sports

The dinner bell is scheduled to clang for the 17th Turkey Banquet today at precisely 2 p.m. Through its history, this has been a feast worthy of Miles Standish, with huge, golden, pen-raised turkeys, mounds of stuffing, rich-brown gravy and lump-free mashed potatoes, butter-soaked yams, and fresh pumpkin, apple and mincemeat pies.

Sadly, this banquet could wind up being catered by White Castle, if the greedy, irresponsible kitchen and wait staffs do not agree to a few changes in the basic agreement with the Turkey Committee.

The salaries paid to our superstar chefs have gotten out of control. We're willing to lower the number of banquets it takes for a chef to cook out the option on his services, if they agree to cap their salaries. We're willing to raise the minimum wage paid to the kitchen help, if the union agrees to give up the money earned through the licensing of cookbooks. And, all management is asking from the waitpersons is a 50-50 split in tips.

If the strike occurs as scheduled this afternoon, the real losers will be the little people who buy tickets to the banquet. Yes, the fans are the ones who always end up paying for the greed of the banquet staff. Management is saddened by the prospect of this strike, but the short-term pain our guests will feel wolfing down those White Castle sliders today will be rewarded with the long-term survival of the Turkey Banquet.

Big, basted birds or sliders, either way, the time has come to bring in this year's class of Turkeys:

- Don Fehr and Gary Bettman. When you cut to the bone, these are the two people responsible for the fact there was no finish to the 1994 baseball season and no start to the 1994-95 National Hockey League season. Fehr, the director of the union, led the baseball players into a strike. Bettman, the NHL commissioner, locked out the hockey players.

- Jeff Reboulet. The Reb is the Twins' assistant player representative and was an outspoken critic of management when the strike hit in mid-August. A great American, Billy Gardner, once said of striking utility infielder Chuck Baker: "Three outfits want him - the Army, the Navy and the Marines." Remember that, Reb, as your precious days in the major leagues evaporate, one after the other.

- Don Shelby. Richard Pryor's concerts were funny. Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine was funny. At their best, none of these gentlemen was as funny as Shelby as he walked across the court of an empty Target Center last spring and shared with the WCCO-TV audience his innermost thoughts on the proposed sale of the Timberwolves to a New Orleans group. Great material, Don. We were on the floor, kicking our feet, crying, we were laughing so hard.

- Michael Jordan. There are a minimum of 25,000 people in the Western Hemisphere with a greater aptitude for hitting a baseball, and that includes several members of the Coors Silver Bullets.

- Mike Veeck. How about this guy? He is trying to get the politicians in St. Paul to spend millions for a riverfront stadium for his Class N (never-were, never-will-be) ballplayers. Before Mayor Norm Coleman gets carried away, he would be advised to remember the Kicks, the early years at Canterbury Downs and the early minutes at St. Croix Meadows. The Saints - stale jokes and all - are a phenomenon that too shall pass.

- Scott Erickson. Too bad the strike came. Erickson might have been able to equal his 19 defeats from 1993 and earn another big raise from the Twins.

- Mike Brown. The Timberwolves must be represented by a player at the banquet. Late in a recent game, Brown had too much pride to tell coach Bill Blair that his long streak of consecutive games played was on the line. Don't you know, Big Brown Bear, that pride isn't an issue with this pack of mutts?

- Sean Salisbury. The quarterback was trying to get the Detroit Lions interested in his services during the free-agent signing. And he suggested that NFL defenses feared the idea he could be teaming with Barry Sanders. Salisbury can be funnier than Shelby.

- Arne Carlson. Our horse-laughing chief executive knew passage of the OTB amendment would save Minnesota's grass-roots thoroughbred business and would have done nothing to add to the state's gambling problem. Carlson was afraid he might lose 50 votes from his landslide victory over John Wimpy, so he refused to take a position. OTB lost by a narrow margin. OK, sing along: "That . . . gutless . . . Arne!"

- Howie Hanson. He was a leader of the fight to reject the Department of Natural Resource's deal with the Mille Lacs Band of the Chippewa on treaty fishing rights at the big walleye lake. Thanks to Howie's dogged fight against the settlement, the Chippewa figure to wind up with fishing rights over a 12-county area of East Central Minnesota.

Don't worry, Howie. You can always pick up a couple of pounds of walleye filets at Byerly's.

- Bill Sexton. This former Slayton basketball coach badly wanted the Timberwolves. He just didn't want to pay for them.

- Ken Burns. Too many hours of Burns' PBS documentary, "Baseball," were devoted to his cast of pretentious dweebs: George Will, Daniel Okrent, Thomas Boswell and John Thorne. There was even an off-the-wall poet going through a bad hair day. Burns' invitation to the Turkey Banquet was secured when he chose Bob Costas - born in 1952 - to give us the exciting details of Willie Mays' catch in the 1954 World Series.