Columnist Dean Juipe: Pros not apt to raid UNLV this summer

Dean Juipe

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

NOTES TODAY and leading off is a rare bit of good news on the UNLV baseball team.

The Rebels completed a sorry season Sunday, yet their losses won't be extensive this summer. Pitchers Tista Perri and Jason Warren are the only seniors on the current club, and, unlike recent years when the pros picked off several UNLV juniors, head coach Rod Soesbe anticipates losing only two players this year. He said third baseman Ryan Hankins and catcher Toby Hall are apt to be the only undergraduate losses when the pros conduct their amateur draft in June. ... Dexter Boney was a solid, though unspectacular, basketball player at UNLV when he was here for the 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons. He didn't seem to have NBA potential. Well, maybe he still doesn't, yet Boney is apt to get a second look after winning MVP honors in the Continental Basketball Association season that just came to an end. He played for the Florida Beachdogs.

Word is that UNLV athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro will get a new contract if President Carol Harter is retained. ... Still lacking a donor for a proposed new field, the UNLV softball team could get pushed into some sort of makeshift situation if the school follows through with tentative plans to build classrooms on the site where Rebel Diamond currently sits. Ideally, a new softball stadium would be built near baseball's Wilson Stadium, yet those plans are on hold until someone with deep pockets steps forward. ... The WBC heavyweight title fight between champion Lennox Lewis and challenger Henry Akinwande scheduled for July 12 was set to move from New Jersey to Lake Tahoe until Lewis said he didn't want to fight at a high altitude. Further options, including trying to persuade Lewis to rethink his position, were discussed over the weekend.

Already adorned with multiple tattoos, Mike Tyson has added to his decorative look. It's said he has new ones on each of his forearms. ... Without an exception, all of the new boxing organizations that have sprung up in recent years are a bad joke. Here's how sharp the consistently lame World Boxing Federation is: It recently sent a letter addressed to Racheed Lawal, its top-ranked lightweight contender, in which it asked him to be prepared to take on its champion, Juan Laszano, in the near future. Two problems: Lawal quit boxing in 1994; and he was killed in a car accident last November. ... Boxing trivia: "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom was a well-known light heavyweight world champion in the 1930s who won an incredible 210 fights, yet he got his nickname because he won only 18 of them by knockout.

It's a little expensive, but the new golf course at Primm Valley is not only beautiful, it has a very unique trait that will endear it to the average player. Most of its fairways slope inward, which is a design that keeps play moving and players out of the desert. ... Another new course, Desert Willow, can't seem to avoid controversy. While it advertises that locals can always get tee times, apparently locals don't quite have the tourists' clout. A Desert Willow card holder said he called in pursuit of a tee time last week only to be told no times for locals were available. ... Hale Irwin, who won the Las Vegas Senior Classic two weeks ago and has won four times in eight starts on the 50-and-up circuit this year, was slapped back to reality Friday at the PGA Tour's BellSouth Classic. Playing on the regular tour just to see what it was like again, Irwin missed the cut.

While talking with Senior Tour regular Hubie Green when he was in town for the Las Vegas Senior Classic, the subject of Wild Horse Country Club in Henderson came up. Green redesigned the course several years ago, but, strangely, he hasn't seen it since. "I'd be interested to see what's been done out there, but I'm not going to pay a greens fee to find out," he said, obviously miffed that he has never been invited back to inspect the layout. "I care. But I guess they don't want me sticking my nose where it's not wanted." ... Dennis Rodman will be to blame if the Chicago Bulls splinter this summer. He definitely won't be asked back and that could send a ripple of change through the rest of the roster. ... There's a growing campaign to give the NBA's MVP award to Utah's Karl Malone, who has had a great season. But Michael Jordan is the true MVP and anyone who believes otherwise may be guilty of taking Jordan for granted.

NBA refs take a lot of heat but there's one call they make that almost always goes uncontested, even by the offending players and coaches, and that's for an illegal defense. Apparently it goes on so often, when it's called it's met with a simple shrug of the shoulders. Why not just make a zone defense legal? ... Two Las Vegans playing in the major leagues -- Minnesota Twins outfielder Marty Cordova and Chicago Cubs catcher Tyler Houston -- are on the disabled list. ... How could a major league player be so dumb as to punch a wall in anger and break his hand, as San Diego pitcher Tim Worrell did Saturday? ... Baseball trivia: Atlanta shortstop Rafael Belliard hasn't hit a home run in 10 years and has played 15 seasons in the big leagues while averaging fewer than 10 RBI per year. What that indicates: Belliard is a great fielder, and a nice guy, or else he long ago would have been pushing a broom or its equivalent.