He Just Couldn’t Win for Winning

Chris Hale is proof that it takes a winner to be a loser.

Hale, a former cornerback for USC and the Buffalo Bills, was certainly a winner during his football career. He played in two Pop Warner championship games, one high school championship game, one junior college championship game, two Rose Bowls and three Super Bowls.

But his record in those championship games was 0-8-1. The one tie came in Pop Warner.

His Monrovia High team lost to Los Angeles Verbum Dei in a Southern Section championship game, his Glendale College team lost to Riverside City College in a junior college state championship game and his USC teams lost to Michigan State and Michigan in the 1988 and ’89 Rose Bowl games.

When the Bills lost four consecutive Super Bowls from 1991 to ‘94, Hale was on the team for three of them -- losses to the New York Giants, Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys.

“What I always say is, ‘I’ll get you there,’ ” Hale said.

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Trivia time: Who are the three four-time winners of the Indianapolis 500?

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Minor problem: Nigel Thatch, the actor who played the cocky, self-centered athlete “Leon” in several Budweiser commercials, is also a minor league pitcher. He was acquired by the Fullerton Flyers of the independent Golden Baseball League on May 1 from an Illinois team for 60 cases of beer.

Now comes word that Thatch, who took acting classes at UCLA, is not going to play for Fullerton.

“Nigel is not interested in some kind of media circus,” his agent told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

So the deal was just a publicity stunt? No kidding?

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Not that forgetful: Former NHL coach Jacques Demers, who revealed in his 2005 autobiography that he was barely able to read and write during his coaching career, had various tricks to hide his secret.

In a taped interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that will be shown on today’s editions of “SportsCenter,” Demers says his favorite trick was pretending to forget his glasses.

“I forgot my glasses more often than anyone else, but it was all planned,” he says.

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One solution: Bud Geracie of the San Jose Mercury News on Barry Bonds’ lack of home runs: “Let’s give the guy some steroids and get this thing over with.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1995, Scott Goodyear, now an ABC racing commentator, was the first to cross the finish line at the Indianapolis 500 but he was not the winner. Goodyear was penalized a lap for passing the pace car nine laps from the end of the race. Jacques Villeneuve, penalized for the same thing earlier, got the victory.

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Trivia answer: A.J. Foyt (1961, 1964, 1967, 1977), Al Unser (1970, 1971, 1978, 1987) and Rick Mears (1979, 1984, 1988, 1991).

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And finally: Jason Gore of Valencia is one of the PGA Tour’s larger players, listed at 235 pounds. After recently finishing a round with three birdies, he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “It always makes lunch taste better. Not that I have a problem with that.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].