Trail Blazers Lose Wallace as Forward Breaks Thumb

Portland Trail Blazer forward Rasheed Wallace will be out indefinitely because of a broken left thumb.

Wallace will undergo surgery Thursday. The injury occurred in the second quarter of the Blazers’ 106-84 loss Monday to the Washington Bullets. Wallace broke the thumb in the same place it was fractured last season when he sat out 17 games.

Wallace was the NBA’s leader in field-goal percentage at .585.

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The Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan and the Detroit Pistons’ Grant Hill, who have dominated fan voting for the NBA All-Star game in recent years, are running 1-2 in balloting for this season’s Eastern Conference team. Jordan has 111,525 votes at guard, Hill 103,889 at forward.

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Miscellany

Cincinnati Red owner Marge Schott could be in trouble again--and this time, it has nothing to do with baseball.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Schott ordered employees of her Cincinnati car dealership to fabricate sales, enabling the business to meet quotas in the hope of preventing General Motors from taking over the business.

Basketball recruits received calls from phone numbers assigned to Purdue University men’s basketball coaches in violation of NCAA rules, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported.

The Indiana paper reported that the calls were made in 1994 and 1995 on dates before the period when school officials were allowed to contact recruits or their families.

Soccer

Gilles De Bilde, star striker with the Belgian national team, was released after being held by police overnight for questioning about a punch that shattered an opponent’s nose and cheek.

The incident took place in a Belgian League first-division game Saturday in Brussels. De Bilde, who plays for Anderlecht, punched Aalst defender Kris Porte. Doctors are concerned that Porte may suffer permanent eye damage.

Despite his release, De Bilde still may face a jail sentence.

Names in the News

Monica Seles, defending champion of the Sydney International tennis tournament, has withdrawn from the upcoming event, scheduled for early next month, because of a broken right index finger. . . . Vinnie Ernst, a record-setting point guard for Providence College in the early 1960s, died of an apparent heart attack at 54.

* Randy Harvey is on vacation.