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Compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

Rounders figures

Bewildering figure of the week? Business Insider’s estimate for the career earnings of the New York Yankees’ Alex ‘A-Rod’ Rodriguez: $325,416,252 – or, a mere €259,316,481.

Rodriguez is one of 12 baseball players listed as having earned $150 million in their careers, six of them earning the bulk of their dollars from the Yankees, although another 24 have had contracts worth at least $100 million.

Back in 2007, Rodriguez famously signed a 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees, the richest in baseball history, that will keep him playing until he is 42.

The moral of the story? You should have practised a little harder at rounders.

Bowler drops 'breeks' and old age pensioner

Those – and that’s quite possibly all of us – who always assumed bowls was a refined, genteel, well-mannered and hooligan-less kind of sport were in for a shock last week: “I’ve been watching lawn bowls for over 40 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” a “stunned” spectator at the Edinburgh Cup Final told the Daily Record.

What happened? “A bowler caused mayhem when he stripped down to his boxer shorts and punched a pensioner during a match.” This ugliness took place during the clash of Noble’s Pilrig Bowling Club and, as the Record put it, their “bitter rivals” Summerside Bowling Club from Leith. Who knew there was bitterness in bowling? Scott Noble, “who is said to like a drink”, “dropped his trousers in front of 200 stunned spectators” after a little banter with an opponent got a touch heated, the 24-year-old then swinging a punch at a 76-year-old member of his very own committee who tried to calm him.

Mayhem ensued, a gaggle of bowling people attempting to restrain Noble before chucking him out of the club.

“This has rocked the bowls community in Edinburgh to its core,” said an unnamed spectator. “There were old women present when he decided to drop his breeks – they were mortified. Then he decides to chin one of his own committee men, who ended up with a cut head – the place was in pandemonium. He was walking about with his trousers down for ages.” The most unfortunate thing in all of this is that’s it’s put the bowls community in Edinburgh right off young people, who, until this, they had been eager enough to attract.

Cartoonists have a cut at Armstrong

Since being banned for life and stripped of his Tour de France titles by the US Anti-Doping Agency, Lance Armstrong still has his supporters in his homeland, many of them believing his claim that he is the victim of a witch-hunt. The cartoonists, though, have generally been of the non-supportive persuasion, Ingrid Rice (left), Bob Gorrell (right) and Mark Streeter producing particularly cutting efforts.

Norman's fate still the subject of much dispute

IT WAS one of the most iconic images of its time, of any time, Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving a gloved Black Power salute when they stood on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico after winning gold and bronze medals in the 200 metres final.