The Beat

Good thing Don Rickles wasn't there. The Sports Boosters of Maryland Headliners Banquet on Nov. 2 was supposed to be a good-natured roast for former Orioles manager Earl Weaver. But after Jim Palmer took the dais and teased his old skipper about his height and hard-drinking ways, the guest of honor snapped. Weaver stunned the crowd of 1,100, first by accusing Palmer of faking injuries during his playing days and then by confronting Palmer directly, screaming at him until Weaver was led away by former Orioles first baseman Lee May....

Oscar De La Hoya (below) can't be happy about his latest fight. On Oct. 24 the boxer turned singer filed a $500,000 suit against his ex-girlfriend, actress Shanna Moakler, because Moakler, her parents and a friend have refused to move out of De La Hoya's six-bedroom Santa Monica, Calif., home. According to the suit, after the breakup Moakler threw a Shanna's Freedom Party at the house, fired the help and changed the locks to prevent De La Hoya from returning. Moakler didn't return SI's calls....

Mike Reid, the former Bengals All-Pro tackle who turned his back on football in the '70s for a career in country music, has another hit, the Chicago musical The Ballad of Little Jo, for which he wrote the score. Reid has also signed to write the music for the upcoming Broadway show Shane, a job that Reid says attracted the interest of Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks and Mary Chapin Carpenter. "I'm a middle-aged man with the dream of a little kid—to have a show in New York," says Reid. "As an athlete I had a lot of wonderful breaks, and I often wondered if I hadn't used them up."

Credit it to typecasting. Fred Willard, who had a memorable turn as a Joe Garagiola-esque dog show announcer in Best of Show, will play another mouthy sportscaster: Howard Cosell. Willard has joined the cast of ABC's When Billie Beat Bobby, about Billie Jean King's 1973 victory over Bobby Riggs. The telepic, starring Holly Hunter as King and Ron Silver as Riggs, began filming on Monday.