THEY ALL NEED A THIRD BASE COACH

Why are so many cornermen peering into the stands--and away from the fight--during the boxing action?

Because, even though the international body that governs boxing officially frowns on the computer scores being known by the contestants, almost every team has come up with a system to signal the cornermen from the bank of TV sets up in press row.

The U.S. team, after first saying it wasn’t aware of scores, admitted recently that team members read the scores on the TV monitors and signal them down to the floor.

U.S. assistant coach Jesse Ravelo even displayed the high-tech system during a news conference: Somebody writes the two scores on an 8 x 10 sheet of paper, then flashes them quickly down to the corner.