Wild World Of Sports

We're feeling frisky, so here's a quirky quartet:

TSG once believed in the majesty of sports and considered pro athletes our role models. Then we turned 12. Sports figures are as crass and craven as the rest of us. Witness:

1) Ice skating sweetheart Tonya Harding was arrested February 22 on charges she assaulted her beau. Poor Darren Silver, 28, told cops that Harding hit him in the face with a wheel cover and then started "hooking me like Mike Tyson," according to this highly entertaining Camas, Washington police report. For her part, a boozy and weepy Harding, 29, noted that she broke a nail clobbering Silver. Poor baby. (4 pages)

2) Hey, at least there wasn't a whore involved this time (we think). Darryl Strawberry, the New York Yankees's designated recidivist, failed a January drug test, according to this probation violation report from Florida's Department of Corrections. The Straw--perfect nickname--tested positive for cocaine. Geez, Darryl makes Steve Howe look like Fulton Sheen. (3 pages)

3) Dick Williams piloted the Oakland A's to a pair of World Series championships, but we'll remember the 70-year-old ex-manager as the geezer who got popped for masturbating on the balcony of his Florida hotel room. Here's a Fort Myers police report describing the mid-January incident at the Radisson Hotel, which notes online that families "feel right at home in the relaxed atmosphere of our tropical courtyard rooms."(2 pages)

4) Memo to "Multi-millionaire" Rick Rockwell: TSG's a bit confused. When your ex-fiancee got that restraining order, she listed your date of birth as 10/28/57 in her court papers. But your Las Vegas marriage license (which we've reproduced here) says you were born on 11/27/56. Often, this type of slight numerical tweaking signals an effort to cloak one thing or another. So, Ricky, what's it all about? (1page)