Spiro Tee Agnew he wasn't.

Richard Nixon's future vice president played golf in the 1960s at the Naval Academy golf course in Annapolis, Md., where a young boy named Bill Belichick — now coach of the New England Patriots — sometimes caddied for him.

"Agnew was cheap as hell and a lousy golfer," Steve Belichick, Bill's father, told The Boston Globe. "Bill would come home and tell me about some of the lousy shots he'd hit.

"He'd say, 'Dad, you won't believe what he did today. He hit the ball on No. 10 into the water.'

"Well, I told him that there was no water on 10, but he said, 'If you stand on the tee and hit the ball 90 degrees from where you want to hit it, there's water.' "

Way off to the right, no doubt.

Try the truck scales

David Baker, the commissioner of the Arena Football League, is a rather portly fellow.

"I've got one of those scales that gives an audio response," Baker told The Denver Post, "and this morning it said, 'Come back when you're not in your car.' "

Stay off the grass

Talk about protecting your turf.

Legend has it that George Toma, the NFL's Marquis de Sod, marked his first day as head groundskeeper of the Kansas City Chiefs by kicking a man out of the stadium for walking on the field.

"And," wrote AP's Mark Long, "later learned it was team owner Lamar Hunt."

Half it your way

Mario Lemieux figures there's a 50-50 chance the locked-out National Hockey League will get back on the ice this season.

Well, duh: He's 50 percent owner and 50 percent player.

Talking the talk

• Michael Ventre of MSNBC.com, on receiver Plaxico Burress saying he might have played his last game in Pittsburgh because he doesn't see the ball enough: "If he wants the Steelers to throw to him more often, he would probably be happier as a defensive back for the Patriots."

• David Elfin of the Washington Times, on the New York Jets signing free-agent running back Little John Flowers: "Who's next, Irving Fryar Tuck?"

Nothin' Bruin

UCLA basketball, once the toughest ticket in town, has gone virtually three years without selling out a home game, averaging barely two-thirds of arena capacity for its past 44 home dates.

Or, as Bruins fans refer to the sight of all those empty seats: Pauley unsaturated.

Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com