Soccer Referees Are Corrupt? Let Fans Eat Cake, Official Says

Police are investigating charges that soccer referees were told to rig the outcome of key games in Brazil, including qualifying rounds for the national championships, but having a public panel take part in the investigation does not sit well with Eduardo Viana, the Rio Soccer Federation president.

“I detest public opinion,” Viana said. “The people could all be shot by machine guns, for all I care. . . . I’m the son of a factory owner, the elite, and I’m a right winger.”

*

Trivia time: What country, other than the United States, had the most baseball players in the major leagues last season?

*

Bookends: In show business, they like a spectacular opening number and a good closer.

John Miller did something like that in baseball. In Miller’s first at-bat in the majors, Sept. 11, 1966, he hit a home run for the New York Yankees.

Three years later, Sept. 18, 1969, in his last at-bat, Miller hit a homer while playing for the Dodgers.

Those were the only two home runs of Miller’s major league career.

*

Costly pizza: In Italy, it doesn’t pay to be crude, at least not on television.

British international soccer star Paul Gascoigne was recently fined $20,500 by his Italian team Lazio. His offense?

Belching into a TV microphone.

*

Words of wisdom: Lee Halfpenny, who helped coach the U.S. boxing team at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, died last week in Baltimore at 87, leaving behind his philosophy of prizefighting:

“Boxing is the greatest form of exercise in the entire world. It gives you confidence in life, as it does in the ring. You have to make quick decisions in life. You make them in the ring. You learn to always step forward. Never backward.”

*

Hoop happy: According to the Amateur Athletic Foundation’s SportsLetter, more than 800 NBA games will be televised on regional sports networks this season, and throughout the world, NBA games will be televised to 141 countries.

Dinner, anyone?Although it wasn’t his idea of a fiesta, Miami Coach Dennis Erickson ate an interesting appetizer during Fiesta Bowl week in Arizona.

Rattlesnake.

“I had a bite the other night,” Erickson said. “I might starve to death if I had to eat it. No, don’t say that. People might start sending me rattlesnake.”

*

Remember him? The Marlboro Man is gone from the Kingdome, run out of Seattle by an ordinance that bans tobacco advertising from all county buildings. A 55-foot sign behind left field, depicting a cigarette-smoking cowpoke, is now covered with black paint.

*

Trivia answer: The Dominican Republic, with 41.

*

Quotebook: Nolan Richardson, Arkansas basketball coach, after President Clinton’s appearance at a game against Texas Southern: “Everyone was so excited to have the President in the locker room, I couldn’t even get an assistant coach to go do the postgame radio show.”