New York’s Toughness Is Contagious

In New York, where you often have to be mentally tough simply to ride the subways, they take sports seriously. They are especially serious about the Mets, bound for a sub-.500 mark at the All-Star break.

Bobby Bonilla, in his first season after being signed as a big-money free agent, says that everything--from the media crunch to playing on grass more often--has made his adjustment tough, adding, “I don’t know if I could have handled it as a rookie.” To which Newsday’s Steve Jacobsen fires back, “There’s no evidence he’s handling it now.”

Writes Jacobsen: “What the Mets have done is whimper and whine and feel sorry for themselves because of all the unreasonable demands of the fans, the television, the radio and the newspapers, and the expectations. Oooh, the expectations.”

Comebacks are possible, even well remembered in New York after the Yankees of 1978 charged from 14 games behind on July 19 to beat the Boston Red Sox for the East Division title. The New York atmosphere, the one so many hate, got an assist.

Former star reliever Sparky Lyle recently told Jacobsen: “We did everything through all the turmoil and all that stuff. I don’t know if I could have done that if I had stayed in Boston. New York has a tendency to do that to you. I had to up my level of competition--that’s what it did to me.”

Add New York: “Reggie (Jackson) and Thurman (Munson) played around whatever they felt for one another,” Lyle said. “If they were face to face, you knew they didn’t like one another. If they were face to face on the field, you’d never know it. They just had a job to do. It was concentration.”

Trivia time: Who is the only player to have won scoring titles in the NCAA, ABA and NBA?

Tough call: Wimbledon umpires, having gotten used to pronouncing Slobodan Zivojinovic, Goran Ivanisevic and Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere correctly, found two more tongue twisters among the juniors.

In the boys’ singles was Sarawuth Yongchantanasakul of Thailand. Another Thai player, Sudsopee Chartsuthiphan, played in the girls’ tournament.

Both, however, lost during the first round.

Red line or firing line?Roy Mlakar, recently promoted to president of the Kings, recalls when he was with their New Haven affiliate and talking with a fellow minor league executive. The topic was how to avoid ties in hockey.

“I’ve got an idea,” Mlakar said. “Why don’t we end games with a shoot-out?”

Said the other executive, showing no sign of sarcasm: “You mean with real guns?”

Philadelphia story: Sam Shepard, a 39-year-old, 6-foot point guard from Delaware State, will be in the basketball competition at the Barcelona Olympics after qualifying with his team at the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, Ore.

The hitch is that Shepard plays for Venezuela.

The Philadelphia resident first went to Venezuela in 1975 with an all-star team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He did not get drafted by the NBA, so he accepted an offer from the Venezuelan pro league and expected to stay a year. He has been there ever since and became a citizen in 1981.

Shepard is said to be a celebrity in Venezuela, where one of his teammates on the national team is Carl Herrera of the Houston Rockets. Fans have given Shepard the nickname, “El Magico.”

As in Magic?

“No, no,” he said. “It’s ‘the Magician.’ I’m not stepping on any toes.”

Trivia answer: Rick Barry.

Quotebook: The Baltimore Orioles’ Sam Horn, complimenting Karen Coleman, a Detroit elementary school teacher, after she performed the national anthem on her violin before a recent game at Tiger Stadium: “You jammed!”