In college in the 1980s it wasn’t uncommon for fiscally-struggling students to hand over three crumpled one dollar bills to the gas station attendant to scantly fuel the handed down 1972 Ford Torino station wagon. It was just enough gas to get one to a restaurant, to order a meal, then to hope there was enough cash in their pockets to leave the restaurant without washing the dishes.

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Manny Ramirez arrived in Kinston, North Carolina, in 1992 for the second stop of his professional baseball career. With equipment bags flung over his shoulders, he strode into a small, red-bricked building that housed a single-A baseball front office staff of four people, a hot water heater, a small unisex restroom that lacked knee room, and a number of critters and insects that resided behind baseboards and simulated walnut paneling.

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Monday’s spring training tilt between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale, Arizona, was delayed for 41 minutes when a swarm of bees took a low-altitude position around the first base bag.

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In Steve Martin’s novella “The Pleasure of My Company,” Daniel must eliminate the letter E from the words he speaks to rationalize a road trip to Texas. And Martin, the writer, pens several pages of dialogue without using the letter E at all. This inspires me today as I’ve discovered the first letter of my own name does not work on the square things I touch to type words on my laptop computer.

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The Las Vegas Wranglers clinched an ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs spot on Thursday with a shootout win in Alaska, which is particularly gratifying when we all know the Alaska Aces are evil - pure evil - and it’s about time good-doers arise and acknowledge the evil elephant in the room.

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Nearly five years ago, the 6-month-old puggle I adopted from the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals needed a name. It was time for me to redeem my 6-year-old self for naming a hamster ‘Joey’, so I established some guidelines. The name had to be original. Fungo the Labrador belonged to a baseball friend. Great name, but taken

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The tiny room that separated the road slush and bitter cold from a thin, long room lined with tables on which fresh pressed coffee and masterpiece breakfasts rested housed a small table, and on it, a sign-in sheet.

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Tim Tebow showed again Sunday that he is like a drunk driver who never gets pulled over. No matter how many involuntary lane changes he makes he always gets home. Tebow also figured prominently in the time John Katsliometes introduced me to an NFL Sunday at the sports book. Kats’ warning was explicit. This is an art form. And that is exactly what an NFL Sunday at a Las Vegas sports book is.

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In October of 2011 Jeffrey Drew Wilschke legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop. We know this because he was arrested Thursday in Madison, Wisconsin, on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, plus a couple of drug-related possession charges thrown in for good measure.

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In Italy, 99-year old “Antonio C” has recently learned that his 96-year-old wife of 77 years “Rosa C” had an affair over 60 years ago when he stumbled across some old love letters she had written in the 1940s. Say it ain’t so, Mr. and Mrs. C.

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