Great Scott

For the last few years, running the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been no garden party for Robert Montgomery Scott, the museum's witty patrician president. More like a bone-jarring ride down the Rocky steps on his treasured black bicycle. But as he prepares to leave the job he's held for 14 years - retiring as soon as a chief operating officer can be hired by museum director Anne d'Harnoncourt - Mr. Scott need not apologize for the recent bumpy ride. He's had to scramble in the face of unprecedented cutbacks in city aid. Tax dollars that once covered nearly a third of the museum's operating budget have been reduced to cover only 13 percent of day-to-day costs, as the Rendell administration copes with its own fiscal squeeze.

If the label of the Scott bathroom tissue on your local store shelf looks a little . . . well . . . different, you may be staring at a collector's item. In honor of the 75th anniversary of this particular Scott product, the company decided to revive the design of the wrapper that enclosed those very first rolls in 1914. You'll know it when you see it. The lettering that says Scott Tissue is in a style long since abandoned. The label also describes the tissue as being "soft as old linen.

YOU NEED someone to do the definitive handbook on Advanced Logistics, then your guy is 75-year-young Harry Scott, who is about to embark on a monthlong journey that would constitute a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most folks. Except that he already has been down this highway once before. Only this time he is doing himself two better, thanks to expansion. You want to know how long it takes to get from St. Louis to Dallas? How about the best route? Or which major league baseball stadium is serving up the best grub?

Forget Oliver North. Who cares about Gary Hart? Big deal about Bernhard Goetz. It's time to talk about some serious controversy. It's time to talk about the scuffball. The dreaded, illegal, elusive scuffball. Now depending upon whom you believe, the scuffball is the pitch that turned Mike Scott into Cy Young. And it's the pitch that has kept Tommy John around for two decades. And it's the pitch that will make Rick Rhoden about $2 billion in hardware-store endorsements some day. And for years, most people in baseball have simply said, "If those guys can get away with it and win with it, more power to them.

In its first four games, Temple scored 15 points and averaged 200 yards. The Owls were shut out three times. They started out 0-4. Again. Which kind of made a lot of folks wonder why second-year coach Bobby Wallace switched from the option offense that took him to three consecutive Division II national championships earlier this decade at North Alabama to Kentucky's "Air Raid" passing game. In its last four games, Temple has averaged 30 points and 409 yards. The Owls have won twice and lost one on a field goal in the final seconds.

It was nice. Soft, just the way you want your tissues and toilet paper to be. A huge company, one of Philadelphia's prides and joys, it cared about its workers. That was Scott Paper's reputation in the community. Generations of Philadelphians labored for the paper-products maker. Its sprawling, landscaped suburcampus by the airport was a sight to see. And for the longest while, many of its top executives were as homegrown as the folks who labored on the factory floor. The only difference was that the executives might have been products of, say, Penn, while the workers came out of places like South Philly High.

From a man in a suit, eating in the William Penn room of the Old Original Bookbinder's: "It must be nice to be rich. " Had the gentleman already received his bill, he would not have said such a silly thing. He would have said: It's imperative to be rich. For Philadelphians, the landmark seafood restaurant at 125 Walnut St. has long been considered the place to go on a special occasion - or on an expense account. On a recent evening, the restaurant's two floors were packed with mostly tourists on a freewheeling budget or businessmen with generous employers.

Shirley Scott, 67, the Philadelphia-born "Queen of the Organ" known for her crisp sense of swing, died Sunday at Presbyterian Medical Center after a long battle with heart disease. Though she spent decades as one of the most visible and beloved members of the Philadelphia jazz community, Ms. Scott, who lived in West Chester, made headlines most recently as a litigant. In February 2000, she won an $8 million settlement against American Home Products, manufacturers of the now-banned diet drug fen-phen, and the doctor who prescribed it to her. Ms. Scott began taking the drug "cocktail" in 1995, and by 1997 had developed primary pulmonary hypertension that forced her to be hooked up to an oxygen tank 24 hours a day. Ms. Scott came to prominence in the late '50s, when groups built around the Hammond B3 organ were a hot sound in jazz.

GREAT SCOTT! FIVE TIMES' THE CHARM FOR OHIO WOMAN Mary Scott gave birth - and gave birth - and gave birth - and gave birth - and gave birth. And when she was done, doctors at the Ohio State Medical Center in Columbus had delivered three girls and two boys by caesarean section on Monday. The quints' weights ranged from 1 pound, 15 3/4 ounces to 2 pounds, 9ounces. Scott wasn't due until March 1, but she began having contractions last month. Doctors said the babies would have a much better chance of survival if the births could be held off at least until this week.

How could Mike Scott improve upon his 1-0 victory in Game 1 of the National League championship series? After all, did Beethoven improve on his Fifth Symphony? Well, the Great Scott went out to the Shea Stadium mound in a must-win situation last night and composed a masterpiece every bit as brilliant as his last performance. Scott didn't get a shutout this time, but he remained the most dominant pitcher in recent playoff history, throwing a three-hitter at the New York Mets in a 3-1 victory that got the Houston Astros even in this playoff series.

