There’s Something About Andys

This spring has not been kind to a couple of people named Andy Murray.

Example No. 1: Older Andy, of Los Angeles, lost his coaching job on March 21 when the Kings dismissed him.

Example No. 2: Younger Andy, of Scotland, lost his cool earlier this month in the midst of and after his Davis Cup doubles tennis match against Serbia, dropping an expletive at the chair umpire and receiving a four-figure fine.

Hockey Andy seems to have fared worse than tennis Andy, though, for he’s still without a coaching job.

Tennis Andy responded last week by firing his coach.

Neither vacancy, by the hockey team or tennis player, has been filled.

Trivia time: Which team did Philadelphia Flyer goaltender Ron Hextall score against in the 1989 Stanley Cup playoffs?

Sing-along: Give the British props for preemptive thinking. Travel suggestions from the Foreign Office for this summer’s World Cup in Germany include German translations of common soccer chants.

“We would ask England fans not to sing songs they know are likely to offend,” Foreign Officer Minister Lord Triesman told the British tabloid, the Daily Mirror.

Good luck with that.

Make-up call? In sorting NFL draftees, the Sporting News ranked Iowa’s Chad Greenway second at outside linebacker, behind A.J. Hawk of Ohio State.

That’s no great compliment, Greenway figures, but at least it seems a step up from what he considers his greatest motivation in college.

“When the Sporting News called me the most overrated player in the Big Ten in its preview yearbook before the 2004 season. It’s going to take a lot of coaxing for me to buy another Sporting News,” he said.

Hockey translation: San Jose Coach Ron Wilson knows his audience when it comes to discussing the Sharks’ Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo on the eve of the playoffs.

“I don’t know if the people in Silicon Valley know what we have here, to be honest,” Wilson told San Jose Mercury News columnist Ann Killion.

“We have a Joe Montana-, Steve Young-type quarterback setting up a Jerry Rice-type of receiver right here.”

Where’s his bike? Lance Armstrong’s decision to run in the New York Marathon surprised many. Armstrong said Wednesday he would run in the race on Nov. 5.

But will he get confused when the race winner doesn’t don a yellow jersey?

Pointed shot: Football Hall of Famer Larry Csonka may not have had the last word after he was fined $5,000 for filming on national forest lands in Alaska without the correct permits but it certainly was the sharpest.

Csonka, the host of a weekly outdoor show on OLN, termed the prosecution to AP as “going to the guillotine for running a traffic light.”

Trivia answer: The Washington Capitals.

And finally: Baseball legend John “Buck” O’Neil, 94, to Esquire magazine: “A nickname means you belong.”