He Was Always Full of Bluster, but on This Occasion He Wilted

Wilt Chamberlain collected more rebounds than anyone in NBA history, but he cheated himself out of even more.

Harvey Pollack, Philadelphia 76er statistician, recalled that Chamberlain once complained that statisticians were short-changing him on rebounds and took the complaint to owner Eddie Gottlieb.

At the next game, Gottlieb had a friend of Wilt’s, Vince Miller, keep his own rebounding statistics. Miller did, and after the game, Gottlieb told Chamberlain he could have his choice between Miller’s total and the scorekeeper’s. Chamberlain took Miller’s. Bad choice. The scorekeeper gave him more rebounds.

Pollack: “That was the last time Wilt ever challenged the accuracy of the rebounding.”

Deal him out: From 76er forward Charles Barkley, claiming he couldn’t care less about the MVP race: “There is no MVP. There are just a lot of great players. Are you going to tell me that Ewing is better than Jordan, or Jordan is better than Magic? It’s a stupid vote by a bunch of people who have no clue.”

Trivia time: Don Mattingly is the seventh New York Yankee to be the highest-paid player in baseball. Name the other six.

For the record: It was Carl King, not his father Don, who was punched--actually, slapped--by Hector Camacho before the Chavez-Taylor fight.

Add King: From Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “Don King doesn’t want to give the impression to other fighters that he has every heavyweight tied up. So he had Pinklon Thomas sign a three-year promotional contract with King’s daughter.”

Whoa: Said Connecticut basketball Coach Jim Calhoun after Dick Vitale picked the Huskies as one of the top teams next season: “It’s still April. Give me a chance to tee it up a couple of times.”

Shame: After reading that Alabama linebacker Keith McCants did only nine repetitions in the 225-pound bench press, former USC flanker Lonnie White, now a Times staff writer, said: “I haven’t lifted weights in years, and I can bench-press 225 pounds 15 times.”

Masquerade?: Asked Buddy Baron of KSAN-FM in Oakland after the Raiders cut $174 million off their Oakland deal: “Let’s pull on Al Davis’ face and see if it’s really Joe Isuzu.”

Trivia answer: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Jim (Catfish) Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield.

Quotebook: Martina Navratilova, after winning a new car for her victory over 14-year-old Jennifer Capriati in the Family Circle Cup last Sunday: “It’s just as well I won, because if she won, she couldn’t drive it anyway.”