He Pulls No Punches on Condition of the Sport

By Mal Florence

Feb. 28, 2003 12 AM PT

Shaun Powell in Newsday on the state of boxing: “[It] has become a freak show. Come one, come all, come see Tonya Harding, the equivalent of a bearded lady, get clubbed in some undercard.

“Watch the tattooed man, Mike Tyson, disfigure before your very eyes. Hurry and catch a glimpse of the invisible man, Lennox Lewis, before he disappears from sight for yet another year....

“Boxing in general, and the heavyweight division in particular, just isn’t aging very well. Fifty years ago, there were classic fighters from the middleweights up. Forty years ago, a young puncher named Cassius Clay was starting to develop legendary hand speed, foot speed and mouth speed....

“And now? Now you catch the scent of a potentially good fight maybe twice a year.”

More boxing: Steve Hummer in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “There is a reason the Tyson freak show still creates the loudest noise among the heavyweights -- no suitable alternatives.... Here is a man whose fights have as much to do with compelling athletic competition as a lunatic’s ravings have to do with opera.”

Trivia time: Jack Nicklaus has 70 PGA Tour victories. Which was his first?

Mismatch: Michael Jordan in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, talking about NBA players fighting with NBA refs: “[The refs] wear the small, tight T-shirts and look like they want to be dominant. It’s spoiled brats arguing with guys who want to be macho and want to be part of the picture, and they’re not.”

Revelation: Jerry Greene in the Orlando Sentinel: “ESPN had a rocky start with its match-play coverage Wednesday when analyst Andy North said: ‘Tiger doesn’t want to start with bogeys on the first couple of holes.’ Really? And just who does wants to start that way, Andy?”

Please, take me: Canadian boxer Buddy Askri was jailed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after robbing the same gas station -- and the same clerk -- twice in 27 hours without bothering to wear a mask.

Maybe he just wanted to be caught.

Spooky place: Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle: “A friend of Ted Williams recently told the New York Daily News he took a tour of the cryogenics lab where Williams’ body is stored and found out that the body is suspended in a cylinder with three other full bodies and five heads.

“This sounds like a fantasy baseball camp. It’s in Arizona, nine over-the-hill folks to a side, and you get to hang with one of the greatest hitters of all time.”

Trivia answer: The 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Pa., where he defeated Arnold Palmer in a playoff.

Looking back: On this day in 1965, Nate Thurmond of the San Francisco Warriors set an NBA record for most rebounds in one quarter with 18 against Baltimore.

And finally: Pitcher Turk Wendell is back in the Philadelphia Phillies’ spring training camp after missing all of last season with an elbow injury that required surgery.

Said Wendell, “I think the surgery might have screwed me up. I’ve never had control like this.”