People: Aug. 22, 1969

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"I hit him five or six times in the stomach. Then I hit him in the head, and when he came off the wall I hit him again. He was out before he hit the ground." Mike Hammer? Not quite. That was Manager Billy Martin talking about a fraternal misunderstanding among his Minnesota Twins, baseball's bad boys who have recently been trying to reform (TIME, Aug. 15). Martin, no stranger to donnybrooks during his playing days as a New York Yankee, explained it this way: the boys were sitting around a bar in Detroit hoisting a convivial glass when Dave Boswell, a talented but emotionally erratic pitcher, learned that a coach had reported him for cheating on an exercise drill. Boswell stormed out threatening to get "that squealer." Whereupon the team peacemaker, Outfielder Bob Allison, went outside to calm the raging Boswell. Martin emerged a few moments later and found that Boswell had flattened Allison and kicked him. Then the unfortunate pitcher came at Martin. "I did open my mouth a little loud to my manager," said Boswell after doctors reportedly took 20 stitches in his face.

She will be back in front of the cameras after 26 years, and the part is made to order. As Agent Letisha Van Allen, Mae West sets up shop on a huge bed to interview handsome young men—prospective victims for voracious, transsexual Myra Breckinridge. There was no press conference fanfare over 20th Century's latest casting coup ("Mae likes the press, all right," explained a studio flack, "but individually, one by one"); the word was simply passed that Miss West would share top billing with Raquel Welch (Myra) and get a minimum of $350,000 for her role. Still a perfectionist at 76, Mae claims that she will write all her own dialogue.

It stood to reason that a 195-lb. amateur wrestler would have little chance against a 280-lb. bruiser with twelve years in the pro wrestling game. But that was not how the script read when Dr. Sam Sheppard made his debut against Wild Bill Scholl in a charity match in Waverly, Ohio. Seven minutes into the match Dr. Sam coolly jammed two fingers into Wild Bill's mouth and expertly pressed the mandibular nerve, which lies in the tender area under the tongue. Scholl instantly went limp with agony. Fall and match to Sheppard. "Only new thing I've seen in wrestling in 15 years," said Sam's jubilant manager. Groaned Scholl: "It's not only horribly painful—it's unfair. Your mouth and jaw are paralyzed so you can't bite his fingers off."