Sideline Chatter: When frightened, Mays hit more like Mendoza

Willie Mays hit just .196 off fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, and it's plain to see why.

"I was wearing glasses at the time," Gibson told HBO of the first time he met Mays, "but I never did wear 'em on the field. When he opened his door, I'm standing behind Bill White and Mays says, 'Who is that?'

"Bill says, 'That's Gibson.'

"Mays said, 'You wear glasses? You gonna kill somebody.'

"And after that, he never did lean over the plate too much. He was always a little leery of the ball inside."

No spanks

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved a statewide ban on certain kinds of whips in harness racing, The Associated Press reported.

Whips and harnesses? Maybe they ought to call it the Max Mosley Rule.

Bunker mentality

For Eric Larson, who spent 11 years in prison for a drug conviction, caddying for Anthony Kim amid the raucous Ryder Cup gallery had a familiar feel.

As Kim told AP: "This is like the California Penal League softball championship."

Upon further review

"Major League Baseball announced it will donate $500,000 to victims of Hurricane Ike," noted Reggie Hayes of the Fort Wayne (Ind.) News-Sentinel. "Hopefully, that makes up for baseball's initial response, when it sent all the benefits to the Chicago Cubs, via a temporary address in Milwaukee."

The suds stop here

When Maple Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher harkens back to hockey's good old days, it's not deja brew.

"We used to put two cases of beer on the bus after road games," Fletcher told the Toronto Sun. "Before you knew it, the two cases were gone.

"Now you put two cases of beer on the bus and you've got one that's not even touched and another with about five gone."

Talking the talk

• Ian Hamilton of the Regina (Sask.) Leader-Post, after groundskeepers at an Austrian golf club mistakenly applied pesticide instead of fertilizer and killed $700,000 worth of grass: "No word on how many employees were turfed."

• Idaho cheer adviser Shelly Robson, to AP, after complaints that their outfits were too skimpy forced the squad to order new ones: "Girls are just bigger these days; not everybody's a size zero."

• Comedian Amy Poehler, on Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch getting sold and AIG's near-collapse sparking a Wall Street meltdown: "Basically, if your commercials air during golf tournaments, you're done."

• Greg Cote of The Miami Herald, after Syracuse unveiled a bronze statue of 1961 Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis sporting Nike cleats: "Cannot confirm the sculptor is working on a statue of Abraham Lincoln listening to an iPod."

Natural Ham Dept.

And finally, congratulations to the winner of the Nez Perce (Idaho) County Fair hog-calling contest:

Jolene Bacon.

Sideline Chatter appears Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com