This Time, Billy Was Just the Chaser

Everyone knows that Billy Martin has a long history of fighting. So it should come as no surprise that the report Yankee owner George Steinbrenner received of Martin’s two latest barroom incidents was pretty long, too. In fact, the report filled 58 pages.

The Yankees’ investigation into the two barroom fights put no blame on Martin for instigating them, but it showed that he did “things he shouldn’t be doing,” according to the New York Times, which quoted an anonymous source who had seen the written report, requested by Steinbrenner.

“It looks like in both cases, Billy was in places where he shouldn’t be,” the source said, referring to the incidents late last month at the Cross Keys Inn in Baltimore. “It’s always something he shouldn’t be doing. Like in the fight with (Yankee pitcher Ed) Whitson, it didn’t say he started the fight, but he didn’t walk away, and instead he pursued it.”

When the Yankees visited Baltimore to play the Orioles in late September, Martin got involved in a shoving match with a man who had been drinking, then the next night ended up in a fight with Whitson and suffered a broken right arm and a cracked rib.

“People refused to say who threw the first punch or didn’t know,” the source said of the Whitson encounter. However, the report indicated that after the fight began in the bar and was broken up, “Billy pursued Whitson into the lobby, then to the front door and then in the hall on the third floor. And then Billy tried to get (Yankee coach) Willie Horton to beat up on Whitson.”

Ralph Sampson was the most valuable player in last season’s NBA All-Star game as a Houston Rocket, but things aren’t going real great in the Bayou City for the 7-4 center right now. Sampson, apparently upset that the Rockets paid little attention to a muscle he said he pulled in his leg, wouldn’t mind being traded--despite his disclaimer earlier this week.

Sampson’s lawyer, Ted Steinberg, said that his client wouldn’t mind coming to Los Angeles to play for either the Clippers or the Lakers.

Rocket General Manager Ray Patterson said Sampson isn’t going anywhere.

“There’s no story,” Patterson said. “He’s going to be here. He’s got two more years here. I don’t care if he’s happy, just if we win. All players say things like that when they don’t play as well as they want to. If it were Joe Dokes, nobody would print it.”

Laker General Manager Jerry West, who inquired about Sampson a year ago, said the Lakers would not consider trading two starters for Sampson “at this time.”

West may only have to wait and get Sampson for just what he has to pay him. If Kareem Abdul-Jabbar agrees to play next season, which should happen early next week, he would then retire at the same time that Sampson’s contract is up, and Sampson could be signed as a free agent.

Chulindra Cooks may have won her legal battle to be reinstated on the boys’ football team at Hamilton High School in Ohio, but now she has to expect to take punishment on the field, her male teammates say.

Cooks, an 18-year-old senior, is a 5-1 punter who says she averages 30 yards a kick. She was cut from the team four days before the season opener but rejoined the squad when she reached an out-of-court settlement with the school, which she had sued for sex discrimination.

Now, Sylvester McKinnon, a team co-captain, said Cooks had better keep her head up and her eyes open.

“Everybody is going to be after her,” McKinnon said.

Cooks said that what really hurt was the comment of Principal Maurice Miller, who told her: “Go home, bake cookies, get pregnant and have babies like girls are supposed to do.”

Said Cooks: “That made me so mad. It was like my proving a point and wanting to play kind of came together.”

Norm Nixon, could this be why you are upset with the Clippers?

You are an unsigned free agent and you made $460,000 last season with the Clippers, your eighth NBA season. You are asking for $800,000 a year, which is approximately $390,000 more than the Clippers are offering.

You have just learned that the Clippers signed rookie Benoit Benjamin to a four-year contract for $575,000, $940,000, $990,000 and $1.5 million.

From the What If The Bubble Bursts Dept: Annette Smith, the star center on the University of Texas women’s basketball team, turned down a request by Sports Illustrated to photograph her in a bubble bath.

Smith said that the pose would be inappropriate, so a compromise was reached. She was photographed by SI at sunset on Austin’s Mount Bonnell. She was holding a basketball and she was fully clothed.

Quotebook

From Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, on the plethora of titles and sanctioning bodies in boxing: “The IBM, GTE, TRW, IRT and BMT titles are currently vacant, but I have heard that Leon Spinks is about to sign for a shot at the DDS crown.”