Passing Fancies

Update on the wonderful world of sports:

Excitement is continuing to build for the start of pro football, which will be getting under way in late December--as soon as the N.F.L. gets all of these cumbersome regular-season games out of the way.

It's good to see that the N.B.A. play-offs are down to the last 12 teams. There ought to be some fireworks between now and 1991, when the 1985 season concludes.

An idea for 60 Minutes: Do a piece on the only living human in the United States who still watches Monday Night Football.

All along, sportswriters have known that scheduling the 1988 summer Olympics in Seoul is a plot to have them murdered.

Caesars Palace has some interesting plans for the future: a championship fight in which the participants will actually hit each other.

A recent survey of Heisman Trophy voters shows that at least seven of the more than 1000 ballots will be marked by people who have seen a college football game.

No real point can be made of the fact that fewer people die from overeating than die from jogging.

Sooner or later, college basketball will have to confront a crisis: how to arrange a 64-team play-off for the national championship around Brent Musburger's monologs.

There's a simple reason that there are now more injuries in baseball than there are in the N.F.L.: more contact.

Question: When will People magazine and USA Today claim responsibility for the kidnaping of Sports Illustrated?

A poll of N.C.A.A. committee members substantiates the fact that well over one third of them can state their correct names and addresses as well as feed themselves.

The Ivy League may still have the smartest football players, despite the fact that Brooke Shields was graduated with honors from Princeton.

Here's how the college football play-offs will work: ABC, CBS, NBC and ESPN will all stage national championship games. The winners of those national championships will then meet on the network of the N.C.A.A.'s choice for the real national championship. "This is how a championship should be decided," a network spokesman will say, "on television and in prime time--the way sports were meant to be played." The eventual winner will be the team that led the A.P. poll.

No word yet from any of the private investigators who have been searching for Carl Lewis since the L.A. Olympics.

It doesn't seem possible that a professional golfer could once win a tournament without a logo on his shirt or cap

Prediction: Two N.F.L. defensive linemen will be sentenced to 25 years in prison for tackling a quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.

Major-league baseball needs a trophy for the player whose uniform most fits like a leotard.

Definition of a sports nut: someone who can name a hockey player other than Wayne Gretzky.

The track-and-field record that may last the longest is Mary Decker Slaney's in the 3000-meter whine.

A reunion will soon be scheduled for the six television viewers who haven't tired of John Madden's color commentary.

Alumni groups from the University of North Carolina are getting together to ask Dean Smith to show cause for why he hasn't won 16 N.C.A.A. basketball championships.

Prediction: At least five football teams in the Southeastern Conference will ditch the mesh jersey altogether in favor of players' wearing no jerseys at all, with the numerals tattooed on their skin.

Idle thought: With the exceptions of Barry Switzer at OU and Joe Paterno at Penn State, all of the great football coaches are either dead or retired.

The editors of USA Today will eventually be forced to confirm two rumors: one, that their sports section is a daily memo from CBS Sports, and two, that TV-sports columnist Rudy Martzke is Brent Musburger's agent.

Question: Would you rather watch wrestling on TV or pass blocking in the N.F.L.?

A suggested title for Walter Byers' memoirs: No Thinking Allowed.

It won't be a pretty sight when the Los Angeles Lakers begin to lose consistently and all of those Hollywood insects start crawling into the woodwork.

When they build a Hall of Fame for sports agents, will it be located in Costa Rica or in San Quentin?

With the Olympics only months away, hospitals are crowded with mothers giving birth to the swimmers and gymnasts who will be competing.

It's too early to tell, but N.F.L. players this season seem to have a chance to affect the outcome of as many games as do the zebras.

As soon as a good investigative reporter can find out who they are, the heads of all three networks will go on trial at Nuremberg for sports announcers against humanity.

The most dangerous sport in America is still riding in a New York City taxi.

One man's idea of fun: not watching Senior Golf.

Another man's idea of fun: getting left behind on a junket to the Indy 500.

A third man's idea of fun: never knowing who wins the N.B.A. championship.

A fourth man's idea of fun: never knowing who wins the Stanley Cup.

A fifth man's idea of fun: rain-out at Wimbledon.

A sixth man's idea of fun: missing Walter Byers' retirement party.

Best job in sports: food poisoner at an N.C.A.A. convention.