Jeff Haney on a celebration of boxing trainer Gil Clancy and how Al Bernstein learned a lesson the hard way

Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 | 12:33 p.m.

Heavyweight boxer Gerry Cooney thought he had better than a puncher's chance to win his comeback fight against George Foreman in 1990.

So did Cooney's trainer, Gil Clancy, the boxing hall of famer who was working with the erstwhile "Great White Hope" in preparation for his bout against Big George in Atlantic City.

In the days leading up to the fight, Clancy was telling everyone who would listen that Cooney would hurt Foreman with his mean left hook and do enough damage to come away with a victory.

To his eventual dismay, boxing analyst Al Bernstein took Clancy's words to heart - and to the betting window.

Although he usually does not bet on fights because he prefers not to mix gambling and sportscasting, he decided to make a rare exception this time, Bernstein recalled Thursday night at a tribute dinner for Clancy at the Aladdin.

As it turned out, Bernstein should have stuck to his self-imposed rule against wagering.

Foreman, a couple of years into a celebrated comeback of his own, stopped Cooney by technical knockout in the second round.

"So tonight, I'm demanding my $500 back," Bernstein, the dinner's master of ceremonies, told Clancy in a line that elicited a roar of laughter from the crowd at Tremezzo restaurant.

Promoter Bob Arum, whose Top Rank Inc. sponsored the Clancy tribute, didn't have a bet on the Cooney-Foreman fight but said he was able to confidently predict the outcome shortly before the bout began.

Like Clancy, Arum believed Cooney had a decent shot to win - but only if he entered the ring oozing intensity, in a nasty frame of mind ... with the "eye of the tiger."

But just before the fight, Arum glimpsed Cooney and Foreman holding hands and praying together, he said.

"I knew it was all over when I saw that," Arum said, cracking up Clancy and nearly everyone else in the house.

Clancy, who began training fighters in the 1950s, also worked with, among many others, Ralph "Tiger" Jones, Emile Griffith, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Jerry Quarry and Oscar De La Hoya.

Clancy also was a respected boxing matchmaker and one of the most popular TV boxing analysts of the 1980s and 1990s.

Bernstein noted that Clancy won the 1983 Sam Taub award for excellence in broadcast journalism, a distinction that is given to a different person each year.

"That's fortunate for the rest of us, because if it wasn't, Gil would have won it every year," Bernstein, known for his work on ESPN and Showtime, said.

Seated beside Clancy at the dinner was Griffith, the welterweight and middleweight world champion from the 1960s who was trained by Clancy throughout his 20-year career as a pro.

Clancy said he would remember the evening for the rest of his life.

Blackjack bozos

In a 2001 column, I took the Casino Royale on the Strip to task for a promotion in which a recording of a syrupy female voice was played outside the casino's entrance. Among the perks of playing blackjack at Casino Royale, the disembodied voice informed us, "you can even hit on soft 17."

This would be like a restaurant advertising that "after we serve you a meal, you can even eat it."

Five years later, while I haven't heard the disembodied voice lately, now an electronic marquee at the entrance informs would-be blackjack players that yes, indeed, they can still hit a soft 17 at Casino Royale.

And five years later, this still makes no sense.

Not only can you hit a soft 17 at any blackjack game in the world, but in virtually all instances you'd be crazy if you opted to stand on it. (A soft 17 is a hand that can count as either seven or 17, such as an ace and a six.)

Perhaps the brilliant minds behind the promotion meant to address whether the dealer - not the player - is required to hit a soft 17. But even if that was the case, a casino wouldn't want to advertise the fact that the dealer hits soft 17. Games in which the dealer stands on soft 17, rather than hitting it, are more advantageous for players.

Either way, it doesn't add up.

Come on, people. This is a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, the world capital of gambling, not a seedy riverboat in some dying Rust Belt burg. We're supposed to be savvy about gambling here. Let's get with it.

Jeff Haney can be reached at 250-4041 or at haney@lasvegassun.com.