Spend a Buck Will Skip Belmont

Weary from his Jersey Derby triumph, racing’s newest multi-millionaire Spend a Buck will skip the Belmont Stakes to rest before prepping for a run at a $1 million bonus later this year, his owner said Tuesday.

“This colt has got to have some rest,” said owner Dennis Diaz, who outraged racing traditionalists by keeping his Kentucky Derby winner out of the second jewel of racing’s Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes, to train for the $2.6 million, bonus-padded prize he claimed Monday in the Jersey Derby.

The June 8 Belmont is the longest and final leg of the Triple Crown series.

Spend a Buck’s hard-fought Jersey Derby victory after a stumble out of the gate and both early and late challenges vaulted the 3-year-old bay colt to second on racing’s all-time earnings list with just under $4 million in winnings in only 13 career starts.

“We have nothing to prove,” Diaz said. “But even if we did have something to prove, he’s got to have some rest.”

Trainer Cam Gambolati said he planned to move Spend a Buck to Monmouth Park in New Jersey, where he will rest a bit before training for that track’s Haskell Stakes July 27.

The USFL’s Arizona Outlaws fired defensive line coach John Teerlinck after Teerlinck was involved in a fight aboard an airliner after Sunday’s loss to Houston.

Teerlinck and Don Hickman, the Outlaws’ starting left offensive tackle, began fighting on the plane ride back to Phoenix from Sunday’s game, which the Outlaws lost, 41-20, to the Houston Gamblers. The two men sprawled across several seats of the plane and the scuffle apparently broke the eyeglasses of one passenger who was not among the Outlaws’ 60-person traveling party.

The federal grand jury that has questioned major league baseball players in its investigation of illegal drugs sales in the Pittsburgh area is expected to hand up indictments on Friday, according to the New York Times.

The Times, quoting a source familiar with the investigation, said that even though about 12 players had testified, it did not appear that any would be indicted.

The source, however, said a decision has not been made on whether any of the players would be named as unindicted co-conspirators.

Soviet sports officials said they had been given the go-ahead to send their best teams to any world-class events in South Korea and will definitely be attending the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Spokesmen for federations representing archery, handball, boxing and judo all confirmed that they planned to attend world championships in these events being held this year in South Korea, which has no diplomatic ties with the USSR.

Three Duquesne University basketball players were acquitted of all charges in the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman in a campus dormitory last year.

George Harrison, 20, Eric Compton, 19, and Ronald Stevenson, 20, were acquitted after 35 minutes of deliberation by a Common Pleas Court jury of seven men and five women in Pittsburgh.

A fourth player, Emmett Sellers, 20, is scheduled to go on trial on rape charges next week.

Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics and Magic Johnson of the Lakers, who led their teams into the National Basketball Assn. championship series, head the official All-NBA first team.

Bird, with 156 points, was the first unanimous choice since 1982, when he was also named on all ballots. Johnson finished second in the voting with 146 points.

Completing the first team were guard Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons, center Moses Malone of the Philadelphia 76ers and forward Bernard King of the New York Knicks. Moses beat out the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by three points.

Edwin Moses, who planned to make his 1985 outdoor debut in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles at an international track meet at the Coliseum on June 8, has withdrawn because of a knee injury.

Names in the News

Ed Carroll, 34, was named athletic director at Cal State Fullerton. He has been the school’s associate athletic director for business affairs since 1982.

The Detroit Red Wings have purchased the remainder of his two-year contract from center Darryl Sittler so that they can release him.