Batters bury Kentucky brethren

It was no April Fools' Day joke, but the Kentucky State baseball team wishes it had been.

On Wednesday, Kentucky State allowed 22 runs to Eastern Kentucky in the first inning, trailed by 48 runs after five innings when the game was stopped, then agreed to cancel the second game of the scheduled doubleheader.

"I've never seen it in my 25 years of experience," Kentucky State coach Lamar Johnson told The Associated Press. "It was inexplicable, to be honest with you."

Kentucky State (2-16) actually led once, scoring a run in the top of the first. Eastern Kentucky rallied with 22 runs in the bottom half, during which Eastern Kentucky coach Jason Stein began substituting players. After the score reached 49-1 in the fifth inning, both coaches agreed to call it a day.

The scored would have broken the NCAA Division I record for the most lopsided victory, but Kentucky State is in Division II.

• TIGER'S TRUE TALENT -- As Tiger Woods heads to the Masters at Augusta this week to resume his chase of Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major golf championships, Greg Norman says Woods already has eclipsed Nicklaus in one category: pressure putting.

"Tiger Woods is the best clutch putter I've ever seen," Norman said at the Houston Open. "I think he and Nicklaus are equal inside 6 feet. Outside 9 feet, Woods is by far the best you've ever seen play the game."

Norman, however, thinks Woods was a better ball striker in 2000 and 2001 when he won an unprecedented four consecutive majors.

"His ball striking is not as good now, but his mind is better and his putting is better," Norman said. "His putting now (added) to his ball striking in 2000, he would win every golf tournament by four, five or six shots."

• NO FOOLING -- Wednesday marked the 79th anniversary of Hall of Fame catcher Gabby Hartnett catching a baseball dropped from the Goodyear blimp.

"Some reports say the ball was dropped 550 feet, some say more than 800," wrote David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "It was on April Fools' Day, remember, so trust the reports at your own risk.

"But you can trust us that the Cubs catcher did catch the ball, because it was 1930 and Steve Bartman wasn't born yet."

• BABY TALK -- Comedian Jerry Wolski, after the 43-year-old wife of 20-year-old Pirates prospect Jose Tabata was accused of taking an infant from a Florida health clinic: "Obviously not her first attempt at robbing the cradle."

• EIGHT IS ENOUGH -- NBC's Len Berman, on the minor league Grand Prairie AirHogs hosting "OctoMom Night" on June 13: "What song will they play for the seventh-inning stretch marks?"

• YANKEE QUIPPER -- Head honcho Hal Steinbrenner admits some of his team's tickets at the new Yankee Stadium -- like the $2,625 ones, for instance -- "might be overpriced."

"In related news," noted Drew Curtis of Fark.com, "fire might be hot, water might be wet."

• AND FINALLY -- Headline at SportsPickle.com: "Barry Bonds returns to baseball with Nationals as 17-year-old Dominican prospect."

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