Del Negro an Irresistible Object in Italy

Vinny! Veni, vidi, vici!

So far, anyway.

Former North Carolina State point guard Vinny Del Negro, after his first six games with Benetton Treviso, is the Italian basketball league’s second-highest scorer, averaging 33.7 points a game. And his team has won all six games.

Stephen Wilson of the Associated Press reported that the Italian media call Del Negro “ paisa ,” a term of endearment derived from “ paisano .”

Italian fans have made Del Negro, who is shooting 61% and is second in the league in assists, the leading vote-getter in balloting for the Italian all-star game Dec. 1 in Rome.

Add Del Negro: In two seasons with the Sacramento Kings, he averaged 8.4 points a game.

Now, according to Wilson, Del Negro’s play has improved the Benetton team to the point that fans in Treviso, near Venice, are “standing in the aisles applauding the team for five minutes after every game.”

Last add Del Negro: The daily newspaper Il Messaggero, which owns the team that last season had Danny Ferry and Brian Shaw and this year has Michael Cooper, wrote: “There is no antidote against the talent and athletic vivacity of the ‘ paisa .’ ”

Sandro Gamba, coach of the national team, would like Del Negro to become an Italian citizen and play for Italy in international competition.

Gamba, mindful that Del Negro would face a tedious bureaucratic process, said: “If I were in the government, I would give him immediate citizenship.”

Trivia time: Which jersey number was issued to O.J. Simpson when he reported to the Buffalo Bills as a rookie in 1969?

The cycle, minus 1: On Oct. 29, 1988, No. 1-ranked UCLA was upset by Washington State, 34-30, at the Rose Bowl. In the two years since then, the Bruins have lost to every team in the Pacific 10 Conference except Arizona State.

The Bruins do not play Arizona State this season.

The empire’s new clothes: From the bimonthly SportsLetter, published by the Paul Ziffren Sports Resource Center, research facility of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles:

“Now they’ve gone too far!!! The World Champion San Francisco 49ers’ offices are located at 4949 Centennial Blvd., Santa Clara, Calif. 95054, in something called the Marie P. DeBartolo Centre. Note the spelling of the word Centre. Are the 49ers (or should we say 49res) moving to the Canadian Football League?”

Sporting gesture: Announcer Brent Musburger, fired by CBS-TV after a bitter personality clash and power struggle last spring, was in San Francisco Saturday night after working the Washington-Stanford game in Palo Alto for his new employer, ABC.

Musburger watched Game 4 of the World Series at a bar that also played host to a large party given by the Black and Gold Brigade, a California-based Pittsburgh Steeler fan club warming up for their team’s game with the 49ers the next day.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that in the ninth inning, as the Reds’ sweep neared completion--a result that would mean millions in lost revenue for CBS--Musburger began cheering.

When the Reds won, he ordered champagne all around.

Add Musburger: ABC publicist Mark Mandel, interviewed by the Associated Press, insisted that the 10 bottles Musburger bought weren’t meant to celebrate CBS’ misfortune. Mandel wanted it known that the announcer “is a big Reds fan and is a longtime fan of (Manager) Lou Piniella and was pleased he won the World Series.”

Mandel’s remark was a little more than CBS publicist Susan Kerr could swallow. She told AP: “That’s basically the way Brent has been since he left the network.”

Trivia answer: No. 36.

Quotebook: Television producer Steve Graham, a former sportswriter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution who is training for an attempted ascent of K-2, the world’s second-tallest mountain: “This is sure a change from my tenure as a sportswriter. My toughest climb in those days was up to the press box at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.”