Scorecard

You may not know Max Patkin, another baseball clown who began doing his zany, rubber-legged, rubber-faced act in an earlier era when oldtime baseball entertainers Al Schacht and Nick Altrock were still around. Bill Veeck loved Patkin's routine and used him a lot at Indians and White Sox games, but in recent years Max has been performing mostly in minor league parks.

At the baseball meetings in Honolulu earlier this month, both Patkin and the Chicken were in attendance, to keep their lines of communication open to baseball's entrepreneurs and to drum up a little trade. At one point the 62-year-old Patkin and the 29-year-old Giannoulas passed each other on adjacent escalators, Ted ascending, Max descending. Symbolism was rampant. A friend watching said, "Max, look at that. You're coming down, the Chicken's going up. Why don't you get a costume?"

HOLIER THAN THOU

Tim O'Reilly and John McGowan, a couple of good Catholic boys at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, were cheered by St. Joe's 64-56 win over Maryland on Dec. 8, which is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day for Catholics. Curious as to how other saintly teams did that day, O'Reilly and McGowan did some checking around and came up with this remarkable list:

St. Bonaventure 86, Canisius 73
St. Francis (N.Y.) 90, Wagner 75
St. Francis (Pa.) 79, Cabrini 63
St. John's (Minn.) 81, Augsburg 70
St. John's (N.Y.) 87, Fairleigh Dickinson 65
St. Joseph's (Ind.) 90, N.E. Illinois 80
St. Mary of the Plains 92, Sterling 81
St. Michael's 80, Vermont 72
St. Peter's 65, NC-Charlotte 57
St. Thomas (Mo.) 71, Macalester 62
St. Vincent 73, Indiana (Pa.) 56

Because there are a couple of Catholic colleges on the losing side in that list, O'Reilly and McGowan suggest that perhaps Dec. 8 ought to be renamed All Saints' Day. Regretfully, they add two more scores:

Castleton State 83, St. Joseph the Provider 53
Nazareth 64, St. John Fisher 61

Probably forgot to say their prayers.