Lots of Details, but Not Much of the Story

A slick 35-page press kit packed with details about the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson heavyweight championship fight Nov. 8 has been released to the media.

It recounts Tyson’s up-from-the-ghetto life story and a heartwarming passage about how Tyson and promoter Don King return to Brooklyn each Christmas to give free turkeys to the poor.

Information as detailed as the ankle and fist measurements of each fighter is provided, as is an eight-page history of Caesars Palace, site of the fight.

Nowhere in the press kit, however, is there information about Tyson’s indictment on rape charges and that pending trial, or any word about the various civil suits pending against him.

Equation of the day: Success does not always equal profit.

Turner Broadcasting System Inc., through its sports division, owns the Atlanta Braves and a 96% interest in the Atlanta Hawks. Here are the company’s earnings from sports the last six years:

1985: $9.2-million loss.

1986: $13.8-million loss.

1987: $6.7-million loss.

1988: $5.3-million loss.

1989: $3.9-million loss.

1990: $17.2-million loss.

The sound you hear is not from the Tomahawk Chop, but from cuts in Ted Turner’s payroll.

Trivia time: Who is the current starting quarterback for the New England Patriots?

The old country: Michael Chang is in China for the first time, playing tennis, finding new fans and getting acquainted with the country where his ancestors were born.

The 19-year-old Chang has a 91-year-old great-grandmother living in the Southern Chinese city of Canton. He has never seen her but recently saw enough to make the trip worthwhile.

“The important thing for me was that I was able to make it here to Beijing,” Chang said. “To me that is special. It’s one part of my career that I will cherish.”

Chinese spectators, few of whom are familiar with the game, cheered loudly for Chang at an exhibition against Chinese players, although often at inappropriate moments. Several times, the umpire had to ask the crowd to be quiet so it wouldn’t disrupt play.

The match also drew some of China’s most high-profile tennis buffs, including Communist Party Politburo member Li Ruihuan and Wan Li, chairman of China’s legislature.

But Chang, the only player of Chinese descent to hold a top 10 ranking, said the Chinese leaders didn’t ask for any tennis tips when they greeted players before the match.

“I think they were shy,” he said.

Father knows best: Jeff Kemp, the former Ram quarterback now with the Philadelphia Eagles, on his talks with his father, Jack, the former pro quarterback who now heads the Department of Housing and Urban Development: “He’s a big encouragement. If I tell him to back off, he will. By the same token, I don’t give him pointers on HUD policies.”

Trivia answer: Hugh Millen.

Quotebook: Michael Novak in “The Joys of Sports”: “Baseball is a Lockean game, a kind of contract theory in ritual form, a set of atomic individuals who assent to patterns of limited cooperation in their mutual interest.”