Mantle Surgery Results Debated

The surgeon who performed a liver transplant on Mickey Mantle one month ago discounted reports that some of the cancerous tissue from a malignant liver tumor could not be removed.

Robert Goldstein, the lead surgeon on the transplant at Baylor University Medical Center, responded Saturday to comments made by another doctor who assisted in the procedure.

Goldstein said the New York Yankee Hall of Famer looks and feels well, goes to the golf course almost daily and makes regular hospital visits.

“I’m not totally convinced there was anything left behind,” Goldstein said. “It appeared to me we got what we could. In cancer cases, you just don’t know. It could recur in three months or it could recur in three years.”

David Mulligan, an apprentice transplant surgeon who helped in Mantle’s June 8 surgery, told the Dallas Morning News for its Saturday editions that some cancerous tissue was left behind, possibly involving the adjoining pancreas.

Motor Racing

Jeff Gordon recovered from a brush with the wall Friday in the first round of qualifying to move up 19 positions in the final time trials for today’s Slick 50 300 Winston Cup race at Loudon, N.H.

Gordon, second in the Winston Cup points race, drove his Chevrolet Monte Carlo around the 1.058-mile layout at 127.355 m.p.h. Saturday. Mark Martin has the pole with a track-record 128.815 m.p.h.

Jacques Villeneuve’s track-record final lap in qualifying gave the Canadian the pole position for today’s Texaco-Havoline 200 at Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Villeneuve earned his second consecutive pole--and second of his Indy-car career--with a lap of 142.206 m.p.h. on his final trip around the four-mile Road America circuit, barely beating the checkered flag for the 30-minute session.

Also at Elkhart Lake, Boris Said was awarded his first Trans-Am victory when Tom Kendall was assessed a post-race penalty for rough driving in the Road America Trans-Am Classic.

Miscellany

A former coach for Olympique Marseille told a judge that his scandal-tainted soccer club spent up to $1.2 million a year to throw matches and buy off referees, a French newspaper reported.

Jean-Pierre Bernes, who was fined and given a suspended sentence last May in a match-fixing scandal, again pointed a finger at the team’s former owner, Bernard Tapie.

“It’s Bernard Tapie who decided which match to buy,” Bernes said in testimony June 30 to an investigative judge, the Marseille daily Le Provencal reported.

The Blades continued their road struggles and suffered their third consecutive Roller Hockey International loss, 5-2, to the Phoenix Cobras. The game was delayed with less than two minutes remaining when Blade Coach Bobby Hull Jr. was given a gross misconduct penalty for throwing sticks on the floor during a dispute with the officials. Hull will be suspended for tonight’s game at the Forum against Sacramento.

David Griggs, a starting linebacker last season for the AFC champion San Diego Chargers, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16, twice the legal amount, when he was killed last month in a Florida car accident, tests show.

Griggs, 28, a former Miami Dolphin linebacker, died June 20 when his speeding Lexus slid off an expressway ramp and slammed into a sign pole.

Doug Flutie threw for 341 yards and three touchdowns as the Calgary Stampeders routed the Shreveport Pirates, 48-17, in a Canadian Football League game at Shreveport, La.

In other CFL games, Chris Wright’s 69-yard punt return capped a 24-point second quarter that propelled Baltimore past the San Antonio Texans, 50-24, at Baltimore, and Anthony Calvillo threw two second-quarter touchdown passes as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the expansion Birmingham Barracudas, 31-13, at Hamilton, Canada.

USC’s Jacque Jones had a two-run double, Cal State Fullerton’s Mark Kotsay had a run-scoring single and South Florida sophomore Mark Roberts gave up only an unearned run in six innings as the United States defeated Panama, 7-1, at Melbourne, Fla., to improve to 12-3 on its 35-game tour.

Boxing

Jorge Paez was disqualified from his junior-lightweight bout against Jose Vida Ramos in Las Vegas for hitting Ramos when he was on his knees in the fifth round.

World Boxing Assn. middleweight champion Jorge Castro of Argentina was slightly injured Friday in a car crash in Patagonia that killed his 18-year-old sister-in-law, hospital officials said.

Names in the News

Alabama offensive lineman Kareem McNeal remained hospitalized in stable condition after undergoing back surgery because of an injury sustained in a July 3 auto accident.