Tyson Says the Only Bell to Ring Will Be Thomas’

Pinklon Thomas, picking up the pace in the war of words, issued a warning Wednesday.

“I’m not going to let Mike Tyson intimidate me, fight dirty,” Thomas said of their scheduled fight Saturday night. “If he hits me after the bell, I’ll hit him after the bell. If he hits me low, I’ll hit him low. If he butts me, I may not butt him, but I’ll do something.”

Tyson said Thomas has nothing to worry about. In fact, he said he knew a simple way to avoid hitting Thomas after the bell.

How’s that?

“Knock him out in the first round,” Tyson said.

Larry Bird, asked about the Boston Celtic mystique, told Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post: “Some teams don’t come to play every night. We do. We win as a team and lose as a team.

“Anybody who doesn’t get along in the locker room, starts smartin’ off, we let him know that if he doesn’t stop messin’ up, he’s gone. No bitchin’ about minutes, no selfish play. There’s four or five of us who’ll go to Red (Auerbach) or K.C. (Jones) and say, ‘Get him gone. He’s not a Celtic.’ ”

Add Red: Said Kevin McHale of Auerbach: “Red starts showin’ up this time of year. We’ll be going over schemes and he’ll say something and we’ll look at each other and say, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’ It’s not like the guy’s a stiff. He didn’t just fall off the turnip cart.”

Said Bird: “What Red says, I remember. Only thing he’s said lately is, ‘Don’t use injuries as an excuse to lose.’ ”

After Dennis Johnson scored only eight points in both Boston losses at Detroit, Celtics’ physician Thomas Silva said: “I think he’s in a state of chronic fatigue. I think it all has caught up with him.”

Maybe Auerbach talked with him. Tuesday night, he played 45 of 48 minutes and scored 18 points, including the winning basket.

It-had-to-happen dept.: Said Bob Neal of WTBS after Boston was awarded the ball out of bounds in the third quarter: “Bird is great on inbounds passes.”

Bird promptly threw it away and Detroit scored to take its first lead, 85-83.

Trivia Time: Name the only major league player who has hit 100 or more home runs for three different franchises? (Answer below.)

36 Years Ago Today: On May 28, 1951, rookie Willie Mays of the New York Giants, after going 0 for 12 in his first three games, hit a home run off Warren Spahn as the Giants lost to the Boston Braves, 4-1.

Said Spahn afterward: “For the first 60 feet it was a helluva pitch.”

Wrote Dave Anderson of the New York Times after the Yankees reported a series of clubhouse thefts: “Through the years, occasional thefts have occurred on teams in every sport. But the most famous story involved the Yankees, when Babe Ruth suspected Leo Durocher of having stolen his wristwatch while putting the Babe to bed after a night on the town. Durocher, as Robert Creamer wrote in ‘Babe,’ denied the charge in a half-angry, half-mocking tone.

“ ‘If I was going to steal anything from him,’ Durocher said at the time, ‘I’d steal his Packard.’ ”

Trivia Answer: Reggie Jackson--257 with Oakland, 144 with the New York Yankees and 123 with the Angels.

Quotebook

Jimmy Rodgers, Boston Celtic assistant coach, on Larry Bird: “Some things Larry does you just don’t teach.”