Time Is No Equalizer for Mike Tyson’s Next Opponent

Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman will be a heavy underdog when he fights former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson June 16 at Las Vegas, but Tillman remembers when things were different.

Tillman beat Tyson twice when they were amateurs to make the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, but what he remembers most about those days was that they were in the same financial situation--both were broke.

“What I remember is back then we were receiving per diem as amateurs,” said Tillman, who will make $250,000 for the Tyson fight, by far his biggest purse.

“Now, he’s a millionaire.”

Trivia Time: When was the last time in the major leagues that different players from one team led their league in home runs three consecutive seasons?

Relieved of command: Winning 52 games this season, finishing only one game behind Philadelphia in the Atlantic Division and returning the Boston Celtics to respectability wasn’t enough for Coach Jimmy Rodgers, who was fired after the Celtics were knocked out of the NBA playoffs by the New York Knicks.

When reporters asked for an explanation, General Manager Jan Volk said: “In situations like this, you replace the generals. You can’t replace the soldiers. You can’t replace the soldiers as easily as you replace the generals. The generals are on the firing line as far as that is concerned.”

Guess that means the Celtics won some battles, but lost the war.

Add coaches: Doug Collins, fired by the Chicago Bulls last year, is considered to be one of the best unemployed coaches around, but when teams call him he tells them there’s no chance he will be back on the bench in the near future.

Collins says he enjoys his job as a TV analyst much more than coaching.

“I’m not interested in coaching right now,” Collins said. “The players are making a ton of money. The players have a tremendous amount of control. You have management and you have players. And there’s the coach, he doesn’t have a shot.”

Smoking lamp is out: You have to hand it to the Minnesota Timberwolves for making the welfare of their fans the bottom line.

When the NBA expansion team was presented with a petition from anti-smoking activists, the club decided to prohibit smoking in its new arena.

“In the long run, this is the best thing for the organization, and the (team’s) contributions to the community will be enhanced by this,” said Bill Robertson, the Timberwolves’ director of media services.

Not only that, the Timberwolves won’t sell advertising space to tobacco companies, which could cost the team $500,000 a year.

Trivia answer: Orlando Cepeda (46), Willie Mays (49) and Willie McCovey (44) of the San Francisco Giants led the National League in home runs from 1961 to 1963.

Quotebook: Senior vice president Dan O’Brien of the Angels on recent trades for 5-foot-8 Luis Polonia and 6-6 Dave Winfield from the New York Yankees: “So far, we’ve got the long and the short of it.”