Winning This Race Is Cool, Running It Isn’t

Legend has it that the marathon distance of a little more than 26 miles was determined by how far the Athenian soldier, Pheidippides, ran from Marathon to herald the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in 490 B.C. before he collapsed and died.

It was 97 degrees when Hiromi Suzuki of Japan won the world championship over the same route in Athens last week.

“Before the race, I thought about the history,” she said. “The heat was not so tough.”

However, there were probably some who felt the same way Frank Shorter did in 1972 when he said to fellow runner Kenny Moore at about the 22-mile mark, “Why couldn’t Pheidippides have died here?”

Trivia time: Who holds the record for errors in a World Series?

Down under: San Diego Charger punter Darren Bennett says he’ll have a new trick to spring on the NFL, something he learned playing Australian Rules football in his native country.

It’s a dropkick in which he puts a reverse spin on the ball, so when it hits the ground it bounces back toward the kicker. He plans to use it in situations where the return man would let the ball land inside the 10, expecting it to bounce into the end zone.

Struck out: When Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson complained that the induction of the late Nellie Fox lowered the standards of the Hall, he forgot one statistic in his own resume.

Jackson struck out 2,597 times. Fox struck out only 216 times in 19 seasons and never more than 18 times in one season.

Money talks: Bob Clarke, general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, doesn’t hold back his feelings about the New York Rangers offering $21 million to free agent Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche.

“The New York Rangers are vultures,” he said. “They look at an opposing team and know it can’t match their money. This has nothing to do with intelligence. It doesn’t take intelligence to know Joe Sakic is a great player. It just means you have to have more money.”

The vultures couldn’t get to Sakic, as the Avalanche matched the Rangers’ offer.

Oops: At a dinner honoring the St. Louis Rams, Laura Kent Donahue, an Illinois state senator, introduced Coach Dick Vermeil as “Coach Vermillia.”

All in the family: Jack Burke Jr., 74, walked all 142 holes over six days to watch his wife, Robin, 34, in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Newton, Mass., last week.

“I think I’ve walked around this golf course enough for now,” he said with a smile after his wife lost to Silvia Cavalleri in the 36-hole final.

Burke won the Masters and PGA in 1956, seven years before Robin was born.

It was a family affair for Cavalleri too, as her mother, Victoria, caddied for her.

Trivia answer: Shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh of the Washington Senators, who made eight errors in seven games in the 1925 Series against the victorious Pittsburgh Pirates.

And finally: J.T. Hayes, a former midget and sprint car racer, underwent a sex change and is now Terri O’Connell, 35.

“You see, I not only wanted to be A.J. Foyt, I wanted to be Marilyn Monroe,” O’Connell told the Philadelphia Daily News.