OK, We Goofed, but So Did Lou Gehrig

Over the years, Morning Briefing has tripped up more than once on its trivia answers, but last week it took an all-time pratfall when it listed Bob Richards, Bruce Jenner, Mary Lou Retton, Pete Rose, Walter Payton and Chris Evert as the only athletes who have been pictured on Wheaties boxes.

Actually, hundreds of athletes have been pictured. The above six belong to a select group that General Mills calls “celebrity athletes.” They have been the centerpieces in the promotion of the product, whereas others have been more or less role players.

“We have had all kinds of promotions in which pictures of athletes were used,” a company spokesman said. “We’ve had instructional series, trading cards, contests, vignettes. They go all the way back to Babe Ruth.”

Maybe nobody did more for Wheaties than Lou Gehrig, but that was entirely by accident. Under contract to endorse Post Toasties, Gehrig appeared on Robert Ripley’s radio show, “Believe It Or Not,” which was sponsored by Post Toasties.

Asked Ripley: “What do you have every morning, Lou?”

Said Gehrig: “A heaping bowlful of Wheaties!”

Add Evert: According to General Mills, her fee of $25,000 was donated to Just Say No, the anti-drug program.

Julius Erving headed an all-interview team picked by a nationwide panel of journalists at the NBA finals in Boston.

Others picked were Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kevin McHale and Robert Reid. Doug Moe was named as coach.

Second team: Mychal Thompson, Larry Bird, Glenn Rivers, Cedric Maxwell and Sidney Moncrief. Coach: Frank Layden.

Trivia Time: As a coach, how many times did Red Auerbach lose to the Lakers in the NBA finals? (Answer below.)

After eight years of wearing a mustache, Keith Hernandez of the New York Mets decided to shave it off before Wednesday’s game against the Chicago Cubs.

Hernandez, who was 2 for 17 coming into the game, hit two home runs. It was only the second time he hit two homers in a game, the first having been in 1980 when he played for St. Louis.

“So much for Samson and Delilah,” he said. “My ex-girlfriend never wanted me to shave it. I had been thinking about it for the last two months. It’s not coming back now.”

Arnold Palmer failed to qualify for next week’s U.S. Open, and Gary Player is mad. He’s mad at the U.S. Golf Assn. for forcing Palmer to go through qualifying in the first place.

“They don’t seem to care a damn about anybody,” Player said. “They don’t seem to have any respect for people who have done well in the game. That the USGA makes Arnold Palmer have to qualify is an insult to a man who’s done so much for golf. Here they’ve got some club pros in the tournament who are going to shoot 82s and 83s and nobody’s going to watch, and Arnold Palmer, who helped make that tournament, they ask to pre-qualify.

“If I were giving a tournament, the first person I’d invite would be Arnold Palmer.”

Trivia Answer: Once. In 1948-49, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by George Mikan, beat the Washington Capitols, coached by Auerbach, in six games. Quotebook

Philadelphia Phillie broadcaster Richie Ashburn, on 300-pound John McSherry, who was umpiring at second base: “He makes a great hitting background.”