The Beat

Another round in the Reggie Miller versus New York saga: In recent divorce proceedings, Miller's estranged wife, model Marita, asked a Hamilton ( Ind.) County court for $18,000 in monthly support, partly to pay the $10,000 monthly rent for a Manhattan apartment. A lawyer for Reggie says the Pacers guard already gives Marita (below) $3,000 a month and that extra support is unwarranted....

Comedian Don Rickles is shopping his memoirs to publishers, and the proposed book will parody Detroit Free Press sportswriter Mitch Albom's bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man and Life's Greatest Lesson. Rickles's planned tome will be called Wednesdays with Rickles: A Young Man, a Not So Young Man and Life's Greatest Puck....

Former major league pitcher Bill Lee raised a few eyebrows last month when he went on a Canadian radio show and said that in 1973 he and George W. Bush "rolled a couple of doobies and smoked them together." We decided to check in with the Spaceman to make sure he got the details right. Upon second thought, said Lee, the incident happened in 1972 at a Boston fund-raiser: "It looked like one of Bush's kids, and he was about the right age, and he said he had gone to Yale, so I put two and two together. But, hey, it was pretty smoky. It was like something you saw through the smoke of a Chinese opium den. So, I'll take a guess and say it might have been him." We now return to mission control....

The on-again, off-again Muhammad Ali feature is back on. Director Michael Mann has assuaged Sony's budget concerns and has forged ahead on casting. Joining Will Smith, who'll play Ali, will be Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown, and Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X. A casting call has also reportedly been sent to agents saying that Mann is looking to fill a number of miniroles, including those of Jesse Jackson, Burt Lancaster, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra and even Idi Amin.