Sideline chatter

100 years, that's no bologna

Sam Dana, the oldest living former NFL player, turns 100 today.

"I played the old game. I loved it," Dana told AP during a visit to Buffalo Bills training camp this week. "But I wasn't such a big shot like Red Grange and people like that, you know."

Dana, who played alongside Lou Gehrig at Columbia, began his pro career with the Hartford Blues in 1926. However, until Dana's son sent a letter to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in March, the NFL didn't even realize he was still alive, probably because Dana had his last name legally changed in 1945.

Seems he tired of the ribbing from the nickname that his real name attracted in his playing days: Sam "Smoke" Salemi.

Not-so-nice ring to it

Eagle, Colo., mayor Roxie Deane, whose city hosted yesterday's arraignment of Kobe Bryant on sexual-assault charges, said she was startled to pick up her morning paper and read that the Lakers' star had purchased his wife a $4 million ring in an attempted makeup call.

"And I thought, 'Four million dollars -- that's about twice as much as the annual budget for this whole town!'" Deane told the Washington Post. "We are living in different worlds."

Watching bulls go by

Raquel Martinez, 50, the only American female matador, has opened a school near La Gloria, Texas, to teach girls bull-fighting, the Chicago Tribune reported.

As an added enticement, we hear, students who prove most proficient at watching bulls go by earn a complimentary offensive-line tryout with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hold your nose

Best team nickname we've heard in a while is the Beltway Bottom Feeders.

The BBF, it turns out, is a D.C.-area underwater hockey team.

Stumped us. We would've guessed it was the president's pet name for the White House press corps.

You said it, Buster

NBC's Jay Leno, on President Bush going on vacation: "Who else in America can take the entire month of August off? OK, besides the Dodgers."

Ray Clifton of the Indianapolis Spotlight, after Lance Armstrong reportedly received a $3.2 million bonus from his sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service: "There goes the 37-cent stamp."

Gavin McDougald, on golfer John Daly's wife facing methamphetamine and other charges in Mississippi: "Till meth do they part."

Tidy Cat's out of the bag

Mike Tyson has filed Chapter 11 papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but skeptics are having a tough time believing that his $300 million in career earnings is totally knocked out.

You think it's easy keeping Bengal tigers in fresh kitty litter.

-- Dwight Perry,

Seattle Times