Scorecard

Although his size is against him, Byrd hopes to be drafted by the NBA. Noting that 5'8" Charlie Criss plays for the Atlanta Hawks, he says, "Sure I can play in the NBA." "Why not?" Columbia Coach Buddy Mahar agrees. " Alton was the best point guard in the country," he says. "I've never seen anybody run a team the way he can." What if Bird and Byrd had been teammates against Michigan State in the NCAA finals? "The way Alton passes, he would have gotten the ball to Bird," Mahar says. " Indiana State would have won."

LUKE

When Luke Easter joined the Cleveland Indians late in the 1949 season, he gave his birthday as Aug. 4, 1921. Like Satchel Paige, who had joined the Indians the year before, Easter was suspected of being older by people who remembered seeing him play years earlier in the Negro National League. "Aw, you must be thinking of one of my brothers," the 6'4�", 240-pound first baseman would say. But Easter slyly allowed that the date he had provided was merely his "baseball birthday."

Easter suffered from knee ailments and lasted in the majors only until 1954, finishing with a career batting average of .274 and 93 home runs, including a 477-foot blast on June 23, 1950 that remains the longest ever hit in Cleveland Stadium. For the past 15 years Easter worked as a chief union steward at TRW Inc. near Cleveland. Last week he stepped out of a bank after cashing $5,000 in payroll checks for union members and was shot to death by robbers. Two suspects were captured following a chase and shootout with police.

TRW said its records showed Easter's date of birth as Aug. 4, 1915 and Virgil Easter, his wife of 31 years, said that this was also the date written in a family Bible. Thus Easter had been 34 as a rookie, had left the Indians when he was nearly 40 and was 63 when he died. As with Paige, Easter got his late start because of baseball's long-standing color barrier, and he presumably passed himself off as younger to enhance his chances of sticking in the majors once the barrier was lifted in 1947. Al Rosen, an Indian teammate who is now president of the New York Yankees, says, "Too bad he didn't come up to the majors 15 years earlier. He could hit a ball as far as anybody who ever walked."

THE HIGH COST OF IMAGINATION

The play that enabled underdog Maine to tie New Hampshire 7-7 last season caused a sensation in college football. After lining up for what appeared to be a field-goal attempt from New Hampshire's 28-yard line, Maine's "holder" tossed the ball into the air and the "kicker" punched it with a fist into the end zone, where a teammate pounced on it. It was a touchdown. Under a little-known rule, batting a backward pass for the purpose of gaining yardage was legal so long as the ball stayed inbounds.

Maine Coach Jack Bicknell had read about such a "bat-ball play" in a book written by University of Delaware Athletic Director Dave Nelson, the secretary of the NCAA football rules committee. Nelson promptly hailed Bicknell's use of the stratagem as an example of the "imagination" he felt was needed to enliven the game. But there can be such a thing as too much imagination. Inspired by Maine's successful use of the play, other coaches began mulling over variations. For instance, on a kickoff return the player receiving the ball could flip it backward, allowing a teammate to punch it over the heads of onrushing tacklers. And what was to prevent a ballcarrier trapped for an apparent loss from punching the ball himself? As the possibilities mounted, a suddenly worried Nelson admitted, "People are coming up with ideas that would turn the game into volleyball."

Which is why the NCAA rules committee has outlawed the bat-ball play. The vote by Nelson and the 14 other members was unanimous.