Giant Offense Not the Only Thing Disguised

People who didn’t have tickets but still wanted to get into the Super Bowl had some imaginative schemes, Tampa, Fla., police told the St. Petersburg Times. A sampling:

* Massachusetts residents Paul T. Giardina, 38, and Todd J. Terpak, 37, both wearing hospital scrubs, tried to walk into the stadium during the game, claiming to be paramedics, according to an arrest report.

Security guards turned them away, only to later catch them crawling behind some forklifts, trying to sneak in.

* Fred Morgan, 40, of North Carolina was accused of buying a jacket from a security guard to get him past the gates.

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Trivia time: Which men’s basketball player holds the Pacific 10 Conference record for field-goal percentage in a season?

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Name game: Keeping the bee motif but dropping the “zz” fad, owners of the Salt Lake City Buzz have decided to rename their Pacific Coast League team the Stingers.

“It has ties to the old names, it works with the Beehive state and it’s exciting. It suggests the crack of a bat, a real stinging hit,” Harry Drammis, team co-owner, told the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Comment: “Stingers” could be a real pain to paying customers if the team doesn’t win.

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Good riddance: Former Boston Celtic coach Rick Pitino is not missed by some of his players. This from guard Randy Brown, after the Celtics recently rallied from a 16-point deficit to beat the Detroit Pistons:

“A month ago, we would have lost this game by 30 points. We would have been bickering, finger-pointing, second-guessing, all that stuff. It’s a new day.”

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It’s a stretch: Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle, commenting on the Super Bowl:

“CBS’ new ‘EyeVision’ system gave viewers a 270-degree look at plays. Amazing.

“To think people at home are now able to see almost all the way around Tony Siragusa.”

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Student of the game: Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, when asked what her favorite play was during the Super Bowl, said: “I loved it when we made that football. The Giants had just made a football, and we came right back.”

On the WinStar Radio network, Keith Olbermann said of Townsend’s comments: “Kid, didn’t you learn anything at the Kennedy family compound?”

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Want to bet? “Crunching the numbers,” from GolfWorld magazine: “5-4 odds on Tiger Woods to win this year’s Masters. 12-1 odds on Woods to win the Grand Slam this year. 7-2 odds on Woods to win three major championships this year. 7-2 odds that Woods will not win a single major championship this year.”

And this, when Woods was asked if he has helped Charles Barkley with his golf game: “What game?”

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He’ll have time now: Sharon Farmer, director of White House photography, on the types of activities former President Clinton preferred during photo opportunities:

“We’ve had rain golf, snow golf, mud golf, every kind of golf. Other than reading and music, he’d rather be playing golf than anything.”

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Trivia answer: Jelani McCoy of UCLA, .756 in 1997.

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And finally: Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, commenting on a Swedish lawmaker nominating the sport of soccer for the Nobel Peace Prize:

“For those of us who watch from afar as soccer struggles to decide on an identity--does it want to be a street brawl, a spectator stampede or simply a twisted tangle of collapsed stadium stands?--this is a little surprising, like learning Stone Cold Steve Austin is up for a Harvard fellowship.”