He Needs a Ring to Complete This Outfit

When the New York Giants’ 6-foot-7, 300-pound Keith Hamilton stepped off the plane in Tampa, Fla., for the Super Bowl, he was wearing a black suit and black mock turtleneck, and two silver necklaces, one with a diamond cross and the other with a diamond rectangular medallion. He also wore a diamond watch, a diamond bracelet and a diamond earring in his right ear.

“Might as well look good,” he told New York Daily News reporters. Asked what the outfit cost, Hamilton said, “About 150.” As in $150,000.

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Trivia time: Which stadium has had the most Super Bowls, the Coliseum or Rose Bowl?

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Sounds logical: Venus Williams, on her motivation to win the Australian Open:

“I make a 24-hour trip just to come. The ticket is pretty expensive. I feel that I deserve to reward myself by at least some type of title.”

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Get used to it: New Philadelphia Phillie Manager Larry Bowa has vowed to change a franchise that has learned to accept losing.

“I don’t accept losing,” Bowa said.

“I deal with losses. I don’t accept them. Anybody who accepts losing is in the wrong sport. You start accepting losing and you’ll get your brains beat in.”

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Bad timing: “Albertson’s will tear through Texas Motor Speedway like a Tornado,” trumpeted a news release for the Albertson’s 300 Busch series race at the track.

Two days earlier, a series of tornadoes had ripped the Dallas-Forth Worth area, killing four people and causing

$500 million in damages.

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Rough sport: Soccer star Rio Ferdinand injured his knee so severely that he might sit out two games in England’s Premier League. He was hurt sitting with his foot propped up on a coffee table, watching TV.

“He had [his foot] on the table in a certain position for a number of hours and strained a tendon behind his knee,” said Leeds spokesman David O’Leary. Ferdinand joined Leeds for a record $26-million transfer fee in November.

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Concern: When Whitey Ford, his old New York Yankee teammate, had a recurrence of cancer, Yogi Berra’s reaction was to call him up and ask, “You dead yet?”

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Super matchup: Trent Dilfer versus Kerry Collins. Columnist Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle says, “This should quiet the talk that Jeff Garcia can’t take a team to the Super Bowl.”

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More FitzGerald: “Prediction: New York will hold Jamal Lewis to 41 yards in 25 carries, with one touchdown. What they’ll be calling Jamal after the game: MVP.”

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Another view: Mark Kriegel of the New York Daily News has another candidate:

“There can be no debate as to this year’s MVP: Ed Garland. That’s Ray Lewis’ defense attorney.”

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Different sport: Tony Siragusa, the Baltimore Ravens’ 340-plus tackle, was fined $10,000 for falling on top of Oakland Raider quarterback Rich Gannon and separating Gannon’s shoulder, even though there was no flag thrown on the play.

“I don’t understand why I’d be fined,” Siragusa said. “This isn’t tennis.”

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The other side: When Raider center Barret Robbins was asked if he’d like to retaliate and hurt Siragusa, he said, “What do you do? He’s so big, you hurt your neck trying to hit him.”

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Trivia answer: Rose Bowl 5, Coliseum 2.

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And finally: Wayne Chrebet, the New York Jet wide receiver, is not sorry to see the Bill Parcells era end. Asked about what he felt when the former coach was in the general manager’s role, he told Paul Needell of the Newark Star-Ledger:

“Fear! You didn’t see him too many times, but you knew he was always lurking around one of those corners. You could have one bad play in the game, and believe me, you were going to hear about it.”