Columnist Ron Kantowski: The Las Vegas A’s? Don’t hold your breath

Thursday, Aug. 19, 1999 | 10:20 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

I've said it once and I'll write it this time: Any speculation about a professional sports franchise being viable in our (sometimes) fair city -- unless the sport is the NFL -- should be put in mothballs until at least about 2005, when we may have the facility and more important, the population to support one.

But Las Vegas as a pro sports town is a big log in a rumor mill that continues to churn like Mike Alstott in a short-yardage situation.

This week, it's Major League Baseball that has been mentioned in the same sentence as Las Vegas by no less an authority than Peter Gammons, ESPN's esteemed baseball analyst.

Gammons wrote in the Boston Globe this week that if a group headed by Andy Dolich falls out of the bidding to purchase the Oakland Athletics, another headed by Washington Wizards and Capitals owner Abe Pollin and including former Yankees GM Bob Watson and longtime Cubs broadcast analyst Steve Stone might be willing to step in.

And the second group's ultimate destination for the team would be Las Vegas, according to Gammons.

Stone likes to smoke stogies here, so perhaps he's the source of Gammons' information. Or maybe it's wishful thinking on behalf of A's announcer Ken Korach, the veteran UNLV play-by-play man who still resides in Green Valley and would like nothing better than to spend another 81 days at home during the summer.

But if you're standing in a line waiting to purchase NBA season tickets for the Las Vegas franchise that Steve Wynn and mayor Oscar Goodman have researched so diligently, there's probably no need to brush up on Jason Giambi's career batting average just yet.

* SPEEDY JUSTICE: Seemingly every criminal has a hard-luck story, but there's no question that the guy who tried to make off with a suitcase that wasn't his in Spain on Tuesday picked the wrong victim.

American track and field star Larry Wade was standing by as teammate Maurice Greene was doing a television interview at the airport in Seville, site of this week's World Track and Field Championships. The would-be thief grabbed one of Wade's bags and took off running.

Wade, a hurdler, started chasing him. So did Greene.

Greene is the World's Fastest Human. He used his 9.79-speed in the 100 meters to catch the thief in about 0.0 -- nothing flat.

* MOUNTING LOSSES: It has gotten so bad for the UNLV football the past couple of years that you seemingly can't turn a page without the Rebels losing another game.

Sports Illustrated this week in its annual college football rankings mentions the Rebels have lost 16 straight games. Elsewhere in the magazine, in an overview of the 1999 season, it says that new coach John Robinson is inheriting a Rebel program that is mired in a 17-game losing streak.

The accurate number is 16.

* NEWER MAG, SAME STORY: The current issue of ESPN The Magazine takes its turn with an feature on the quality of sausage at our summer meat market -- a.k.a. the adidas Big Time Tournament -- for high-school aged basketball players.

The story, titled "Summer of Slam," begins with a two-page center spread photo that just says sleaze -- three medallion-wearing Fresno hoopsters, chilling on chaise lounges at the Luxor pool. But the story is little more than a harmless profile of Darren "Mats" Matsubara and the summer league empire he has built in Fresno, Calif., known as the Elite Basketball Organization -- EBO for short.

The only tawdry image projected in the story was a rumor about a team that supposedly arranged for a stripper to visit its hotel. When the kids refused to pay, her pimp allegedly showed up at the gym the next day and threatened the players, so the kids were sent home.

Author John Gustafson does use an anecdote about UNLV coach Bill Bayno to illustrate the clout that summer league coaches such as Matsubara enjoy these days:

"At a Pump tourney game in L.A., UNLV's Bill Bayno will remain standing by Mats on the sideline well into the start of the second half -- a power play that prompts another coach later to tease Mats: 'Save me a seat on the bench next time.' "

* AGONY OF DEFEAT: The late Charlie Finley once paid any of his A's players who would grow a mustache a bonus. It's just the opposite for the Iraqi national soccer team, whose members are forced to shave their head and mustaches after losing matches. And that's just for starters.

Sharar Haydar Mohamad al Hadithi, a former Iraqi soccer star, said teammates who played badly also were imprisoned and tortured by Odai Hussein, Son of Saddam. al Hadithi said when he tried to resign as chief of the Iraqi football federation, his feet were beaten, he was dragged on his bare back through a gravel pit and he was forced to jump into a tank of sewage so the wounds would become infected.

And here I thought running wind sprints for missing free throws was tough.

* AROUND THE HORN: Brigham Young used to sport one of college football's most recognizable uniforms, but not anymore. The Cougars are changing their colors from blue and white to dark metallic blue, tan and white. The jerseys are supposed to have some sort of bib-like background in which the numbers will be displayed. My guess is that Ty Detmer might like the new look but that Jim McMahon would never approve. ... Vanesha Bailey, the junior-to-be at Cimarron-Memorial who led the Las Vegas Tabagators 16-under girls soccer team to the championship of the prestigious Norway Cup overseas, was misidentified in both a Sun story and photo last week and at the Most Valuable Player ceremony (she was the guest of honor) on the field in Oslo. But her dad has been a good sport about both slights to his daughter. ... ESPN The Magazine is hip and witty and all that, but the problem I have with it is I can't tell where the advertisements end and the stories begin.