Mind Game Proving Too Much for Tyson

Jon Saraceno in USA Today: “Mike Tyson tells Details in a November cover story that he could’ve defeated Lennox Lewis in their heavyweight title match last summer, but ...

“ ‘I’m sick right now,’ Tyson told the magazine. ‘And I don’t mean sick physically. I mean emotionally.’

“In the understatement of the year, the former heavyweight champion said this: ‘Every day my elevator doesn’t rise to the top floor, and I know it.’ ”

Trivia time: Who holds the UCLA record for consecutive passes completed?

New category: Hubert Mizell in the St. Petersburg Times: “NFL teams have a dozen or more assistant coaches. I can’t figure why so many are needed. There is everything but a get-me-coffee guy....

“Why not spend a few more lumps of NFL dough to hire a ‘showoff coach’? Egomaniacs need guidance. It’s a league overburdened with amateur exhibitionists.

“Warren Sapp needs a dance teacher or somebody to tell him those chubby quivers are painfully ugly.”

A drop in the ocean: Florida basketball Coach Billy Donovan, on 6-foot-6, 313-pound freshman center Mario Boggan: “Yeah, he’s lost some weight, but like I told our conditioning coach, it’s like throwing a lawn chair off the Titanic.”

Looking back: On this day in 1960, Bill Mazeroski opened the bottom of the ninth with a home run off Ralph Terry of the New York Yankees to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 victory and the World Series championship.

Forty? No sweat: Ann Killion in the San Jose Mercury News: “Jerry Rice has put up plenty of numbers in his career. But none may be more amazing than the number he will hit today: 40. As in years old.

“Said quarterback Rich Gannon: ‘Here’s a guy who’s the very best, and he comes out in training camp 30 minutes before the other players.’ ”

In denial: Atlanta Brave pitcher Damian Moss on his team’s early exit from the playoffs: “The Giants did what they had to do to beat us, but in a seven-game series, I think it’d be different. Because I think we’re definitely the best team.”

Sure you are, but the “best team” is staying home--again.

Helping hand: If Washington Redskin quarterback Patrick Ramsey succeeds in his first NFL start today against New Orleans, he will have to thank Saints’ receiver Donte Stallworth.

During Ramsey’s 16-day absence from training camp, he worked out with Stallworth in Memphis, Tenn.

Bored: Bernie Lincicome in the Rocky Mountain News: “Still another return by Michael Jordan has been greeted with the excitement usually reserved for dandelions.”

Trivia answer: Rick Neuheisel, 17, against Washington in 1983.

And finally: Atlanta Brave General Manager John Schuerholz on his team’s setback: “It’s a kick in the stomach emotionally. But those of us in these positions have a responsibility to look forward, start looking ahead to what we can do better for next year.”

Mal Florence