Quick! Call a lawyer!

Sporting News, The, Nov 27, 2000 by Dave Kindred

Don Denkinger, RECOUNT! Don Denkinger, Don Stinkinger. No way should that umpire's decision be certified, not even 15 years after the World Series in question. Jorge Orta was out at first base, was out on instant replay and will be out as long as the sun shines on this favored land. Everyone in Kansas City knew it. Everyone in St. Louis knew it. Everyone knew the judgment of the electorate. Yet only Denkinger's vote counted. He ruled Orta safe. By one man's vote, the Cardinals lost the 1985 World Series.

For folks who long have wished to correct such injustices, our presidential wannabes now suggest a means to that end: take the blackguards to court.

Anna Kournikova, a loser? How can that be? Not only is that unfair, it's probably unconstitutional. Next time she plays, Kournikova needs to fly in a battalion of attorneys with briefcases made heavy by motions for injunctions against topspin lobs. She should hire that guy from Al ("If I Play Touch Football, Maybe They'll Mistake Me for JFK") Gore's camp-that David Boies super-lawyer character with the cheap suits and expensive mind who won the government's case against Microsoft. Anybody who cuts up Bill Gates can leave Martina Hingis weepy.

This Just In: Cumberland College, a 222-0 loser to Georgia Tech's 1916 football team coached by John Heisman, demands a manual recount.

Yes, when all the lawyers are done in Florida deciding who's going to be president of Palm Beach, they could do big business in SportsWorld.

Roger Clemens is fined $50,000 for saving the bat-boy a few steps by tossing a broken bat his way? Bob Knight is fired because he gave a lesson in manners? Marry McSorley tries to get a guy's attention and loses his job for a year? How can the NBA's tin-eared censors slap duct tape across the mouth of the musical artist Allen Iverson?

Football officials now put their heads under canvas like Matthew Brady photographing Lincoln and Meade to decide if it's one foot in bounds or two. So why not let lawyers argue that it's only fair that Shaquille O'Neal, larger than your average man, should shoot free throws at a rim larger than your average rim?

Just think. With enough lawyers, we'd get a recount on the Long Count fight, Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunney in 1927.

We'd be convinced that everyone else ran the wrong way in the 1929 Rose Bowl, and Roy Riegels ran the right way.

We'd understand exactly why it is that Alex Rodriguez can't play at a $20 million level unless his billboards are really, really big.

The American sweetheart, Shirley Babashoff, would be given the gold medals she lost in the 1976 Olympics to all those East German swimmers who turned out to be Frau Frankensteins, fresh from pharmaceutical factories.

This Just In: Lawyers for Lou Gehrig's estate want to examine Orioles box scores for pregnant/hanging/dimpled chads that were susceptible to partisan manipulation during Cal Ripken Jr.'s alleged 2,632-game streak.

The Giants' Frank Gifford needed representation in the famous 1958 NFL championship game. During confusion caused by an injury to the Colts' Gino Marchetti, Gifford insists the ball was marked a yard short of where he'd carried it. That yard cost the Giants a first down and gave possession to Baltimore. Johnny Unitas then led the Colts on a last-minute drive to a tie, producing the overtime in which another Unitas drive produced Alan Ameche's game-winning touchdown.

Woody Hayes could have used F. Lee Bailey. Late in the 1978 Gator Bowl, the Ohio State coach took a swing at a kid from the other team. But Hayes was OLD AND CONFUSED. He should have slugged his own quarterback, Art Schlicter, who threw the pass intercepted by Clemson's Charlie Bauman. Now we know about Schlicter's gambling habit. He might have thrown the ball right where he wanted to. Maybe Woody knew it.

No way, absolutely no way, not if they recounted a thousand times, did North Carolina State defeat the Houston team starting Clyde Drexler and Akeem Olajuwon for the 1983 NCAA basketball championship. It could not happen. Trees would tap dance first, elephants would drive at Indy. It did not happen. Houston won that game, and an honest count would show it, just as a count without mischief would show that Georgetown defeated Villanova in '85. (Duke loyalists point to a mysterious 31-point gap in the play by-play of a 103-73 loss to Las Vegas in 1990.)

Poor Greg Norman. The smallest gain in a recount, he's Tiger Woods before Tiger Woods gets out of grade school.

Poor Ken Norton. An honest count, he beats Muhammad Ali three times rather than once.

Poor Pete Rose. He needed to stop counting.

The lawyers now convened in Florida use baseball language. The old secretary of state, James Baker, dismissed an opponents' accusation with a smirk and this: "He talked like it's the best thing since night baseball."

The superman in the cheap suit ($200 at Macy's), David Boies, was heard to say, "Our side hasn't been to bat yet."

It's too much to expect presidential wannabes to behave with the dignity of Roberto Clemente, the Pirates' Hall of Fame outfielder. Late in the 1972 season, he scratched a ground ball toward center field that ticked off the second baseman's glove. A scoreboard operator decided it was a hit, Clemente's 3,000th, causing celebrations to begin-until the official scorer said no, no, E4.