Saints and Pelicans Owner TOM BENSON on Friday "underwent a 45-minute procedure to repair a torn medial meniscus in his left knee." Benson "will attend" the upcoming NFL owners meetings in Atlanta on May 19-21 (New Orleans ADVOCATE, 5/13).
NAMES: Red Sox President & CEO LARRY LUCCHINO will be honored May 19 for his "longtime support of the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute." The ceremony will be held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum & Library in Boston (BOSTON GLOBE, 5/13)....The Univ. of North Carolina is paying former U.S. attorney KENNETH WAINSTEIN "$990 an hour" and three other attorneys "between $775 and $440 an hour for the academic fraud investigation." UNC officials said that the money "is not coming from taxpayer-supported funds" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 5/10)....Indianapolis Mayor GREG BALLARD yesterday “revealed the arm bruising he got from being struck by debris” at the start of Saturday's inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis, but he declined to “show the cuts under his shirt” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 5/13)....Manhattan College AD ROBERT BYRNES “was arrested early Thursday morning” on DWI charges after “being honored at an awards dinner at the campus’ Draddy Gymnasium” (N.Y. POST, 5/13).
IN MEMORY: Racecar builder A.J. WATSON, “whose cars dominated the roadster era of Indianapolis Motor Speedway's heydays,” died yesterday, four days after his 90th birthday. Watson-built cars won the Indianapolis 500 six times between ’56-64, and he was the “winning chief mechanic four times” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 5/13).
