Sugar and Spice Won’t Suffice Against Tyson

After Sugar Ray Leonard had disposed of Donny Lalonde, someone suggested jokingly that Mike Tyson would be next.

Janks Morton, Leonard’s trainer, didn’t laugh.

“If Ray could put on 12 to 15 pounds, he’d kick Tyson’s butt,” Morton told the Baltimore Sun. “People fail to realize how strong he is, and I’m particularly talking about his mental strength. He believes he can beat anyone. Thomas Hearns came back and looks like spaghetti. Ray just keeps getting stronger.”

Said Mike Trainer, Leonard’s promoter, when asked about a Tyson match: “Ridiculous.”

Note: Leonard confessed he weighed closer to 160 pounds than his announced 165. He said he packed the pockets of his warmup suit with silver dollars at the weigh-in.

Add Leonard: His performance failed to impress a couple of International Boxing Federation champions.

Said middleweight Michael Nunn: “Ray’s definitely lost a step or two since the Hagler fight.”

Said lightweight Greg Haugen: “Ray’s washed up. He was in there with a guy greener than lettuce.”

From Bob Bradley, sports information director at Clemson for the past 34 years: “George Bush is the first president to have played against Clemson in a varsity sport.”

Bush went 1 for 4 as Yale beat Clemson, 7-3, in the 1947 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. baseball tournament. The Elis went to the final where they lost to the University of California, which was led by Jackie Jensen.

In 1948, when Bush was captain, Yale also went to the final, losing to USC, which had 14-year-old George Anderson as its batboy.

You know him better as Sparky.

Trivia Time: Name five players from the military academies who have won the Heisman Trophy. (Answer below.)

Did Dexter Manley of the Washington Redskins really spit on Jim Dombrowski of the New Orleans Saints last Sunday? Dombrowski, who drew a damaging penalty for swinging at Manley, claims he did. Manley claims he sneezed.

“I’m allergic to holding,” he said, “so I sneezed. I don’t think there’s a no-sneeze rule. Anyway, I wouldn’t flagrantly spit on someone. I’m a mortgage banker, and do bankers spit? No.”

Mortgage banker? What will Mike Ditka say to that? Last year, he said of Manley, “He has the IQ of a grapefruit.”

Add Ditka: Former Chicago Bears teammate Ed O’Bradovich, after visiting the coach in the hospital, described this scene: “Tubes sticking out of his nose, arms, hands, legs, lights flashing, bells going off and he says, ‘Yeah, I was thinking about my family, my mother and father, my wife and kids and how I never got that hole-in-one.’ ”

Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks wasn’t as excited as others over his 18 rebounds against the Chicago Bulls Tuesday night.

Said Ewing, who had totaled only 11 rebounds in the first two games: “People make a big deal out of rebounding, but you look and you’ll see that the No. 1 and No. 2 rebounders of last year were traded. I’m still here.”

Michael Cage and Charles Oakley were traded by the Clippers and Bulls, respectively.

Trivia Answer: Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis and Pete Dawkins of Army, and Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach of Navy.

Quotebook

Jack Kemp, New York congressman and former quarterback: “Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective when I entered the political arena. I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.”