A big pot at the end of a trot...Cuomo's cut near the hoop...a week charge for the Spartans
Bought Out
For $5 million by the Sacramento Kings, the contract of center Ralph Sampson. The 7'4" Sampson, who was selected by the Houston Rockets with the first pick of the 1983 draft, averaged just 5.1 points and 4.4 rebounds a game in limited action for the Kings and the Golden State Warriors over the past three seasons. Hobbled by injuries, Sampson has undergone three knee operations since 1987. Said Kings coach Dick Motta, "It was like looking at a magnificent redwood tree that had been cut down." Although Sampson has sent out feelers to several NBA teams, he will most likely finish his playing career overseas.
Piloted
By John Campbell to a 9½-length victory in the Breeders Crown Two-Year-Old Filly Trot at Pompano (Fla.) Harness Track, Armbro Keepsake. With that $150,000 win, Campbell became the first harness racing driver to reach $100 million in career earnings. He also became the first driver to win three Breeders Crown races in the same evening. Since 1984, the 36-year-old Campbell has won 19 Breeders Crown championships—10 more than the next closest driver, Bill O'Donnell.
Destroyed
In the recent fire that ravaged areas of northern California, a home in the Hiller Highlands section of Oakland belonging to former baseball slugger Reggie Jackson. Although Jackson also owns houses in Carmel and Newport Beach, his main residence was in Oakland. This was the third time Jackson has lost property to fire. A house on the same Hiller Highlands site burned down in 1976, and more recently, a warehouse fire in downtown Oakland ruined several vintage automobiles from his estimable collection.
Sliced
On his left elbow while wrestling for a loose basketball during a recreational league game in Albany, N.Y., Governor Mario Cuomo, whose wound required six stitches. Despite losing the six-foot, 200-pound Cuomo, the governor's Blue team defeated the state Police Academy team 50-40. Cuomo, a former centerfielder in the Pittsburgh Pirate organization who delights in telling of how in 1951 he received a signing bonus ($2,000) that was nearly twice as large as Mickey Mantle's, plays a hard-nosed style of basketball, specializing in the two-handed set shot. While the governor wouldn't name the state trooper with whom he collided, Cuomo did say, "All you have to do is look for transfers."
Sent
To Michigan State football coach George Perles by the Eveready Battery Company, a pink-and-white Energizer bunny, before the Spartans' game at Ohio State last Saturday. The gift—complete with sunglasses and baseball cap—came after Perles, whose team was struggling through a 1-5 season, had told the press that his Spartans would "keep going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny." But the motivational mascot failed to put a hop in the Spartans' step: They lost to the Buckeyes 27-17.
PHOTO
RICHARD MACKSON
He's King Ralph no more.