Cotto arrives right on schedule — twice

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, July 24, 2008 | 6:07 p.m.

NOW:

They call boxing the "Sweet Science."

Sometimes, it's just Sweet Science Fiction.

Like this week, when Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico stepped off the bus during his "official arrival" in Las Vegas as if he had been traveling from San Juan for three days.

That was Tuesday night.

But on Monday night, Cotto was gracious enough to join three local reporters for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's at the MGM Grand, site of his much-anticipated welterweight championship fight against Mexico's Antonio Margarito on Saturday night.

Unless that was his identical twin ordering the chicken soup.

You know boxing: Yesterday, I arrived. Today, I officially arrived. Unless you are holding space for a photo on Thursday's front page. Then I can officially arrive again tomorrow.

------ Remember Sun Ming Ming, the 7-foot-9 behemoth from China I wrote about in the part of the Sun you can hold in your hand a couple of weeks ago? Turns out he was picked up by a team from the BJ League, which is what Japan calls its second tier pro basketball circuit. Sun has signed with a team called OGS Phoenix. By the time the gentle giant gets to the Phoenix, perhaps he will have improved his vertical leap, which appeared to be all of three inches during tryouts at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy.

----- Some guys just can't enough basketball. I was still wiping the Sleepy Floyd from my eyes at 8 a.m. Monday morning when I noticed my favorite Internet blogger working the official scorer's table at the Main Event at Bonanza High. It was UNLV's Rene Rougeau, who probably still had water in his ears from the Rebels' trip to the Great Barrier Reef during Lon and Wink's Excellent Adventure, a k a the Rebels' recent basketball tour of Australia. Once a gym rat, always a gym rat, eh mate? Reading Rene's blogs written for the Sun from Down Under was almost as good as being there with Chicken on the Barbie and an ice cold Foster's.

----- Ryan Green's Q&A with BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall was the most-read story on the Sun Web site for two consecutive days. His Q&A with UNLV football coach Mike Sanford did not make the Top 10.

----- That isn't exactly like playing soccer for the USA National Team against Mexico, and getting booed in Los Angeles or Chicago or Houston or Phoenix. But it's sort of like that.

THEN:

The last time I saw Glen Gondrezick, the UNLV basketball Hall of Famer, he asked me one of those out-of-blue questions that sometimes happens when guys get together to drink beer and smoke cigars or when there aren't any women around.

"So who was the hairiest guy in the NBA?" Gondo asked.

"Neal Walk," I said, before the words were even out of his mouth.

Gondo looked at me like I was some sort of savant.

Or just plain insane for knowing the answer.

He also told me that Walt Frazier would walk around the Knicks' locker room in his athletic supporter because he didn't want to get his shorts wrinkled before the game.

But that's another story.