Doesn’t his best friend have to die in the ring first?

Evander Holyfield will fight Sultan Ibragimov on Oct. 13 for the WBO heavyweight title in Moscow. After winning a belt for the fifth time, “The Real Deal” will further pursue his ridiculous obsession with the Rocky series by acting as a mediator between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, beating the crap out of Tommy Morrison in a bar, buying an Italian restaurant and looking ahead to his next comeback at age 60.

A sitting Moss gathers no catches

Randy Moss has an apparent leg injury, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick predictably doesn’t know when Moss will be able to practice. Well, we all know Ted Johnson’s alleged timetable: Four weeks for a hamstring; one, maybe two plays for a catastrophic head injury.

Take that, Donald, Rosie and Rush

Tony Dungy’s obligatory post-Super Bowl autobiography is expected to take over the No. 1 spot on the nonfiction hardcover New York Times bestseller list Sunday. Nice to see one of the ultimate good guys in any profession steal the thunder from the political windbags and obnoxious celebrities who usually keep that distinction among themselves.

He’s going by the old Roman calendar

The Yankees belted a combined 13 home runs Tuesday and Wednesday without Alex Rodriguez hitting the one that would give him 500 for his career. What, did somebody tell him it’s October?

Lucky for them, there’s only one football game on Dec. 25

Greg Oden and Kevin Durant’s first head-to-head professional meeting will be the third game in a nationally televised NBA tripleheader on Christmas Day. The league will consider it a rousing success if the Blazers-Sonics game draws one-half the rating that the Raiders (2-13) or Vikings (4-11) draw in their regional NFL broadcasts the day before.

Quote of the day

“It’s not just about hope. In a realistic world, you have to really make it happen and go for it. You always talk about future, future. … But if you only worry about the future, then I guess a lot of us won’t be part of it.” – Minnesota Twins pitcher Johan Santana, to the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, on his team’s failures at the trade deadline. If Santana isn’t in Boston or the Bronx in 2009, I will eat my Frank Viola replica jersey.