'Ask the Sports Guy' brings many happy returns

I know, I know.

You keep sending in neat and interesting questions, I promise I’ll answer as many as possible in print, and then...

I forget the snap count and get left at the line of scrimmage as the whole world sweeps 40 yards upfield.

Truly, I promise to do better.

In fact, today we’ll hit some fun questions that have come up a few times (or more).

Stick around, too, because the last one is a doozy.

QUESTION: Have you ever caught a foul ball at a big league game?

ANSWER: I’ve received several versions of this question, which just proves that no matter how old you are, catching a foul ball or a home run is still pretty cool.

My answer, though, is no — and thank God for that.

I did have a line drive shoot past my ear in the press box at Anaheim.

I’m so glad my partner, Dick Kaegel, didn’t have time to yell “Look out!” or something like that.

I was scribbling in my scorebook at the time and if I’d raised my head...

Yikes!

The ball left a serious dent in the back of our booth, and I still have it.

(The ball, not the booth.)

And no, since the foul was hit by some Angels third-string catcher, I didn’t bother to have it autographed.

Now if it had hit me...

QUESTION: What would be the biggest surprise I’d find if I could spend 10 minutes or so on the sideline at an NFL game?

ANSWER: You’d think, “What the hell am I doing here?”

And then you’d scream for security to drag you off to safety.

An average fan’s biggest shock getting close to the action is that this is nothing like you see on TV, or from your seats way up on the 30-yard line.

Instead, you find yourself holding your breath at the snap of the ball, and hoping someone doesn’t get killed.

You, for instance.

I mean, these are giant people slamming into each other at speeds you can’t even imagine, and they’re just right...

There.

One guarantee: You’ll move 10 yards farther back on every play.

Former Houston and Green Bay quarterback Lynn Dickey once told me he didn’t understand why fans were so stunned to hear that players were taking drugs.

“Seriously?” he said. “Who would go out into that madness unless you had something to get you out of your right mind?”

QUESTION: What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen while covering a game?

ANSWER: Oh, no doubt on this one.

Back in the day when madman Charlie Finley owned the A’s, he got the notion that his club needed a full-time pinch runner — and somehow Charlie came up with a nice kid named Allan Lewis from Colon, Panama.

Finley insisted that Lewis, who could really run but didn’t truly understand the finer points of baseball, be called “The Panamanian Express.”

So one chilly night at the Oakland Coliseum, Lewis came on to run for someone at second base. The score was tied in the bottom of the eighth, so his run could have been the potential winner.

The next batter, Joe Rudi, hit a sinking liner to right, where Kansas City outfielder Ed Kirkpatrick made a slick scoop of the ball.

The Panamanian Express, unfortunately, lost all sense of time, space and dimension at that point — forgetting the number of outs (one) and how he was supposed to know if Kirkpatrick actually CAUGHT the ball (look for the umpire’s signal).

At last, Lewis — who had frozen between second and third — realized that the ball had hit the grass safely, and he also recalled that his sole job was to score on a base hit.

And then, so help me, he just sprinted for home plate from roughly the shortstop position. He was racing past the pitcher’s mound when it dawned on him that he’d forgotten something.

Ah, yes...

Third base.

Lewis suddenly did a pirouette and dashed toward third, sliding in from the direction of the mound.

He beat the Royals’ throw (since they didn’t know where he’d actually gone), but umpire Ron Luciano called him out for being “an embarrassment to baseball.”

To this day, I can close my eyes and see the whole thing.

It was just bizarre, as though a plane had just landed in the upper deck or something.

Oh, wait...

I saw that happen once, too — but we’ll make that a tale for another day.

***

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball once monthly during the off season.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com