SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : GET A T.O., BABY

Dick Vitale, the boisterous American basketball announcer, suffered the same language problems as any American in his attempt to order dinner for himself and his family Thursday night.

He was ordering in English, the food was Italian and the restaurant was Spanish.

In a flurry of hand-gesturing and menu-pointing, he got his order. But then he pushed his luck, asking a puzzled waiter, “You wouldn’t happen to have any root beer, would you?”

This a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant, all Times-Mirror newspapers.