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Not batting cleanup for math team

	Corey Koskie
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There's power in numbers — especially when a Minnesota Twin is doing some fancy cipherin'.

Said Twins third baseman Corey Koskie, as quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press: "If I hit 30 home runs, and Jacque Jones hits 30 home runs, and Torii Hunter hits 30 home runs, that's 120 home runs, so that's pretty good."

Puzzled mathematicians could only figure that Koskie, who grew up in Anola, Manitoba, must have been factoring in the Canadian exchange rate.

Marlins aren't the ticket

Despite winning the World Series in November, the Florida Marlins have sold fewer than 5,000 season tickets for 2004.

How bad is that? The woeful Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers — even the minor-league Sacramento River Cats, Dayton Devils and Buffalo Bisons — have each sold more.

Wrote Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald, capturing the apathy of the local ticket-buying citizenry: "Sure, the Marlins won the World Series a couple of months ago, but what have they done for us lately?"

Going forth and long

Pete Rodriguez, dismissed as the Seahawks' special-teams coach on Jan. 5, had to punt himself about as far from Seattle as possible — to Jacksonville, Fla. — to land a similar NFL gig.

Pop psychologists weren't surprised that a kicking-game coach landed so far away, however, saying he just subconsciously hopped the first flight out of town that featured maximum hang time.

Go get 'em, Coach

South Florida's Robert McCullum isn't exactly the envy of his fellow college basketball coaches.

SFU's program, which doesn't even have an NCAA-tournament win to its credit, is about to join the Big East, whose 15 other members all have at least one Final Four appearance on their résumés.

"In other words," wrote Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, "McCullum's job is a little like trying to win a swordfight with an olive fork."

Talking the talk

• Fox Sports chairman David Hill, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times, on his lack of higher education: "There's a good reason I didn't go to college. It's called high school."

• Michael Ventre of MSNBC.com, on Pete Rose's possible candidacy for the Casino Legends Hall of Fame in Las Vegas: "The sticking point seems to be Rose's denial that he ever played baseball."

Pitching bouquets

Jesse Orosco, who finally retired last week after pitching in a record 1,252 major-league games, was typically gracious upon his exit.

"I never could have played that many seasons," the ageless lefty reportedly waxed, "without my family, my teammates — and especially my first manager, John McGraw."

— Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company