Some recent news items in sports worthy of comment while suggesting the Curve prod part-owner Mario Lemieux into sending a couple of Penguins over to throw out a first pitch: ITEM: JoePa pushing for in-house successor. Cory Giger’s report Sunday that Joe Paterno has been telling recruits he expects his successor to come from the current staff exploded nationally, splashing the Mirror on ESPN and driving bulk traffic to altoonamirror.com. The information was timely in that it was gathered at the Big 33 game and comes as Paterno approaches the final season of his contract. Paterno, though, has been outlining this part of his exit plan for some time, saying that’s how Penn State handled the last two football transitions — Rip Engle’s in 1950 and Paterno’s in 1966. In each case, all the assistants were retained, and one coach could be hired. That was Paterno in ’50 and Bob Phillips in ’66. This situation is a bit different.