Money matters: If you were gathered around the water cooler to talk sports on this date in 1964, there is a good chance that someone mentioned the name of Rick Reichardt, who had signed his first major-league baseball contract the day before. That the University of Wisconsin star signed a contract is not exactly what you would have discussed. What you would have discussed is that he received a $200,000 bonus for signing that contract with the California Angels. Nationalpastime.com reports that it was the largest signing bonus in major-league history at that time. There's a good chance that the amount would have shocked and perhaps angered you. Oh, how times have changed. Today what's shocking is when a top baseball prospect signs a contract with a bonus of less than $2 million.

What a crime: The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that a man recently was charged with criminal vehicular operation and driving while impaired in Cottage Grove, Minn. That's interesting you say, but you no doubt also are asking what the obligatory sports connections are. Patience, patience. The connections are that the incident took place in the midst of what the newspaper termed a "booze-fueled round of golf," the vehicle was a golf cart and the victim was the playing partner of the man charged with the crime. The man who was hit by the cart was cut and bruised and sustained an injured eye. We can't make these things up.

Dare we repeat it: Elliott Harris of the Chicago Sun-Times, shining a little different light on baseball's steroid plague: "Oh, for the days when Cecil Fielder was swatting home runs, and the only question about his performance-enhancing substances may have involved triple cheeseburgers." Ouch!