THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : No Matter the Sport, Eckman Was Always Sure to Be Heard

As a coach and referee, Charley Eckman was always identified with basketball, but you were as likely to find him at any of the racetracks along the Eastern seaboard.

Eckman greeted me warmly one day as the race train from Baltimore arrived at Delaware Park. After repeating my name several times, Eckman saved the zinger for last. “Bill Christine,” he said, loud enough for almost everyone in the grandstand to hear. “The All-American throwback.”

Eckman had used that line on me before. I never really knew what he meant, but with Eckman, who was 73 when he died of colon cancer in a Baltimore suburb this week, the non sequitur was his calling card. When he left basketball and went into radio, he would punctuate his broadcasts with the expletive, “Call me a cab.” That meant that Eckman was weary of the subject matter. I think.

He was more to the point with a whistle, tooting his way through the NBA and later, after the Detroit Pistons had fired him as their coach, becoming a top-flight collegiate referee. In the NBA’s formative years, some of the referees were as well known as the players, and Eckman was a perfect fit for a crew that included Sid Borgia, Mendy Rudolph, Norm Drucker, Earl Strom, Richie Powers and a few others.

These guys operated without lanyards, carrying their whistles in their hands. They would signal a call with a staccato chirp, then wait several seconds for the noise in the arena to subside. Then, in almost dead silence, they would yell out the infraction, the sound reverberating around the building. One night, Slater Martin, then with the Minneapolis Lakers, was caught by Eckman mounting the back of an opponent as he scrambled for a rebound.

Standing at midcourt, Eckman hit high C with his whistle, waited the obligatory few seconds, hooked his thumb in the direction of the court behind him and yelled, “I got the double deuce on the climb, and we’re gonna go this way!”

Martin, who wore uniform No. 22, was more struck by the language than the accuracy of the call.

“I’ve been called a lot of things,” he said later, laughing, “but that’s the first time I’ve ever been called a double deuce.”

In the early 1950s, Eckman did not come to mind as coaching material, but the Pistons, then playing in Ft. Wayne, Ind., were owned by Fred Zollner, an eccentric who had made his millions with assembly lines, not at the foul line. Surprising the rest of the league, Zollner took the whistle away from Eckman and made him his coach.

After he had been on the job a few years, I ran into Eckman, Zollner and the magnate’s female companion at Toots Shor’s in New York. I can’t remember whether Eckman introduced me as a throwback or not. It was the middle of winter, and Zollner was wearing a fur coat that should only have been worn in a Stutz Bearcat.

“Meet Fred Zollner,” Eckman said. “You know who he is, don’t you? He’s that crazy SOB that hired me.”

Nonplussed, Zollner still guffawed.

I remember Eckman as a coach who rolled out the ball and then watched what his players could do. He won a couple of divisional titles as the Pistons’ coach, before his phone rang one day in 1959. Zollner was on the line.

“We’re going to be making a change in your department,” the owner said.

The two of them exchanged small talk, but it wasn’t until after they’d hung up that Eckman realized what Zollner meant.

“I was the only guy in my department,” Eckman said.

Eckman would sit in the office of Muggins Feldman, the publicity director at the old Bowie Race Course, and rattle off such stories. He and Feldman favored cigars that were as long as the stretch run. The smoke pouring out of that office was like Pittsburgh before urban renewal.

One of the reasons Eckman quit officiating college ball was that he believed the game was getting too tough to call.

“The floor’s still the same size, but the guys playing on it are a lot bigger,” he said. “Change the game to four guys on a side, and everybody will be better off.”

As a sportscaster, Eckman hated to recite meaningless exhibition baseball scores. During one broadcast, he said, “Here’s a late score from the Coast: The Angels 6 and the A’s 3, and who cares?”

Curly-haired, pug-nosed and jut-jawed, Eckman was ideal for leading with his chin. I always thought he looked a lot like Spike Jones, the bandleader from Long Beach. For 18 years, at Penn National Race Course, Eckman lobbed barbs at horseplayers who participated in the World Series of Handicapping.

After the running of another Preakness, I remember standing with him on the front porch of the press box at Pimlico, high above the racing strip. As the horses walked onto the track, Eckman shouted down to one of the jockeys. “Hey, Eddie! Got the buzzer with you today?”

Eddie McIvor looked up, recognized Eckman, waved his whip and grinned.

“Call me a cab,” Charley Eckman said.

Horse Racing Notes

Serena’s Song, who will be ridden by Gary Stevens, is the 1-5 favorite Saturday against five rivals in the $250,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont Park. . . . The $100,000 Landaluce Stakes, a race Serena’s Song won last year, has drawn a 10-horse field for Saturday at Hollywood Park. Distinguish Forum, who won the Westchester on June 4, drew the No. 6 post and will carry high weight of 119 pounds. Others entered are Ebony’s Fast Play, Cara Rafaela, Little Gumpher, Ecstasy, Woodyoubelieveit, Love On The Rail, Wasmi Song, Raw Gold and Liberty Nite. In her only other start, Distinguish Forum beat maidens by 13 lengths.

With Timber Country, the Preakness winner, waiting for the $500,000 Haskell Handicap on July 30, five horses will run Saturday in the $75,000 Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. Two of the entrants, Suave Prospect and Pyramid Peak, finished far behind Thunder Gulch in the Kentucky Derby. . . . Soul Of The Matter, who worked a mile Thursday at Hollywood in 1:39 2/5, is scheduled to return to action in the $125,000 Bel Air Handicap on July 16. With a history of sore feet, he hasn’t run since a fourth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November. . . . Chris McCarron is on vacation through July 14, taking a family trip that includes a visit to Yellowstone Park.