Doctors Just Needed to Give Him Headroom

It’s a myth that Don Zimmer has a metal plate in his head. He does, however, have a hole in his head. Four of them, to be exact, but they’re filled with material called tantalum buttons.

His skull was fractured when he was beaned in 1953 as a Dodger farmhand.

“It pushed my brain to the right, so they drilled three holes on the left and one on the right [to relieve the pressure from a blood clot],” the Yankees’ 71-year-old bench coach told Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle.

“If anybody thinks I act goofy, I’ve got an excuse.”

Trivia time: Who holds the Laker record for steals in a playoff game?

Ho, ho ho: Offensive tackle Mike Williams of Texas, drafted by Buffalo with the fourth pick overall, has a sense of humor to go with his gargantuan size, 6 feet 6 and 375 pounds.

“When I get on the field, I like to punish people,” he said. “It feels great. You just grab [someone] and you’ve got him. You look in his eyes and he’s like, ‘Oh, please, let me go. I’ll never do it again.’ And I say, ‘Oh, no, no. You’re going down.’”

Cut-up guy: Michael Doleac, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ free-agent center, is going back to the University of Utah this summer to get his biology degree.

“I’m taking a course in wilderness medicine and human dissection [of cadavers],” he said. “That should be cool. It’s kind of morbid. But it’s a good way to learn. You don’t want to practice on someone who is alive.”

His Waterloo: Bud Geracie in the San Jose Mercury News: “With the 23rd pick in the NFL draft, [Oakland Raider owner] Al Davis fell victim to his Napoleon complex: McCallum in ‘86, Kaufman in ’95 and now Harris in 2002.”

Foul guy: Sacramento King guard Bobby Jackson on Greg Ostertag, 7-2 center of the Utah Jazz: “He’s the biggest hacksaw artist in the league. He looks at you and it’s a foul. I mean, call something on the guy.”

Long way away: Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel: “Did you see where the Hubble telescope just underwent massive repairs? Supposedly, it’s so strong now that it can see the end of the NBA playoffs.”

Overqualified: From the Caught on the Fly column in the Sporting News: “So the Grizzlies are aggressively pursuing Jerry West. Wouldn’t that be like hiring Leonardo da Vinci to run an Etch-a-Sketch?”

Looking back: On this day in 1922, Chicago White Sox rookie Charlie Robertson became the third modern-era pitcher to throw a perfect game, beating the Tigers, 2-0, at Detroit.

Looking back again: On this day in 1995, Major League Baseball agreed to a contract with its umpires, ending a lockout that had extended a week into the regular season and forced the use of replacement arbiters.

Trivia answer: Magic Johnson and Byron Scott, seven each; Johnson against Portland in 1983 and Scott against Golden State in 1991.

And finally: Steve Slowly of Texas Christian ran the first leg of the 800-meter relay Saturday at the Penn Relays. Predictably, he pulled a muscle and failed to make the baton exchange.