DUST MY PUMICE

Mickey Mantle ("Call me Michael") will be in town the week of February 8. The former triple .crown swatter will receive the annual Humanitarian Brotherhood Award for work done with retarded children, ceremonies to be held at the Chateau Chez Poodle in West Babylon. Tickets for this exciting dinner-dance can be had for $25, $50 and $100, all proceeds to go to Tuberculosis.

Speaking of retards, have any use for them? Well if you do then why not send half your annual income to Special Olympics, P.O. Box 3333, New York, N.Y. 10011. Your dough will enable morons, idiots and imbeciles — and don't forget the mongoloids! — to run all over some track somewhere and do the high jump and things like that. Might be fun to watch! But they can't hold it unless you give (sounds good to me).

The medics are saying that Tom Seaver may never walk again as a result of pulled Achilles" cartilage in his leg sustained vs. Atlanta. Well yes he may walk again but only by means of a crutch or similar device (such as a cane). But experts concur that he will still be able to pitch since pitching only requires one leg and an arm or two. His control will not be as sharp but then again HE STINKS SO WHAT'S THE DIFF GONNA BE ANYWAY?

He was so bad against St. Louis that many people farted.

HOW DID THEY WIN IT DEPT.:

A research term dispatched by the University of Central Wisconsin has found that not only is the Milwaukee Buck diet deficient in valuable vitamin D and ergosteral but certain foods frequently ingested as part of the meal immediately preceding the games contained harmful amounts of wood byproducts, including bark and wood shavings. A dose of 45 grams of wood can be lethal in an adult human being (basketball players slightly more due to size) and the pork chops were found to contain 37 grams on the average, which is a mighty close shave!

"Me for some squash" sez Bobby Murcer, who's thinking of giving up the national pastime for the greatest indoor sportacular racquet game of this or any other century. *"Take it from me kids, squash is great!" (Squash didn't even pay him to say it.)

Tennis anyone????????????????????

Somebody threw a monkey wrench into the 1972 Julius Boros lookalike contest, that's corredt. The chap or chickie as the case may be sent in a photograph of the young Ozzie Nelson, signed it Norman Barn and was adjudged the victor by the judges. They sent Norm the golfing memorabilia he had won and, for the time being, that was that. But he had won unfairly so it was only a matter of time before his misdeed was discovered and revealed, you can't always get away with these things you know. It was too bad the trickery wasn't discovered immediately by demanding Barn's appearance in person to pick up his bundle. That would

have allowed further examination of the remaining photos to ascertain the actual winner from among the more honest entrants. But as it was everybody just soured on the idea of extending the contest long enough to do so, or perhaps the salaries for judges needed to sustain it could no longer be met. In any event the culprit was caught with his pants down when they ran the photo in a Phoenix daily. A reader with an excellent memory for the days of the big bands phoned the editor and straightened things out. But by the time the organizers of the contest, their lawyers and a number of law officers managed to get to Barn's home he had moved out — memorabilia and all — if in fact a man or woman by that name had ever lived there at all. What a heinous hoax, wouldn't it have been more appropriate if this Barn character (who must in any event be credited with discovering Ozzie's likeness to Julie) sent in a photo of David Nelson (who looks a hell of a lot like his father as a young man) along with David's address? That way he probably would've given David something to feel good about since he's pretty much down in the dumps these days, living in the shadow of his younger sibling Rick. And that way Barn wouldn't have to be on the run today, sports fans ought to choose their fate with more care.

Ever notice how if you add an A to Joan Baez's last name you get Braulio Baeza? Do the songstress and the jockey have a secret they're keeping from us?