It Just Doesn’t Figure to Be Match for Ages

Top-seeded Ivan Lendl, still looking for his first Wimbledon championship, figures to have an easy time today with his first opponent, Argentina’s Christian Miniussi. But the ATP’s official players guide shows a statistic that makes Lendl a cinch to beat tennis’ latest wonder child. The guide lists Miniussi’s birth date as July 5, 1987.

ATP officials said this was a typographical error and that Miniussi is 22, not 2.

Name game: The following is either a public service or a public nuisance, depending on your opinion of Chris Berman, ESPN’s nickname-happy commentator and play-by-play man.

No longer restrained by network management, which muzzled his nicknaming a few seasons ago but relented when his fans protested en masse, here is Berman’s 1990 lineup:

Sil (When The Swallows Return To) Campusano, Philadelphia Phillies; Roberto (Remember The) Alomar, San Diego Padres; Mark Carreon (My Wayward Son), New York Mets; Eric (Little) Anthony, Houston Astros; Gary Sheffield (Of Dreams), Milwaukee Brewers; Robin Ventura (Highway), Chicago White Sox; Todd (Good Housekeeping) Zeile, St. Louis Cardinals; Jeff Ballard (Of A Thin Man), Baltimore Orioles.

Trivia time: Who was the originator of Berman’s “back-back-back-back-back” call?

Spitting it out: Philadelphia Phillie outfielder Lenny Dykstra, when asked by Richard Justice of the Washington Post whether the world is ready for him: “Wake up, Dude, it’s the 90s.”

Where’s Lou Holtz?: No. 1 in the architecture poll: Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post recently noted Jennifer Capriati’s “youthful frame of reference.”

In Paris for the French Open, Capriati was awed by the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Said the 14-year-old: “I thought we were going to a football field.”

His kind of town: Steve Jacobson of Newsday, on John Thompson’s decision to stay at Georgetown rather than become the Denver Nuggets’ general manager: “He would have been a strong black man working for the only black ownership in sports. But then he has his penchant for control, which is his at Georgetown . . .

“He’d have been as big as his players, but they wouldn’t be his students. And the job calls for some public relations skills. One of Thompson’s favorite tricks is to return calls to media people at dawn’s early light after a night game.

“It sounds as if he has worked out who is in charge with the new university president.”

Can’t take the heat: In the old-timers game played Saturday at Arlington Stadium, eight players were younger than Nolan Ryan, who pitched the day before for the Texas Rangers.

One of them, 40-year-old Cecil Cooper, says that’s OK. “When he starts playing in them, I won’t anymore,” Cooper said. “You think I want to face that 90-mile-an-hour fastball?”

Toiling in obscurity: While most of Italy braced itself for Sunday’s round of World Cup soccer games, Richard Olsen concentrated on other things.

The 33-year old Hawaiian-born right-hander, a former minor leaguer with the Milwaukee Brewers’ triple-A Vancouver franchise from 1979-82, pitched a partita perfetta (perfect game) for Grosseto of the Italian league, striking out 18 in a 7-0 victory over Turin.

“No matter where it happens, it’s a great feeling,” Olsen told the Associated Press. “I’ve never seen a perfect game . . . it’s hard to even imagine throwing one.”

In a game last season, Olsen retired the first 24 batters, but his teammates let him down. Italian rules state that if a team has a 10-run lead after seven innings, the game is over. Grosseto led, 10-0, at the time.

Trivia answer: Red Barber.

Quotebook: Charles Barkley, on receiving the most votes for the NBA all-interview team: “I say what I think. I tell the truth, and there are times when you are not supposed to tell the truth.”