Scorecard

Vincent, who met with Dykstra last Saturday, has taken a curious stance regarding the situation. On the one hand, he said last week, "I want to be sure that baseball people are aware that there is great danger. Many times the illegal bookmakers...are also drug dealers." On the other hand, Vincent told reporters, "You know as well as I do how many people standing here can't tell me they haven't bet with a bookie on football or basketball. It's become part of America's culture."

The point that should be made is not that a lot of players—and sportswriters—bet, but that any player who runs up gambling debts of $78,000 might be pressed to provide inside information, or worse, and thus jeopardize the integrity of the game. Nobody, not Dykstra, not the Phillies, not the commissioner, should shrug that off.

People in baseball have short memories. Only two years ago, Pete Rose was making light of his gambling.

Sesame Seed
Big Bird and gang send the Lady Tigers packing

Last year the Penn State women's basketball team was forced to hit the road for its first-round NCAA tournament game because school officials had reserved the team's gym for a men's NIT game. This year the Louisiana State women's team suffered an even greater indignity. Last week the Lady Tigers, whose No. 2 seeding in the Midwest entitled them to host a second-round game, were sent packing by Big Bird and Sesame Street Live, which had previously reserved the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The scheduling conflict had coach Sue Gunter and LSU's fans feeling like Oscar the Grouch. "This is a shame," said Gunter. "Here we get an a opportunity to play at home and really bring in a crowd, and this happens." The LSU athletic department, she said, should have made sure the arena was available for a possible early-round NCAA tournament game. According to Gunter, LSU should have learned its lesson two years ago, when the Lady Tigers were also granted a first-round bye and second-round home court advantage only to be preempted by a table tennis tournament.

So the Lady Tigers had to travel to Beaumont, Texas, last weekend to face the 10th-seeded Lamar Lady Cardinals. Gunter's worst fears were realized as Lamar trounced LSU 93-73. Unlike LSU, Lamar was able to work around its gym's previously scheduled act for the date—the Harlem Globetrotters.

A World View
The helmet-cam gives viewers a whole new perspective

It sounds like something that David Letterman might have come up with, but Craig Janoff swears it was his idea. And if it works, quarterbacks on two continents may soon be strapping on (and plugging in) their helmet-cams.

The hyperactive World League of American Football, the new NFL-sponsored international minor league that begins play this week, announced plans last fall to wire players with two-way radios. But Janoff, who will direct the league's Monday night games on the USA Network, wanted to take the idea one step further. He asked a California video-technology firm to adapt a miniature camera for insertion into a football helmet.