Sideline Chatter
Newest Olympic event: modern drug bust

By Dwight Perry
The Seattle Times

Johnny Bench gets no breaks on the golf course.

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Even the Olympic torch is getting into the drug-busting business.

Police in a helicopter overseeing the flame on its run through Crete showed their gold mettle when they saw a big marijuana crop on a farm below.

"They decided to stay and investigate," a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Public Order told Reuters, "and eventually spotted other farms in remote areas outside the towns of Heraklion and Rethymnon with a total of around 7,000 cannabis plants, which is quite a good haul."

Lawyers for the busted pot farmers, we hear, plan to build their defense around a liberal translation of "Swifter, Higher, Stronger."

Tanning his hide

Germany's Ulla Salzgeber, the world's top-ranked dressage rider, has booked a month of tanning sessions for Rusty, her horse, to prepare him for the heat during the Olympic Games, according to ananova.com.

"Just like any person, he has to get used to the expected high temperatures," Salzgeber said. "I want to make sure he doesn't get a sunburn."

Sunblock wouldn't be Rusty's first masking agent, however. The steed's resume already includes a two-month suspension for failing a drug test.

He got clocked
 
Philip Rabinowitz of South Africa shattered the record for the fastest 100-meter run by a 100-year-old by more than 7 seconds, Reuters reported, but his 28.7-second time has been disallowed because a power outage at the stadium in Khayelitsha stopped the official electronic clock.

Complicating matters further, we hear, jealous competitors are spreading rumors that Rabinowitz tested positive for prunes.

Talking the talk

• Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench, to the San Francisco Chronicle, on the downside to his golf game: "Unfortunately, in this game they make you play your foul balls."

• Chris Rose of Fox Sports Net, on what former tennis star John McEnroe's new CNBC talk show has in common with the U.S. Open: "They're both gonna last two weeks."

• David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, after Fox commentator Tim McCarver said, "It is not our job to drive viewers away from the television set," in reference to the NL's comeback chances in the final inning of Tuesday's 9-4 All-Star blowout: "You mean all of these years, he's been doing that for free?"

Just call him 'illiams

Here we were, feeling sorry for Jimy Williams, the fired Astros manager, for being born one "M" short.

Turns out what he really needed was about 10 more W's.

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