Columnist Dean Juipe: UNLV fan tangles with A.D.

The Dugout Club was his idea and, to this day, Bob Feeney is synonymous with the organization even though he is no longer its president. Yet by all appearances, he remains the UNLV baseball program's most visible and No. 1 booster.

Independent of the Dugout Club he now appears to be estranged from, Feeney says he has the ability to raise considerable money and aid head coach Rod Soesbe in a three-tiered goal: finance fifth-year seniors; upgrade the Wilson Stadium facility with a new locker room and sky boxes down the left-field line; and underwrite an endowment program.

"I have a track record and I have commitments," Feeney said, referring specifically to the endowment program he has proposed. "We would need to raise $1 million to fully endow the program and I can absolutely do it. No question about it."

So, what's the holdup?

"(Athletic director) Charlie Cavagnaro," he replies. "He's the roadblock right now. He's completely inefficient. He has assets like myself staring him in the face and yet he totally ignores me.

"I've been very, very unhappy with him the last two years."

Cavagnaro and Soesbe were out of town Monday and not available for comment.

Feeney said he can and will raise the money for the endowment program but he wants Cavagnaro's assurance that the money would never be used for other purposes by the university "even in an emergency."

He said Cavagnaro has not responded to his inquiries and that "he treats me like a T-shirt seller" as a result of seeing Feeney hawking UNLV baseball shirts at the team's home games.

"All I'm asking for is his cooperation," Feeney said, lofting the ball to Cavagnaro's court.

Add Kim Saiki to the list of professional athletes living in Las Vegas. Saiki, 32, is a six-year member of the LPGA Tour who recently moved here from Costa Mesa, Calif. She missed the cut in last weekend's U.S. Open with rounds of 78 and 77, although she's 39th on the 1998 money list with $119,057. ... Amazingly, four women in the U.S. Open played despite being pregnant and two of them made the cut, as Tammie Green tied for seventh and Carin Koch tied for 13th. Susan Florin and Kristal Parker missed the cut. ... The average female golfer plays 16 rounds per year; the average male plays 21. ... Look for a women's senior golf tour -- the Medalist Tour -- to get off the ground with 10 tournaments in the year 2000. Unlike the Senior PGA Tour, in which players must be at least 50 years old, the Medalist Tour will lower its eligibility to those 40 years old. ... The U.S. has 26.5 million golfers and they collectively record around 150,000 holes in one per year. The odds of getting one are said to be 1 in 12,600 chances. ... The Calloway Golf Center in Las Vegas has plans to add six 300-to-500 room hotels, with each designed to accentuate a specific sport. It's a $250 million project, albeit one with no timetable. ... Colorful Senior Tour member Don January on ESPN: "I don't hunt and I don't fish. I used to play a lot of golf and drink a lot, but they made me quit (drinking) so now all I do is play a lot of golf."

If Keon Clark and Tyrone Nesby both make an NBA team next season it will give UNLV 12 alumni in the league, third to only UCLA (15) and North Carolina (14). ... California's Darin Erstad is trying to become the first leadoff hitter in baseball history to drive in 100 runs in a season. He currently has 51. ... Attendance at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., is down 30 percent since the players' strike in 1994. Some 407,000 guests passed through the gates in 1993, while only 284,000 came through last year. ... He jammed his right thumb late last week yet Las Vegan Marty Cordova of the Minnesota Twins has been on a hot streak. The Twins' left fielder was hitting only .255 on June 6 but has hit .296 (36 for 107) since. He credits batting coach Terry Crowley for "having me stand more upright to help me hit the inside pitch." ... In a system modeled after the airlines' frequent-flyer plans, the San Diego Padres, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants and Anaheim Angels are rewarding ticket buyers with perks like discounts on memorabilia and raffle entries for free trips. ... If the Yankees (61 wins), Braves (59) and Padres (57) each go on to win at least 100 games this season, it will be the first time since 1977 -- another expansion year -- that three teams won that many in the same season.

The NFL Scouting Service ranks Central Florida's Daunte Culpepper as the top senior quarterback heading into the 1998 season. ... Roller Hockey International, which once had a team in Las Vegas, suspended play this season and hopes to raise $12 million in a public stock offering in September. ... In the U.S., more people have been watching the World Cup on the Spanish-language network Univision than on cable anchor ESPN. On the average, Univision is attracting 767,000 viewers per telecast, while ESPN draws 592,000. ... Japanese and Korean fans at the World Cup in France brought honor to themselves by leaving their areas of the grandstands cleaner than they were prior to the fans arriving. ... Very quietly, basketball bad guy Dennis Rodman paid for the funeral of the man killed by racists in Jasper, Texas, last month. He also established a $25,000 trust for the man's family. ... The Las Vegas Stars rank 20th of 30 teams in triple-A baseball attendance. There are also eight double-A teams (out of 28) that are outdrawing the Stars. ... Joe Garagiola is excellent as a broadcaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have a few of their games telecast here. ... Pete Rose should quit grousing about being banned from baseball. He brought it on himself and even agreed to the penalty.

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