Brown May Save Vitale From a Scrub Party

Maybe Dick Vitale won’t have to scrub the floor of Allen Fieldhouse with a toothbrush, after all. That’s what he promised to do if Larry Brown returned next season as the University of Kansas’ basketball coach.

When Brown turned down the UCLA job, Kansas students started sending toothbrushes to Vitale, but the announcer may be off the hook.

After Bob Weiss was fired as coach of the San Antonio Spurs by owner Red McCombs, Brown told the San Antonio Light: “That’s the type of situation that would appeal to me. I love San Antonio, and Doug Moe, who’s my best friend, thinks the world of Red McCombs.”

Moe, coach of the Denver Nuggets, formerly coached the Spurs.

Brown, who Thursday denied a later Light story that he had already agreed in principle to coach the Spurs, added: “I wouldn’t leave for just any NBA job. I have to work for people who let me coach. I want to align myself with a young team and see the potential of winning. I just like to coach, and the purest form of coaching is the NBA.”

Question: Wonder how much Brown loved San Antonio before it won--and signed--David Robinson in the draft lottery?

After hitting his first home run of the season, pitcher Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets says he is now aiming for the first double of his career.

He’s got two triples but says that’s the problem. “That’s because I’m so fast, I don’t have to stop at second base,” he told Marty Noble of Newsday. “I’ll take a triple anytime. But I’ll get a double one of these days.”

Trivia Time: What was the last team to get swept in the NBA Finals? (Answer to follow.)

Remember that spill Byron Scott took when he got clotheslined by Sam Perkins in the Laker-Dallas series?

Says Detroit’s John Salley: “If Ricky Mahorn had done that, they would have taken out the handcuffs and called in the state troopers. They would have had him on the floor, reading him his rights, with a .45-caliber at his neck.”

Add Pistons: Vinnie Johnson, on why he wears No. 15: “I was a big fan of Earl Monroe. He made those great one-on-one moves and got open shots. Nobody could make those moves, so they called them tricks, but that was great basketball.”

More Pistons: Adrian Dantley was hot in Game 1, going 14 for 16, but the Lakers have seen hotter.

In Game 1 in 1984-85, Scott Wedman of the Boston Celtics went 11 for 11. That was the Memorial Day Massacre in Boston Garden, when the Celtics won, 148-114. The Lakers recovered to win in six games.

Changing-his-tune Dept.: When CBS analyst Tom Heinsohn was coaching the Boston Celtics, he had this to say about the playoffs: “They go on and on and on. It’s like a guy telling a bad joke for 15 minutes.”

Peter Ueberroth, predicting he’ll soon be forgotten after stepping out as baseball commissioner, told Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post: “The worst part of being commissioner is that I had to get in disguise to go to a ballpark. In a couple of years, I won’t have to get out an old hooded sweat shirt to go to a game.”

For What It’s Worth: University of Michigan pitcher Jim Abbott, drafted No. 1 by the Angels, was not named on the All-American baseball team chosen by the American Baseball Coaches Assn. He didn’t even make the second or third teams. Overall, 11 pitchers were picked.

Trivia Answer: The Lakers. They were swept by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983.

Quotebook

Mike Tyson, on the wrangling among World Boxing Assn., World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation officials over what round limit to set for his fight with Michael Spinks: “Who cares? As long as possible. Fifteen, 20 rounds. A brawl in the street. Anything they want.”