Deep divide between Davis and today's NFL

Warren Sapp, we're guessing, won't be guest speaker at the next Al Davis Fan Club meeting.

"Al Davis knows football — it's just '60s and '70s football," the retired defensive tackle told "Inside the NFL" on Showtime. "... He's thinking that Cliff Branch is outside and [Jim] Plunkett is dropping back and you can throw it 80 yards down the field — deep ball, deep ball, deep ball.

"I remember the first two weeks I was there, we played a preseason game. Somebody came up one time and said, 'We're going deep right here, dog.'

"I said, how do you know?

"He said, 'The phone just rang.' "

A big thumbs-up

Larry Probst, a longtime executive at video-game giant EA Sports, will succeed Peter Ueberroth as the U.S. Olympic Committee's chairman of the board.

Suggested USOC slogan: If it's in the game, it's in the Games.

Blocked ice

Ever wonder why NHL trades are so rare nowadays?

The Maple Leafs' Cliff Fletcher, speaking to the Toronto Sun, says a fellow GM explained it to him this way:

"There are 200 players in the league on entry-level contracts and they're like gold to their teams because of the [salary] cap, so nobody moves them.

"There are another 200 players with no-trade clauses, so nothing happens there. And there's another 200 players that nobody really wants.

"So after that, what's left?"

Matlock they're not

"If I'm ever under investigation for a serious crime," mused Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, "I want to be investigated by either the NBA or the International Gymnastics Federation."

Headline Dept.

• At Fark.com, after Vanderbilt's football team started 5-0 for the first time since World War II: "The geeks shall inherit the turf."

Pulling no punches

Boxer Roy Jones Jr. makes no apologies for his chosen profession.

"God has gifted me with incredible handspeed as a tool to be used," he told England's BBC Radio. "What else am I supposed to do but fight? There ain't no hand-racing competitions."

Football 101

Q: What do you call a Seahawks team that yields 7.1 yards a rush, 10 yards a pass and 44 points to the Giants?

A: A bend-but-don't-brake defense.

Playoff pitches

• Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press, consoling Cubs fans after their World Series famine reached 100 years: "Put on a happy face and channel your inner Ernie Banks: Let's play 200!"

• Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Milwaukee's fattest: "CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Eric Gagne ... do the Brewers do their pregame stretching at the buffet table?"

• Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on the no-show Yankees and the 3-0 Dodgers in this year's playoffs: "Imagine this is going over differently in the Steinbrenner and Torre households?"

• Janice Hough of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com, on baseball's power shift: "Hard to believe, but kids who have become baseball fans in the 21st century think the Boston Red Sox are a dynasty and the New York Yankees are cursed."

Stuck in neutral

Looks like pretrial hearings might take a while in auto racer Helio Castroneves' $5.5 million tax-evasion case.

Rankled IRS attorneys object every time a defense lawyer refers to offshore bank accounts as "our client's pit stops."

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