Sulaiman Probably Wishes This Was Just a Short Story

Jose Sulaiman, after being retained as president of the World Boxing Council, gave a speech in which he said: “I understand--and it is very hard for me to understand--that a public figure has to accept defamation. We have to accept slander. We have to accept that they called me fat and short and ugly.”

Said Wallace Matthews of Newsday: “Cheer up, Jose. You’re not that short.”

Batting .500: Said former Yankee manager Dallas Green at a baseball banquet in New York: “When I came to New York before last season, some of my friends told me that I would never get along with the New York media and I wouldn’t get along with Mr. Steinbrenner. One out of two isn’t bad.”

Trivia time: What franchise has suffered the most four-game sweeps in NBA Finals? Stealing the show: Forward Nadav Henefeld of Connecticut, second in the nation in steals with an average of four per game, is a native of Israel, inspiring one writer to call his steals “Gaza strips.”

Battle of giants: If you’ve wondered how Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain fared in head-to-head combat, here are the statistics: Averaging out their totals in 142 meetings, Chamberlain outscored Russell, 28.7 to 14.5, and outrebounded him, 28.7 to 23.7. (That’s right, Chamberlain had the same average in points and rebounds).

In team victories, Russell led, 85-57.

Add Chamberlain: He admits that his listed weight as a player was wrong. “I was always listed at 275,” he said. “I was really over 300 pounds those years.”

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: Ken Farrar, the tennis official who gave John McEnroe the boot in the Australian Open, told the Boston Globe that Ivan Lendl, the eventual winner, asked him the next day what the magic word was to get ejected.

Farrar dodged the question, but he wondered why Lendl asked.

Lendl: “Because it’s real hot out here. If I want to get out of there, what do I have to say?”

McEnroe could tell him.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: From Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal: “Art Schlichter, the Ohio State quarterback with the gambling addiction, is now a beer salesman in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas? For a guy who can’t turn down a bet?)

Really big shoe: World distance-running king Said Aouita of Morocco is wearing Kelme shoes, made is Spain. It’s easy to understand why. According to Track & Field News, he is being paid in the neighborhood of $2 million. He also gets a villa in Spain.

Trivia answer: The Lakers, three times. The Minneapolis Lakers were swept by Boston in 1958-59. The Los Angeles Lakers were swept by Philadelphia in 1982-83 and by Detroit in 1988-89.

Quotebook: Tennis pro Monica Seles, on what it would take to beat Steffi Graf: “I have to think of her as just another player. How do I do that?”