President Clinton Takes Credit Before Considering All Factors

President Clinton took note of Michael Jordan’s impending return to the Chicago Bulls when he spoke with reporters about a drop in the unemployment rate.

“As of today, the economy has produced 6.1 million jobs since I became President, and, if Michael Jordan goes back to the Bulls, it will be 6,100,001 new jobs,” he said.

Apparently, the President doesn’t know that Jordan was working as a baseball player and if he returns to the Bulls, a player must be cut to make room for him, reducing the figure to 6,099,999.

Trivia time: What American Legion Post baseball team from Southern California had three players in the major leagues last season?

Looking ahead: Seeking biographical information on the owner of Urgent Request, a British horse making his U.S. debut in today’s Santa Anita Handicap, Stewart Aitken of Scotland sent this fax to publicist Ed Golden: “It is the future I am concerned about, not the past. I had so many candles on my last birthday cake, British Airways pilots thought it was a runway.”

Down the road: Phoenix and Tampa Bay have been awarded major league baseball franchises and already officials are looking toward the next expansion.

“I’m for Mexico City,” says Dodger President Peter O’Malley. “In our league, I think it would be great. It would excite all of Latin American and all of Mexico.”

Just can’t do it: It has been three weeks since Sparky Anderson walked out on the Detroit Tigers. Yet interim Manager Tom Runnells still hasn’t used Sparky’s clubhouse chair.

Runnells has dressed in Anderson’s large office, just off the main dressing room, but still can’t bring himself to use the desk or chair.

“I’m not ready to sit in Sparky’s chair yet,” Runnells said. “I have to confess, I did lean on it when I reached over to pick up the phone the other day.”

One man’s view: Marge Schott and the Cincinnati Reds have been criticized for signing Pedro Borbon, fat and 48, as a replacement pitcher.

Said Manager Jim Leyland of the Pittsburgh Pirates: “I have nothing against Pedro Borbon. He was an excellent pitcher and was something I never was, a big league ballplayer. But I don’t care what the reason is. To me, you’re insulting the game.”

Add Borbon: Letter writer Douglas B. Williamson, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on why the Reds signed Borbon:

“He can double as a pin-striped game-day blimp.”

Cutting back: An era in sports ends tonight when, for the final time, a girls’ high school team plays basketball with six on a side instead of five in the Oklahoma Class-3A title game.

According to Owen Canfield of Associated Press, the six-on-six game, played only in Oklahoma, is going the way of the set shot and canvas high tops.

Many coaches say good riddance. Others wonder why it’s necessary to do away with a game that has thrived for decades.

Trivia answer: El Monte Post 261 claims Tim Wallach of the Dodgers, Richard Rodriguez of the St. Louis Cardinals and Rene Gonzales of the Cleveland Indians as alumni.

Quotebook: The Dodgers’ Tom Candiotti, after discussing the knuckleball with Phil Niekro: “It was like talking to Thomas Edison about light bulbs.”