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Art of Lickliter draws compassion at the cooler
By Brian Murphy
Special to Page 2

I couldn't wait to get to The Water Cooler this morning.


	Frank Lickliter hunts in the canyon brush for his tee ball during a playoff with Phil Mickelson at the Buick Invitational.

After all, my boy Johnny -- by now, you better damn well know he was the shoeshine guy from the old "Police Squad!" episodes -- had been on fire of late. Always missing work with some fab excuse. Always sending one of his boys -- Johnny, see, is "connected" -- from the sports world to greet me at The Cooler and give me Johnny's List of Five from the sports weekend.

Who would he send me this week? Kobe and Shaq, Indian leg-wrestling? Derek Jeter, lighting cigars with C-notes? Marty McSorley in a makeshift IHL penalty box by The Cooler?

I got to work, breezed past a stack of papers in my "In" box and blazed to the Cooler to see --

-- of course. Who else?

"Frank Lickliter!" I exclaimed.

"The second," he said.

"I don't do Roman numerals," I said. "Not even in Super Bowls."

"How'd you know it was me?" he asked.

"Let's see," I said. "I'm not sure if it was the goatee. Or the wraparounds. Or the teal Titleist hat. You were plastered all over CBS all Sunday afternoon from Torrey Pines."

"Do I stick out that much?" he asked.

"Put it this way, bro," I said. "You try to deliver a package to Davis Love III's house in that outfit and the Sea Island, Ga., Police would have you spread-eagled against D.L.Three's mansion faster than you can say 'triple-bogey.' "

"Easy," Lickliter said, wincing at the last two words.

"Listen. I watched. You had golfing royalty by the privates. You had your first win waiting when Love was out and Eldrick didn't even make the playoff and Mickelson shoved that tee shot over by the hang gliders. It just didn't happen, man. You still earned our respect. You still played great. You still made every one of us relate to your travails when you carpet-beat the 13th fairway with that 3-wood you pulled. In other words, you're still the guy with the goatee and wraparounds who almost beat Mickelson, and for that, we dig you.

"Now, where's Johnny?"

"Where else?" Lickliter said. "The ESPYs."

Of course. The ESPYs? In Vegas? That event and that town have Johnny stamped on them so perfectly, I figure he'll get a better seat than Tiger. Lickliter must have been reading my mind.

"He's got a seat next to Tiger. Told me he was bringing a witch doctor he met in the Caymans to do some voodoo on Tiger's knee. Like that's all we need. Meantime, he told me to give you this."

Lickliter produced a crumpled piece of paper from the sports book at the MGM Grand. There, in familiar scrawl, it read:

Johnny's Weekend List of Five

1. Three Rivers Goes Down
Was it just my imagination, or did the dust clouds kicked up by the demolition of the coolest Cookie Cutter of them all form an image that resembled Omar Moreno's wife, in a fur coat, dancing to "We Are Family" in the '79 Series? See, where else did the last great American sports team/pop song combo take place but here? Now, music at sporting events is tired, dull, uninspired. I don't care who sprung loose the canines. I don't particularly want to shout "Hey!" when Gary Glitter's tune comes on -- at every stadium in America. But Wilver Stargell and Dave Parker and Manny Sanguillen and Tim Foli -- and the wives, man, the wives! -- were the first (and last) time a pop song and a team made a beautiful marriage and a beautiful moment. Now, if we can just get Britney Spears to sing the national anthem at the new park's Opening Day ...

2. The NBA All-Star Game: Tell Me Again, Why Did I Watch?
Is it tired to bag on the NBA? Am I a grumpy old man for wondering what happened to the fast break? Am I a killjoy for thinking a 41 percent field-goal percentage is less than worth my $80 ticket? I am? Yeah? Well, you can take your slam-dunk contest and stuff it where the sun don't shine, OK, New Era NBA fan? And Desmond Mason? Slam-dunk champ? I thought he was a character from a British crime novel.

3. The XFL, Part Deux
So I guess the league's gonna fail. Ratings fell off 50 percent. You know what? I hope it doesn't, just so I can see things like that QB from Birmingham ripping the fans for ripping him, in that Bronx accent. The only thing missing was the crotch-grab. Speaking of which, what will the cheerleaders do if the league goes belly up? Work bar mitzvahs?

4. The U.S. Goes Down in the Davis Cup

Listen, Murph. You know tennis is my bag. Anna. Serena. Venus' outfits. Wait. What's that? The Davis Cup? Dudes playing tennis? Losing to the Swiss? Oh, man. Bag that, baby. Wake me when the women's French Open pairings come out. Something about Kournikova and clay stains that I can't resist.

5. Lickliter's Near-Miss
So he made 7 on the final playoff hole. So? I make 7 all the time. So he hit a driver when Mickelson was already in the canyon. So? I pull drivers into canyons all the time. So he wears wraparounds and sports a goat on the no-wraparound/no-goat leaderboard. So? Ratings just went up in Mississippi and Arkansas. Go easy on my boy, Murph. Give him a Dixie cup full of agua. And tell him I'll have Eldrick sign the back of his ESPY ticket for him. That should heal the pain.

Until next week,
Johnny.

Brian Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to Page 2.

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