They Call It Wrestling, Not No Holds Barred

When Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan, was a student at Harvard in 1972, everybody called her Pinky. She was an aspiring sportswriter who managed to get a tryout with the Harvard Crimson.

Wrote Leigh Montville of Boston Globe: “She wrote one memorable story about a 132-pound wrestler. The story clunked along, a novice’s attempt at newswriting until a memorable ending. The sentence read, ‘(The wrestler) vehemently denies that all male wrestlers are homosexuals.’

“ ‘What’s this?’ asked Crimson editor John Powers, now a writer for the Globe. “ ‘Who thinks all male wrestlers are homosexuals?’

“ ‘Well, I do,’ Pinky Bhutto said. ‘Doesn’t everybody?’

“The story was published. Minus the closing sentence.”

Big difference: From Soviet guard Rimas Kurtinaitis, a three-point marksman from Lithuania: “My home area is exactly like Indiana, but without Bobby Knight.”

Call the CIA: Lee Trevino, who will be eligible for the PGA senior tour in December, is concerned about a story that Isao Aoki also is joining the tour.

“We’re gonna have to keep an eye on Aoki,” Trevino told the Atlanta Journal. “You know, in the Orient, you’re considered to be 9 months old when you’re born. He might be saying he’s 50 and he’s really only 49 years and three months.”

Trivia time: What has Henry Aaron always been first in since becoming a big leaguer?

Bird watcher: Said Isiah Thomas after playing in the Larry Bird charity game, in which the Boston forward scored 33 points: “He pretty much knows what he can and can’t do. Give him another two months to really get his game in shape and look out, world, here he comes again. I’m just glad I’ve got my championship ring.”

East is least: How far has the American League East slipped? Says Bucky Dent, manager of triple-A Columbus: “Baltimore is in first place, and we played against half their guys at Rochester last year.”

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Before their last game with the Phoenix Suns, twins Tom and Dick Van Arsdale were going to switch their No. 4 and No. 5 jerseys as a prank, but they chickened out.

“We did pull a switch once, however,” Dick told the Boston Globe. “In Little League, he had a red hat and I had a green hat. He was the team’s best pitcher, and there was a rule about how many innings you could pitch in a week. We switched hats so he could pitch in a big game.”

The thespian: Seattle Manager Jim Lefebvre told USA Today that he dabbled in acting in 1966 and had roles in Batman and Gilligan’s Island.

In Batman, he was one of the Riddler’s henchmen, and in Gilligan’s Island he was in a tribe of cannibals planning to boil the stranded crew in a pot.

“My big lines,” said Lefebvre, “were, ‘Ubba, gooba.’ ”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Four days before Carl Hubbell struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in succession in the 1934 All-Star game on this date, he pitched the New York Giants to a 1-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in 18 innings, going the distance.

Trivia answer: He is the first name in the Baseball Encyclopedia.

Quotebook: Magic Johnson of Lakers, on No. 1 draft choice Vlade Divac of Yugoslavia: “If he can’t speak English, that’s all right. As long as he can put it in the basket when I point to it.”