It’s the Second Time Around for Peter McNeeley’s Mother

Mike Tyson’s first opponent since leaving prison, Peter McNeeley, is the son of Tom McNeeley, who lost to heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson 34 years ago.

Both of Peter’s parents will be ringside for his Aug. 19 match against Tyson.

“Pity my mom,” Tom McNeeley Jr., Peter’s brother and an ESPN producer, told the Boston Globe. “She had to go through it when my dad fought Patterson.”

Patterson knocked the senior McNeeley down 10 times in four rounds and went down once himself in a true slugging match.

Peter will have to fight the same way.

“Peter’s got a puncher’s chance, if he catches him,” his brother said. “One thing’s for sure. Someone is going down.”

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Trivia time: Why was the McNeeley bout significant in Patterson’s career?

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Armed, but not dangerous: Baltimore Sun columnist John Eisenberg, debunking all but one of many excuses offered for the Orioles’ troubles in the American League East: “It’s the pitching, stupid.”

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Toughest matchup of all: According to columnist Mike Lupica in the Sporting News, Michael Jordan’s problems this season had nothing to do with the opposition.

“This wasn’t about Michael vs. the Magic,” Lupica wrote, “or Michael vs. Shaq. This was all about Michael vs. Michael. The new No. 23 against the old one. . . . Sometimes I get the idea he was happier playing baseball. He couldn’t hit a lick, but he wasn’t playing one-on-one against the greatest player who ever lived, Old No. 23.”

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Add all-time hoop greats: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain are considered by many to be the greatest centers in NBA history. Yet at one point, they had only a .500 record when playing together in All-Star games.

Asked what that told him, Russell replied: “It told me Wilt didn’t know how to play forward.”

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Fore means four: The Hornecks of Logan, Iowa, and South Sioux City, Neb., will be honored at the U.S. Open Golf Championship this month as the winners of a search for a family that has passed its love of golf through four generations.

Along with photos of the golfers, entrants were required to write a 100-word essay explaining how golf became an integral part of their lives.

Great-grandfather Garland Horneck, 90, plays nine holes every day at the Logan-Missouri Valley Golf Club.

Bill Sr., 65, although legally blind since 1990, plays at the same club.

Bill Jr., is a club champion, and his son Tim, 13, also plays, as does Tim’s sister, Paige.

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Trivia answer: It was the last time the two-time heavyweight champion successfully defended his title.

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Quotebook: Laker announcer Chick Hearn on Dennis Rodman on a night when the San Antonio Spur had green hair: “He doesn’t cut that hair. He mows it.”