UA equipment, posters went fast in online auction

The UA’s “Surplus Property Office” sold 575 items, old athletic gear of every conceivable type, in an online auction Oct. 14. It produced more than $50,000 in revenue for shoes, socks, shoulder pads, jerseys, you name it. A set of old UA football shoulder pads received the highest price, at $650. A 1989, full-sized poster of Sean Elliott, went for $200. A box of white UA basketball “CATS” game pants went for $500. Too bad it couldn’t sell a piece of the goal posts, torn down in 1982, when Arizona shocked ASU 28-18 to knock the Sun Devils out of the Rose Bowl. At an SEC school, those things can go for $1,000 per foot. … Craig Lefferts, winning pitcher for Arizona in the 1980 College World Series championship game, is working for Major League Baseball as an ambassador to countries developing baseball programs. Now 57, pitching coach of the Class A Vermont Lake Monsters, Lefferts has represented MLB in Brazil and South Africa to help train coaches. He will be in Johannesburg this winter in the same capacity. … Arizona alumnus Chip Hale, new manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, told me that the Kansas City Royals’ emergence as a power didn’t surprise him. “In the industry, we looked at them three or four years ago and said, ‘Oh my God, here they come,’” he said. “All that good young pitching, all that speed, you could see it coming.” Hale said that Tucson resident Dave Duncan, Tony LaRussa’s long-time pitching coach in St. Louis, will have an expanded capacity for the D-backs in 2015. “Dave has the uncanny ability to take a pitcher who’s struggling, make some tweaks, and put him back on the rails.” … Tucsonan Matt Grevers, an Olympic swimming medalist in 2008 and 2012, is favored in Saturday’s “Fastest Swimmer in Texas” swimming competition in San Antonio. The fastest to swim 50 meters in a three-heat event will earn $5,000. The women’s competition includes ex-Arizona All-American Lara Jackson, an American record holder who has come out of retirement to train for the 2016 Olympics.