If You Thought Air Was Free, Don’t Make Call

Do you want some basketball tips from Michael Jordan? It will cost you only $15,000 for a four-day camp, billed as the Michael Jordan Senior Flight School.

Callers to a recorded information line--(503) 699-1129--are told only that the first 72 fully paid applications will be accepted for the Aug. 28-31 camp in Las Vegas and that no calls to the number will be returned.

Callers are asked to leave a name and address to which an information brochure and registration form can be mailed.

Is this a good deal, or a rip-off?

Trivia time: What is the oldest meet record in the UCLA-USC men’s track and field competition? Beware, this is a trick question.

Slow-falling ax: C.W. Nevius in the San Francisco Chronicle on Golden State Warrior management delaying its decision to fire Coach Rick Adelman, which was considered inevitable:

“This just makes it official that the slowest-moving creatures on earth are the two-toed tree sloth and the Warriors when confronted with a major decision.”

Florida foolishness: Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams recently poked fun at Miami in stirring up interest for the NBA playoff series.

Replied Dave Barry of the Miami Herald: “Pat’s behavior is very typical of the Orlandoids, who have developed an inferiority complex from living in a city where the highest form of intellectual achievement is to be able to name all seven dwarfs.”

Foolish fans: Earlier in the season, the Cincinnati Reds played the Pirates in freezing weather in Pittsburgh. Cincinnati outfielder Deion Sanders had a comment for those hardy souls who showed up for the game:

“If you come out and watch the Pirates and Reds in 20-degree weather, something is not right with your life. I think you need to get yourself checked out.”

Pairing bust: Tom Verducci in Sports Illustrated: “[Frank] Thomas and [Albert] Belle were supposed to be the most powerful tandem since Mantle and Maris. Instead, it’s been the worst pairing since Rather and Chung.”

Trivia answer: The mile--4 minutes, two-tenths of a second by UCLA’s Bob Day in 1966. The 1,500-meter event replaced the mile in the dual meet in the mid-1970s.

And finally: Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia Inquirer, commenting on the April 19 San Diego-St. Louis doubleheader in Honolulu:

“There should have been great prestige in televising every pitch of this historic series. But not only did the Cardinals’ TV outlet, KPLR, not carry Game 2, it showed the Three Stooges instead.

“ ‘People would be mad at us if we bumped the Stooges,’ the station’s CEO, Max Lummis, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. ‘How could we do

that?’ ”