Does He Really Need to Get Any Bigger?

Shaquille O’Neal is spending the summer filming the Disney-produced movie “Kazaam” and is reportedly getting stronger in the process.

Susan Slusser of the Orlando Sentinel reports that the 7-foot-1, 303-pound O’Neal is working with a personal trainer, lifting weights for the first time and doing aerobics, martial arts and boxing.

Dennis Scott, O’Neal’s Orlando Magic teammate, said, “He’s a totally different man already. That’s what’s scaring me.”

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Add Shaq: “I’m getting pretty good at boxing,” he said. “I’ll fight Mike Tyson for $3 million. No, really. I’m serious.”

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Trivia time: Who are the seven UCLA football players whose jerseys have been retired?

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Foolish fans: John Steigerwald in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The most amazing bit of news to come out of Steelers’ training camp this week on Myron Cope’s talk show was that several NFL clubs charge their fans to watch practice.

“It’s $10 to watch the St. Louis Rams. The fact they charge isn’t one-tenth as amazing as the fact that anybody pays.”

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Does he like football? Boston College and Notre Dame are the only Catholic schools that play Division I-A football. “That helps us,” Boston College Coach Dan Henning said. “We’ve got the Pope recruiting for us.”

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Pug pitcher: Woody Woodburn in the Ventura Star Free-Press: “To be fair, [Peter] McNeeley has done something [Hideo] Nomo hasn’t: Throw a no-hitter. [Mike] Tyson probably had tougher fights in the prison chow line.”

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Bad old days: The St. Louis Cardinals are in last place in the National League Central Division, 23 games behind Cincinnati.

For futility, though, the franchise won’t match the 1898 season, when it lost 111 games. Fittingly, its stadium burned to the ground that year.

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Athlete friendly: School administrators at Fresno State recently criticized a 17-page booklet that was created 10 years ago by assistant athletic director Bob Knudsen. The complaint is that it specifies which professors give preferential treatment to athletes.

No wonder Jerry Tarkanian decided to coach there.

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Looking back: On this day in 1961, Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 51st home run of the year against the Kansas City Athletics, the most ever by a player at this point in the season.

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Trivia answer: Kenny Easley, No. 5; Kenny Washington, 13; Gary Beban, 16; Paul Cameron, 34; Burr Baldwin, 38; Donn Moomaw, 80, and Jerry Robinson, 84.

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Quotebook: Harry Caray, talking on ESPN’s “Up Close” about why he followed his doctor’s orders and gave up drinking: “I’d rather be miserable and alive than happy and dead.”