THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Notes : Hotheads Abound at Games

The age-old desire to kill the umpire appears to have taken on new dimensions at the Pan American Games. There are officiating soap operas galore here. A trip to just about any venue is a search for tomorrow, or at least for a brighter day.

Even table tennis hasn’t escaped. In fact, it has been a hotbed of hotheads. Obviously, Ping-Pong diplomacy is a thing of the past.

In the semifinals of the mixed doubles Thursday night, the U.S. team of Insook Bhushan and Khoa Nguyen were in a tough match against the Venezuelan team of Elizabeth Popper and Francisco Lopez when things suddenly got ugly. If John McEnroe had been playing, he would have thrown his paddle.

The official in charge, Delano Lai Fatt of Canada, detected Lopez trying to get some extra coaching by going near his coach and pretending to tie his shoe. Fatt had already warned the Venezuelan coach about stalling by flashing him a blue card. Now, catching this second flagrant offense, Fatt ejected the Venezuelan coach from the arena.

The coach left but sneaked back into the bleachers later, grinning like a kid who had escaped the candy shop with a stolen sucker.

But when the match had ended and the U.S. team had prevailed in three sets, on the way to its gold medal, the Venezuelan coach, waiting until Fatt was giving out a few quotes on the big uproar to a couple of bored journalists, wandered by and accused Fatt, for all to hear, of taking money from the U.S. team.

That sent Fatt into an uproar about false accusations and personal loss of credibility, and sent him off after the Venezuelan coach, arms flapping.

All the scene needed was Charlie Chaplin.

More from the theater of the absurd: A couple of nights earlier at table tennis, it had taken more than six hours to complete the program because of controversy over a rule that says the serving player must toss the ball at least six inches into the air.

Seven officials were excused, and the competition was completed with two officials from Aruba who weren’t even sanctioned to work the Pan Am Games.

Then, there was the controversy over Canadian swimmer Sally Gilbert, who allegedly tested positive for an antihistamine that is on the banned drug list.

Stories hit the papers Friday morning that Gilbert, a member of the 800-meter freestyle relay team that won a bronze medal Sunday night, would be banned. That meant that not only would she lose what she had achieved here, but that she likely would be out for the ’88 Olympics, too.

The Friday stories quoted the team’s swim coach as angrily decrying the team’s medical people for allowing her to take a medicine on the banned list for her cold, rather than a legal one.

Then later Friday, when it still had not been determined whether she had, indeed, tested positive and would, indeed, be banned, the Canadian Olympic Assn. circulated an angry written criticism of reporters for printing the story. There seemed to be no recognition of the fact that the Canadian coach himself had made the story big with his angry statement.

The whole flap turned out to be a teapot tempest later in the day when Pan American Sports Organization President Mario Vazquez Rana said that Gilbert would be able to keep her bronze medal because the traces of the banned drug were insignificant. “There is no problem with the Canadian girl,” he said. “She had taken medicine for the common cold. Even aspirin shows up in the test.”

And then, along came another dispute.

U.S. wrestler Kenneth Chertow, according to official news releases, was disqualified from the 125.5-pound freestyle wrestling tournament Friday when he failed to show for his match against Galo Legarda of Ecuador.

But according to a protest filed immediately with international wrestling officials, Chertow was on the premises, warming up and waiting to be called to compete. He simply didn’t hear the announcer call him to wrestle.

Who was supposed to be in charge of calling whom, when they were to call, why they didn’t and what this whole mess meant was not immediately resolved, but Chertow’s protest was denied anyway. There was no report on whether Abbott and Costello had had a hand in the decision.

Carl Lewis talked Thursday about the progress of his record-making career.

“I’ve released a single called ‘Break It Up’ that has sold more than 500,000 copies in Europe,” Lewis said. “I’ve worked on a new album, but only during my off-time from track and field training. We started the album in March and we haven’t even done the mixing on it yet.

“But I’m really pleased with the direction I’m going in this. I wrote one song and co-wrote another on the album and I sing and I produced another song.

“I think I’m getting to the point where people recognize my voice.”

Lewis also talked about one of the big advantages of long jumping in the facility here, where he has had his greatest success and where, Thursday night, Jackie Joyner-Kersee tied the women’s world record.

“It has a long runway, and I really need that,” Lewis said. ‘My approach run is 173 feet, and there is room for all of it on the main runway here.”

No one who has heard the tape has suggested that the Panoramics are any threat to the Pointer Sisters. But then, the Pointer Sisters can’t play basketball worth a hoot, either.

It started out as a shopping trip through Indianapolis’ downtown Union Station shopping center Monday for U.S. basketball players Teresa Edwards of Georgia, Alisa Scott of Mississippi, and Fran Harris of Texas. They emerged, a couple of hours later, as a potentially hot new singing group.

They had found a store where, for $20, anyone can cut a record. Well, a tape, really. The store supplies the customer with background and sheet music for the tune of their choice. The customer merely supplies the vocals.

Harris saw this as an opportunity to fast-break into a seven-figure income, something not otherwise available, given the present financial opportunities in women’s pro basketball.

The trio selected “That’s What Friends Are For,” Harris singing lead. They were so impressed with themselves, they immediately called themselves the Panoramics.

Among those they played it for was Chris Plonsky, a USA press officer here. She in turn played it for a CBS official. The network, Plonsky said, planned to play it during its women’s basketball coverage today.

How good are the Panoramics?

“Better than tolerable,” Plonsky said.

Times staff writer Earl Gustkey contributed to this story.