New Manager Has to Worry About a Rip Job

Besides following in the media-friendly footsteps of Davey Johnson, what will be Ray Miller’s biggest obstacle as manager of the Baltimore Orioles?

Cal Ripken Jr.

So contends Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe, who writes: “While Miller is a terrific pitching coach, he had a bad time managing in Minnesota and will have nothing but problems with Cal Ripken.

“Cal is a non-pitcher guy. If Miller asks him to rest, Cal is going to ‘no comment’ the media and look at Miller with a ‘what-the -heck-does -a-pitcher -know-about -playing-every-day?’ stare. Remember, there is no love lost between Cal Sr. and Miller from their days working [as coaches] for Joe Altobelli.”

Trivia time: Name the only hockey player to win an Olympic gold medal and the Stanley Cup in the same season.

No Bucky Dent songs either: The Boston-area band Carlton Fisk is the first rock group to name itself after a former Boston Red Sox great, with the possible exception, of course, of the 1980s English band Yaz.

Carlton Fisk, the group, recently released a five-song EP titled “Smacks of Irony,” featuring liner notes that offer thanks to “the Red Socks organization and Carlton Fisk himself” while claiming to have no use for “anyone who makes Bill Buckner jokes.”

Other pop music news: Manchester United midfielder David Beckham’s romantic liaison with a member of the English pop group the Spice Girls has made him a target of “foul-mouth jibes about Posh Spice” from opposition fans, according to Goal magazine.

“Referee David Elleray even stepped in to tell Beckham to ignore it,” the magazine adds. “Still, if Beckham thinks some of the chanting’s obscene, wait till he hears her new record.”

It’s this or the Spice Girls: Compact discs filled with nothing but the roar of racing engines and the squeal of screeching Indy-car tires would seem to have a limited market appeal, but they apparently have found an audience in the Netherlands.

Lee van Dam Productions in Assen is selling a series of racing “soundtrack” CDs, carrying such titles as “Formula One Sounds: The Complete Experience” (boasting “55 minutes of Formula 1”) and “Sounds of Indy Cars.” And for the hopelessly nostalgic, another disc offers “Sounds of ‘94” and “F1 in the late 80s.”

Welcome to the league: New Boston Celtic Coach Rick Pitino was frantic on the sideline in Milwaukee, yelling for Chauncey Billups to pass the ball to Antoine Walker--a pass that never came.

“Rick, it’s the NBA,” a voice called out from the stands. “They don’t listen anymore.”

Trivia answer: Ken Morrow of the New York Islanders.

And finally: It’s a different breed of hockey fan in North Carolina, Kevin Dineen of the Carolina Hurricanes has learned.

“Everybody wants to know about ‘them fie-yetts. Are them fie-yetts real?’ ” Dineen says. “I give them Wayne Gretzky’s old line: ‘If they weren’t, I’d be in a lot more of them.’ ”