Just 16 months ago, the San Francisco Giants gave pitcher Barry Zito a seven-year, $126 million contract.

It didn’t work out so well. That team was forced to transfer him to the bullpen and relegate him to mop-up work. Zito is 0-6 this season with a 7.53 earned-run average.

So far, anyway, he is making Colorado’s tragic Mike Hampton signing look like a steal. And this case validates the Cardinals’ caution in awarding long-term deals to pitchers.

“I’m certainly not happy with it, by any means,” Zito told reporters. “But this is the bed that I’ve made. I have to lay in it for the time being and I have to overcome. I trust management and I trust what their decisions are.”

Yeah, well, not starting Zito is a no-brainer for the Giants. He is just the third pitcher since 1956 to go 0-6 in April.

“Zito is fast becoming the pitcher’s answer to Chuck Knoblauch and Steve Sax, second basemen who unaccountably lost the ability to throw to first base,” wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gwen Knapp. “Whatever it is that made him a major-league athlete has gone missing.”

And that “whatever,” it seems, is his fastball.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering if we’ll ever see Ryan Ludwick back in the leadoff spot:

• Say, what’s gotten into the Atlanta Hawks? Are they really capable of going toe-to-toe with the Boston Celtics?
• How will history remember the Dominique Byrd Era at Rams Park?
• Is Debbie Clemens starting to wish her husband would have taken the Mark McGwire Route and dodged the steroid issue altogether?

NO WAY TO BUILD AN IMAGE

From the world of soccer comes this Associated Press story lead:

“SAO PAULO, Brazil — Soccer star Ronaldo was questioned by police early Monday after a run-in with Brazilian transvestites in a Rio de Janeiro motel.”

It’s a long story, as it turns out . . . and not especially flattering for Ronaldo. The Brazilian media must be in overdrive as you read this.

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Dan Daly, Washington Times: “A show of hands, please. When the construction crew dug up that David Ortiz jersey that was secretly buried under the new Yankee Stadium, how many of you were expecting Jimmy Hoffa to be wearing it?”

Will Leitch, Deadspin: “You might have thought Roger Clemens would have done just about everything he could possibly do to destroy his reputation over the last few months. Showing up in the Mitchell Report, crashing and burning in his last start as a Yankee, looking like a fool in front of Congress. What could be worse than all that? Oh, we dunno . . . how about … starting a 10-year affair with a 15-year-old country music singer? Heavens. Remember Mindy McCready? She’s a country singer who sang ‘Guys Do It All the Time,’ which was apparently some sort of country hit. Anyway, she’s had a ton of personal problems in the last few years . . . she had a OxyContin addiction, once stole a truck and forced the driver to act as a hostage and tried to kill herself at least twice. It’s the type of thing that might result from starting to date Roger Clemens when you were 15.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Dallas Maverick Josh Howard admits he smokes marijuana. Imagine that! That an NBA player smokes pot is about as shocking as a sunrise.”

Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel: “According to a study quoted by USA Today, kids who play violent video games, such as the latest version of ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ are more likely to ‘get into fights, damage property, steal from a store and receive poor grades.’ Hey, wait a minute, that sounds like a football recruit at your typical SEC school.”

Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “Maybe before Steve Kerr made the trade for Shaq he should have gotten all the Suns to promise they’d cover somebody if he did.”

MEGAPHONE

“He wears 23, he wants to be Michael Jordan, I can respect that, he’s a great player. You saw what Mike went through. Mike got fouled way worse than this. No one is trying to hurt him, everybody is trying to play basketball, trying to play tough. Play basketball and leave it alone.”

Wizards center Brendan Haywood, advising LeBron James to man up and play on through fouls.