After This Loss, All He Wants Is to Be Alone

Having recently seen a judgment go against him, lawyer Harold Bender will get to issue some of his own today.

Bender, who represented jailed evangelist Jim Bakker, also is a Southern Conference football referee. He will lead the officiating crew at today’s Virginia Military-Marshall game.

“I do not like the notoriety on the football field,” Bender said. “I’d rather no one know me. If I can work a football game and people leave the game talking about the game and not even knowing the officials were there, that’s the best thing that could happen.”

The game will be Bender’s first since Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000 for fraud earlier this week. Bakker is appealing the conviction.

Will Bender miss the publicity? “It’s going to be a real treat trying to get back to normal,” he said.

Microchip shots: As Morning Briefing noted after the University of Houston’s 69-0 season-opening victory over Nevada Las Vegas, computer rankings of teams are limited by the amount of available information. The Cougars’ victory margin in that game apparently caused at least a partial meltdown of USA Today’s rankings computer, which rated them No. 1.

But computer rankings are a two-edged sword. Even though the Cougars beat Southern Methodist, 95-21, last Saturday, they dropped from 10th to 14th in the New York Times’ computer rankings. Apparently the Cougars’ ability to run up the score was offset by the quality of the competition.

Trivia time: On Oct. 28, 1973, what Laker set an NBA record with 17 blocked shots in a 111-98 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers?

Handle with care: If he had it to do over, would Dallas Green have handled Rickey Henderson differently when Green managed Henderson with the Yankees early in the season? Henderson’s contract was coming to an end and he could not get the Yankees to go for $2.4 million a year. Green told Claire Smith of the Hartford Courant: “If there’s one thing I could have changed it would have been the negotiations. That stuff adds pressure, and Rickey felt that a little bit.”

Best instructions: Baltimore Oriole catcher Jamie Quirk has been granted free agency five times, released four times and traded twice in his 15 major league seasons.

Quirk became a catcher in the Instructional League in 1978 at the suggestion of Whitey Herzog, then his manager with the Royals. Says Quirk: “Whitey said it might add 10 years to my career. As a young kid I believed him, but it didn’t really sink in. Obviously, he was right.”

Trivia answer: Elmore Smith.

Quotebook: Chi Chi Rodriguez, on tennis in Golf World magazine: “The thing I hate about that game is the second serve. He can wind up and take a big swing and if he doesn’t get it in, it’s a mulligan.”