Brittany Scott struck out six in pitching a perfect game, and her sacrifice fly drove in a run in the third inning, carrying Buena to a 2-0 victory at Sacred Heart on Thursday in Cape-Atlantic League softball. Kaitlyn Cooper added a solo home run in the fifth for the first-place Chiefs (13-0 overall, 10-0 conference), who opened a two-game lead over Sacred Heart (14-3, 8-2) in the National Conference Division I standings. In other Cape-Atlantic action: Karisma Pantaleon and Nicole Chillari combined for five RBIs, and Jenna Montana shut down Cape May Tech on six hits in pitching host Bridgeton to a 9-0 win. Brittany Robertson went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and a pair of runs scored, and Tori Sittineri tossed a three-hit shutout as Middle Township pummeled Pleasantville, 23-0, in three innings.

AS THE SAYING goes, there's the known and then there's the unknown . . . That pretty much sums up the first-round leaderboard at the second and last AT & T National to be played at Newtown Square's Aronimink Golf Club. And that's the way it can sometimes be on the PGA Tour, especially at a stop where no player ranked among the top 14 on the planet shows up. They're still going to hand out a trophy come Sunday afternoon. The rest mostly gets filed away under details. So, in no particular order, these were some of the sightings you had yesterday on this Donald Ross masterpiece: Dean Wilson, not to be confused with Mark, who won twice earlier this season.

YOU NEED someone to do the definitive handbook on Advanced Logistics, then your guy is 75-year-young Harry Scott, who is about to embark on a monthlong journey that would constitute a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most folks. Except that he already has been down this highway once before. Only this time he is doing himself two better, thanks to expansion. You want to know how long it takes to get from St. Louis to Dallas? How about the best route? Or which major league baseball stadium is serving up the best grub?

Shirley Scott, 67, the Philadelphia-born "Queen of the Organ" known for her crisp sense of swing, died Sunday at Presbyterian Medical Center after a long battle with heart disease. Though she spent decades as one of the most visible and beloved members of the Philadelphia jazz community, Ms. Scott, who lived in West Chester, made headlines most recently as a litigant. In February 2000, she won an $8 million settlement against American Home Products, manufacturers of the now-banned diet drug fen-phen, and the doctor who prescribed it to her. Ms. Scott began taking the drug "cocktail" in 1995, and by 1997 had developed primary pulmonary hypertension that forced her to be hooked up to an oxygen tank 24 hours a day. Ms. Scott came to prominence in the late '50s, when groups built around the Hammond B3 organ were a hot sound in jazz.

The words were strong. The attack was personal. "If the No. 4 guy even makes contact in either Boston loss, we sweep the series," Phillies manager Larry Bowa was quoted as saying in a published report yesterday. Bowa said he never made that controversial accusation concerning Scott Rolen's play in last weekend's visit to Fenway Park. Welcome to the Phillies' version of life in first place. Rolen has been the primary four-hole hitter for the Phillies this season, and, by his admission, needs to be more productive.

Philadelphia music fans will have reasons to cheer -make that three reasons to cheer -at the Grammys tomorrow night. Jill Scott, the street-smart and utterly humane home girl blessed with a touch of jazz and the soul of poet, is up for three Grammy Awards -Best R&B Album, Best R&B Vocal Performance and Best New Artist for her debut set, "Who Is Jill Scott? Words And Sounds Vol. 1. " We were thrilled to get Jill on the line in L.A. the other day, just before rehearsals commenced for the award show.

In its first four games, Temple scored 15 points and averaged 200 yards. The Owls were shut out three times. They started out 0-4. Again. Which kind of made a lot of folks wonder why second-year coach Bobby Wallace switched from the option offense that took him to three consecutive Division II national championships earlier this decade at North Alabama to Kentucky's "Air Raid" passing game. In its last four games, Temple has averaged 30 points and 409 yards. The Owls have won twice and lost one on a field goal in the final seconds.

Interboro basketball coach Lew Garrison had no problem coming up with a nickname for junior forward Brian Culley. "I call him 'Dirt,' " Garrison said. "It's because he does all the dirty work. He rebounds. He plays defense. He does all the things that don't get a lot of headlines. " The 6-foot-1 Culley spent last season on the Interboro JV team. He played in the spring. He played with the Bucs in the summer. Garrison liked what he saw then, so he isn't surprised by what Culley - who averages a team-leading five assists and has a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio - is doing now. "He played his tail off in the off-season," Garrison said.

There is more than one way for a closer to earn a save. For verification, check with Phillies starter Curt Schilling and ask him how reliever Mark Leiter, at least in part, recently saved his season. Galen Cisco is the Phillies' pitching coach, but Leiter is a grizzled veteran at age 35, and he possesses a wicked splitter (much of the time, anyway). So, when Schilling sensed the pitch had deserted him, he sidled over to Leiter one day and demanded, "Show me your grip on that thing.

Frances Ring, the young secretary who discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) dead on the floor after he suffered a heart attack at age 44, recalled her boss' "gentleness and civility," how the down-on-his-luck writer would send his adoring Jewish assistant home on Yom Kippur "to atone for his sins. " Budd Schulberg, the 84-year-old Hollywood novelist (What Makes Sammy Run?) who found himself cowriting a screenplay with the author of The Great Gatsby just after graduating from Dartmouth, remembered that "you wanted to hug the guy. He was lovable.