Fennis Fails to Follow Up

He has an unusual name, and Fennis Dembo lives up to it by saying unusual things.

Dembo, known as Dennis The Menace, is a 6-5 forward at the University of Wyoming who says, “When I’ve got the ball anywhere near the paint I think of it as an automatic two.”

After Wyoming lost to BYU two weekends ago, he said: “Before, we knew we had to go on the road and win one. Now we’ve got to go down there and win two. BYU swept us, so we’ve got to go down there and sweep New Mexico and UTEP, both of them. We’re going to do it and you can put it in your newspapers so that they can read it.”

Wyoming lost both games. In Saturday’s 74-72 loss to UTEP, Dembo was 2 of 13 from the floor. He was scoreless in the first half.

When the coach sat him down, a fan yelled, “Hey, Fennis, can you count to zero?”

New York Yankee Manager Lou Piniella, looking on the bright side, said of the club’s failure to sign free agents Ron Guidry, Jack Morris and Rich Gedman: “If we did, I’d have a problem. The first time we lost a game, I’d get fired.”

Said Phoenix interim coach Dick Van Arsdale after a loss in his debut against Seattle: “I wasn’t nervous, but I wasn’t involved in the offensive plays much. I still don’t know them all.”

Said the Associated Press: “Until Saturday night, his only coaching experience was a recent stint as an assistant on his 14-year-old son Jason’s junior high school squad, which went 1-7.”

Trivia Time: What do Phil Bradley of the Seattle Mariners, Jim Traber of the Baltimore Orioles and Rick Leach of the Toronto Blue Jays have in common? (Answer below.)

Add Forgettable Quotes: “They can’t go to Kujawa,” said ABC analyst Dick Vitale of Illinois, explaining that Jens Kujawa, 7-foot sophomore center from West Germany, was not an offensive threat.

With that, Kujawa scored the last four points for the Illini, and they beat Indiana, 69-67.

Oakland Manager Tony LaRussa, on the holdout of Jose Canseco: “I woke up the other morning and the first thing I saw in the paper was that Wally Joyner was in the Angels’ camp. It screwed up my raisin bran.”

For What It’s Worth: When Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points 25 years ago, it was the No. 3 story in The Times’ sports section the next day. No. 1 was UCLA’s 69-66 win over Washington to clinch the Big Five title. No. 2 was an advance story on the Santa Anita Derby.

Note: The Big Five was the Athletic Assn. of Western Universities, a conference formed after the breakup of the Pacific Coast Conference. It embraced the four California universities and Washington.

Ozzie Smith of the St. Louis Cardinals, on the 17 pounds he gained by undergoing a winter weightlifting program: “I hope I put it on right.”

From Richard Justice of the Washington Post: “George Steinbrenner quote of the week: ‘I discovered Don Mattingly.’ Steinbrenner said he had his baseball people draft Mattingly after he saw his picture in the ‘Faces in the Crowd’ section of Sports Illustrated.”

Says a skeptical Justice: “He apparently then gave instructions that Mattingly not be drafted until the 19th round.”

Trivia Answer: All three were college quarterbacks--Bradley at Missouri, Traber at Oklahoma State and Leach at Michigan.

Quotebook

Former catcher Bob Uecker, on catching Phil Niekro’s knuckleball: “It was great. I got to meet a lot of important people. They all sit behind home plate.”