tasted a little chemical at first,” she said.

Sheehan also let past LPGA champions Beth Daniel and Meg Mallon drink from the trophy. Thus motivated, the three jumped, fully clothed, into a nearby swimming pool.

But could he be commissioner? Former President George Bush, writing in the Sporting News, says he has always been more fond of baseball than politics.

“They say that you never forget your first love,” Bush wrote. “Well, as a little kid, I hated broccoli, but I loved baseball.”

Add Bush: A first baseman on Yale teams in 1947 and ‘48, he believes the beauty of the game is its timelessness.

Wrote Bush: “It has spanned many decades, several wars and, yes, many presidents.”

Just a thought: John Hillyer of the San Francisco Examiner is rooting for Doug Moe to accept Larry Brown’s offer to become Brown’s assistant with the Indiana Pacers. “That would give the Pacers a Moe and a Larry,” Hillyer writes. “Maybe they could bring back (former Pacer Coach) Dick Versace to be Curly.”

Clear the road: With an auto racing series for drivers 50 and older--”Fast Masters”--set to make its debut this summer, Gil LeBreton of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram is a little concerned.

According to Cynthia Claes, a corporate representative involved in the event, the concept is “like the senior’s golf tour.”

To which LeBreton responds: “Maybe. Except they don’t have ambulances standing by for Chi Chi Rodriguez.”

How clever: Reporting on one of the latest trends in sports--championship teams donning T-shirts heralding their titles only minutes after winning them--Peter May of the Boston Globe discloses that the Chicago Bulls are set to pull on shirts proclaiming, “The Bulls Make a Three,” if they finish off the Phoenix Suns in the NBA finals.

Add T-shirts: According to May, both North Carolina and Michigan ordered T-shirts proclaiming themselves NCAA basketball champions before their meeting in the title game this spring. The Tar Heels, of course, got to wear their shirts--in some cases, before the players had even left the Superdome court. And the Michigan shirts, of which there were 36? They were burned.

Trivia answer: Spots in this year’s U.S. Open golf tournament field.

Quotebook: Jack Buck, voice of the St. Louis Cardinals and former baseball play-by-play announcer for CBS, on the difference between broadcasting baseball on television and radio: “I’ve never been fired from radio.”