DOG DAYS OF SUMMER SOFTBALL

MEDIA The Dallas Morning News’s 12-4 thrashing of the Dallas Times Herald in the media softball league championships this summer was impressive, but nowhere near as lively as something that almost happened a week earlier. That’s when a regular-season News vs. Herald tussle had been canceled because of rain. After the rain-out, a News staffer, who identified himself only as “a lowlife reporter.” tipped D Magazine that Herald chieftain ROY BODE had an elaborate prank foiled by Mother Nature. The mole explained that Bode had schemed to bring some unwanted guests to the regular season game in response to a biting News advertisement.

The ad boasted that the News had higher circulation figures than the Herald or the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Titled “We’re Still Leading The Pack,” the ad showed three dogs with newspapers in their mouths. The tallest dog was chewing a copy of the News, and the shortest, a Welsh corgi, was gripping the Herald. Bode, the source said, had rounded up a pack of hungry corgis and was going to turn them loose during the game on a huge fire hydrant made out of Morning News pages. That would seem to explain the trucks-spotted by Morning Mews softballers who didn’t realize the game was canceled-that housed a passel of unidentified canines.

Bode wouldn’t confirm or deny the charge. “I prefer to let their imaginations be let loose on hapless Morning News staffers.”

Bode says he didn’t mind the Herald being symbolized by such a “frisky, smart, and spirited” breed. “If I had brought corgis, though. I’m afraid that day’s front-page analysis in the News of Yugoslavian politics would have put even them to sleep.”