Pistons by Any Other Names Are Just as Discreet in Boston

Who are those guys playing the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs?

According to the register at the hotel that housed the Detroit Pistons while they were in Boston for the first two games of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, they included two all-time great home run hitters, an actress and a fictional mass murderer.

Among the aliases used by the Pistons to ward off possible security problems were Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Kim Basinger. Center James Edwards signed in as Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lechter, the psychotic killer portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs.”

Said Edwards: “Ain’t nobody going to mess with him.”

Trivia time: Who was the last European to play for the UCLA basketball team?

More than a gesture: After more than 50 years, Ted Williams finally tipped his cap to Boston Red Sox fans.

Williams, who refused to tip his cap to the crowd after his first couple of years in the major leagues after being criticized for showboating, saluted the fans on a day in his honor marking the 50th anniversary of baseball’s last .400 batting average.

“So they can never write ever again that I was hardheaded, so they can never write again that I never tipped my hat to the crowd, today I tip my hat,” Williams said as he waved the cap to a crowd of more than 34,000 at Fenway Park.

“I tip my hat to all the people in New England,” he said, “the greatest sports fans on earth.”

Williams broke in with the Red Sox in 1939 and retired in 1960. “I tipped my cap when I first came up, but then things went a little sour,” Williams said after the ceremony.

“But I always felt very close to the fans. More than 40 years ago I realized that I was playing for the fans. It was like a love affair. I couldn’t have done anything different, but I felt that way.”

A true stemwinder: Jockey Julie Krone says she sends her mother lilacs on Mothers’ Day “because we used to live in Michigan and it was her favorite.”

“Now she lives in Florida and never gets to smell them or see them,” Krone said. “So I go into some unsuspecting person’s yard at some ungodly hour and cut some lilacs. A florist? It’s just not the same.”

Role model: Susan O’Malley, who became president of the Washington Bullets last week, told Milton Kent of the Baltimore Sun: “I was speaking to a group of high school girls not too long ago and I told them that there are no barriers left, to dream whatever you want to. If I’m a symbol of that, then that’s fine.”

Trivia answer: Swen Nater, a native of the Netherlands who was Bill Walton’s backup for two seasons before being taken by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the NBA draft in 1973.

Quotebook: Pitcher Kevin Tapani of the Minnesota Twins, after giving up a 432-foot home run to Cecil Fielder of the Detroit Tigers: “It’s like giving up a stolen base to Rickey Henderson. I didn’t even look at it.”