The Thread Leads to San Diego in Case of the Champ’s Pants

Just why the heavyweight boxing champion of the world thinks his purloined trunks are in San Diego is a bit foggy.

But the point is that the champ does think they’re in San Diego, and he wants them back very badly.

So listen up if you know the whereabouts of the trunks that Evander Holyfield wore when he rocked, pawed and slow-danced with Larry Holmes for 12 rounds in Las Vegas last June:

Return the trunks and Holyfield will see that you get two ringside seats and VIP privileges for his Nov. 13 title defense against Riddick Bowe (plus a pair of replacement trunks, autographed). No questions asked.

Michael Merkow, who runs the San Diego office of Main Events Team (which has a business relationship with Holyfield’s handlers), explains that Holyfield has every pair of trunks from every fight he’s ever had.

“It’s a big part of his life,” Merkow said. “It’s equivalent to a baseball pitcher who keeps his no-hitter balls. It’s no joke. He’s very upset.”

The trunks were apparently swiped from the dressing room at Caesar’s Palace while Holyfield was at the hospital. The champ later heard from “a guy in Atlanta” that the trunks had been smuggled to San Diego.

Colin Flaherty, San Diego investigative reporter and political operative, thought he had a line on the trunks. He had a tip that they had been sold for $8,500 to a local attorney.

Close, but not quite. Those trunks turned out to have been previously owned by Mike Tyson.

Irish Spud Murphy, who runs Irish Spud Murphy’s Boxing Gym in downtown San Diego, has kept his ear to the ground (the canvas?) but has heard nothing.

“It’s the biggest mystery in San Diego boxing today: who’s got the champ’s trunks?” he said. “It could be a groupie, a kook or just somebody who likes trunks.”

Brad Bunshaft, owner of the American Sports Card Exchange in La Mesa, has talked up the trunks on the Saturday morning show he does for XTRA radio, “Bad Brad’s Collectible Show.” He’s turned up zero leads.

He fears the trunks have fallen into the nether world of the sports collectible black market, where they could fetch thousands of dollars:

“There are people out there who don’t care how they get this stuff.”

Transient Relativity

What people are doing and saying.

* Spotted in downtown San Diego: A professorial-looking transient (tweed jacket, pointy beard) reading a biography of Einstein and taking intermittent breaks to search for cigarette butts.

* Tragedy upon tragedy.

Michael (Mick) Champion, gunned down Oct. 5, allegedly by escapee Johnaton George during a carjacking in the Gaslamp Quarter, had taken out a $10,000 life insurance policy several weeks earlier.

But the policy was not to be effective until Nov. 1, so there will be no payment to his widow, Pam.

The district attorney’s Victim/Witness Assistance Program has arranged for the San Diego Crime Victims Fund to pay a month’s rent for Pam Champion and is fast-tracking her application through a state program that aids victims.

The money will go for funeral and burial expenses, and psychological counseling.

Home Savings of America is also accepting donations on her behalf.

* Councilman Ron Roberts is one of four finalists for the top staff job at the San Diego Chamber of Commerce.

The four are all local males. Look for a decision by month’s end.

* Why isn’t Councilman Bob Filner wearing a hard hat in that television commercial for his congressional campaign in which he’s in the middle of a construction site talking to hard hat-wearing workers?

Because he remembers how goofy a fellow Democrat named Michael Dukakis looked when he donned headgear for that infamous Snoopy-in-a-tank commercial, that’s why.

ESP on the Line

A psychic in the Gaslamp Quarter has reported to police that that’s she been getting annoying, harassing phone calls.

Cops are sympathetic but they wonder why she answers the phone when someone calls just to annoy or harass her.

After all, if she’s really psychic . . .