After Cleaning Out Desk, He May Clean Up

When your spouse is nagging you to clean out an old desk, it could be advisable to do it.

Dennis Miller of Richmond, Va., discovered a potentially valuable Honus Wagner baseball card while cleaning out a roll-top desk at the urging of his wife.

Last month, a rare 1909 T-206 Honus Wagner card was bought by Wayne Gretzky and King owner Bruce McNall for $451,000 through Sotheby’s, an international auction house in New York.

Miller plans to contact a baseball card dealer to determine if his card is one of the valuable T-206 series.

The card he found carries an advertisement for Piedmont cigarettes, and Wagner, a Hall of Fame player with the Pittsburgh Pirates, was an opponent of smoking, so he forced the end of his card’s printing.

Trivia time: Name the only two Pacific 10 Conference football players who were consensus All-Americans for three years.

Angel bashing: David Bush of the San Francisco Chronicle questions the wisdom of firing General Manager Mike Port, saying that indecision and mismanagement have been characteristic of the Angels for 30 years.

“With everything that franchise has going for it in terms of weather, market, stadium, it could be a phenomenal success if it were run right,” Bush was told by an American League general manager who requested anonymity. “But it never has been.”

Edgar who?: Kevin McHale of the Boston Celtics has guarded some of the NBA’s premier players for many years. So who gave him the most trouble?

“Edgar Jones,” McHale told the Boston Globe. “He was the one I hated guarding the most. The guy was crazy. He played out of control. Usually when he came in, the game had already been decided, but he was still crazed out there.”

Jones was an NBA journeyman, playing with four teams in six seasons, and had a career average of nine points a game. His best years were with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Chill out: After popular, but unpredictable, relief pitcher Rob Dibble threw a baseball into the stands, injuring a Cincinnati woman’s arm, he was greeted in his next appearance at Riverfront Stadium by another fan’s banner:

“Rob! We Love You--but Cool It.”

Senior snub: Tommy Bolt, once known as “Terrible Tempered Tommy” for his club-throwing tantrums, is annoyed again.

He is riled because he’s not eligible to play regularly on the Senior PGA Tour because he didn’t win enough money in his career.

“You need close to $1 million,” Bolt said, “but they’re using inflated dollars. I think I should be eligible because of the number of tournaments I won. But in some, I won only $2,500.”

Bolt, 73, earned only $8,000 for winning the 1958 U.S. Open. This year’s winner could receive as much as $180,000.

Add Bolt: “The best golfer over 60 now is Don January,” he said. “He’s always been better than Arnold Palmer.”

Since when?

Trivia answer: UCLA’s Jerry Robinson (1976-78) and Kenny Easley (1978-80).

Quotebook: Tom Tolbert of the Golden State Warriors, on the absence of Chris Mullin in the first playoff game against the Lakers: “It’s like taking the chocolate chips out of chocolate-chip cookies. There’s still some good stuff, but it’s not the same.”