Pistons Led Before--and Lost

The last time the Pistons had a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals they were the Fort Wayne Pistons. It was the season of 1954-55 and they were playing the Syracuse Nationals after knocking off the Minneapolis Lakers, three-time defending champions, in the Western Division finals.

Syracuse, led by Dolph Schayes, won the first two games at home. Fort Wayne, led by Larry Foust and George Yardley, won the next three at home. In the final two games at Syracuse, the Nationals twice overcame 10-point deficits to win the first one, 109-105, and then won the decider, 92-91, on a free throw by George King with 10 seconds left. King, later the basketball coach and athletic director at Purdue, preserved the win by stealing the ball from Fort Wayne’s Andy Phillip.

The final game was played on April 10, the same time as the Masters, won by Cary Middlecoff. The story of the game, three paragraphs long, was carried at the bottom of Page 2 in The Times sports section. It ran just below a story on the San Diego Yellowtail Derby.

For What It’s Worth: The last golfer to win back-to-back titles in the NCAA championships was Scott Simpson of USC in 1976-77.

Simpson, a low-key personality, was a roommate of Craig Stadler, famous for his temper, but he told Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post that he used to throw more clubs than Stadler.

Boswell: “Some people know how to pig out. But Simpson would challenge Stadler, the rotund Walrus, to a food-gorging contest. Then the tall, slender Simpson, spotting 50 pounds, would outeat Stadler all night.”

Add Simpson: He gets low marks for quotability from the media, but he said, “I’m perceived pretty well in Japan. Maybe they gravitate to boring personalities.” He added that the press and public tend to group all golfers as boring “except Nicklaus, Norman and Ballesteros.

“And, you know,” he added, “Nicklaus is kind of boring, too.”

Trivia Time: If Billy Mayfair won the U.S. Open, he would be the first amateur to win it since whom? (Answer below.)

It-had-to-happen Dept.: Said ABC analyst Jerry Pate as Isao Aoki addressed the ball in a sand trap on the 14th hole Thursday: “He’s one of the greatest bunker players in the world.”

Aoki promptly dumped one in the next bunker.

Ouch: Said Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Sun, before the Orioles opened their current series with the Boston Red Sox: “How ‘bout Eddie Murray and Jim Rice getting together for a singles-hitting contest before each fracas?”

Trivia Answer: Johnny Goodman in 1933.

Quotebook

Milwaukee Brewers Manager Tom Trebelhorn, a former schoolteacher, returning a letter from a critical fan with these notations: “Careless in spelling and grammar. Watch your capitalization. Grade--D Minus.”