WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Despite Race, Jury Is Out on Spitz

Of Mark Spitz’s performance in his first race since the 1972 Olympic Games, one of several foreign reporters at Mission Viejo last Saturday said: “As we say in German, ‘Das war nicht schwimmen, das war baden.’ “ Or: “That was not swimming, that was bathing.”

Then the reporter left for the airport to catch a plane to the East Coast, where he will cover 42-year-old George Foreman’s heavyweight title bout Friday night.

The moral is that it is too early to write off Spitz’s chances of earning a berth on the U.S. team for the Barcelona Olympics next year, when he also will be 42. But if he does not swim significantly faster April 27 at Mission Viejo against Matt Biondi in another 50-meter butterfly race than he did Saturday against Tom Jager, Spitz will have to be satisfied with the seven gold medals he won at Munich.

Meantime, the U.S. Swimming Federation should be grateful to him for attracting attention to the sport amid baseball openers, hockey playoffs and pro basketball division races.

“He brought the non-swimming audience back to the pool in a non-Olympic year,” former Olympic swimmer John Naber said.

George Steinbrenner headed a delegation of 120 U.S. Olympic Committee officials who went to Cuba last week to inspect facilities for this summer’s Pan American Games at Havana and Santiago.

“I really don’t miss baseball,” said Steinbrenner, a USOC vice president. “I’m so enthused with the Olympics. These athletes excite me. You don’t hear any of them complaining about playing for $2 million.”

Michael Klatt, coordinating producer for the Turner Broadcasting System’s coverage of the Pan American Games, accompanied the USOC officials. “There’s still a lot of rough edges, but there are workers crawling all over the place,” he said. “Those stories about athletes and coaches working on construction are true. I ran into a boxing referee I met last year in Reno. He was sweeping (with) a broom outside the boxing venue.”

Speaking of baseball, Elizabeth Primrose-Smith, president of the organizing committee for the U.S. Olympic Festival, set for July 12-21 in L.A., said in a recent interview all facilities for the 37 sports have been rented at normal prices. But she forgot to mention until a few days later that Peter O’Malley is not charging the organizing committee to use Dodger Stadium for the opening ceremony.

Rotterdam, beware. After winning at Legia Warsaw, 3-1, last week, it appears as if Manchester United will advance to soccer’s May 15 European Cup Winners’ Cup final at Rotterdam. It will be the first time an English team has played in a European Cup final since 1985, when 39 fans were killed at Brussels’ Heysel Stadium in fighting between fans of Liverpool and Juventus of Turin, Italy.

As a result, English teams were banned from playing on the continent for five years. Tensions in Rotterdam could be particularly high if Juventus also advances to the final, but that does not appear likely after it was beaten, 3-1, last week at Barcelona, Spain.

Manchester United has a Sunday date at London’s Wembley Stadium in the English League Cup final against Sheffield Wednesday. In the starting lineup for Sheffield will be John Harkes, a midfielder on last year’s U.S. World Cup team. According to the U.S. Soccer Federation, Harkes will be the first American soccer player to play at storied Wembley.

After recently winning four games in Bulgaria by a combined score of 24-0, the U.S. women’s soccer team begins a qualifying tournament Thursday in Haiti for the first World Championships for women in November in China.

Four Latin American club teams--Vasco de Gama of Brazil, Monterey and Chivas of Mexico and Luis Angel Firpo of El Salvador--will play in a tournament next Tuesday and April 25 at the Coliseum.

Squash has a 50-50 chance to be part of Atlanta’s Olympics in 1996, said Roger Eady, president of the International Squash Federation.

As what? The official vegetable?