For Some People, Laker Streak Ended Too Soon

After the Lakers’ 33-game winning streak ended 27 years ago today, Coach Bill Sharman spent a sleepless night.

He was up at the crack of dawn the next day, roaming around the team’s Milwaukee hotel lobby.

He was astonished to see Times sportswriter Mal Florence at the front desk, checking out.

Sharman pointed out to him that two games remained on the trip.

“Sorry, Bill,” Florence said, picking up his suitcase and walking out before an open-mouthed Sharman, “we don’t cover losers.”

The streak, still the longest in major pro sports history, even had a heavyweight fight mixed in.

In the early going of the Milwaukee Bucks’ 120-104 victory, Milwaukee center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became entangled with the Lakers’ Happy Hairston on a rebound. Angered, Abdul-Jabbar decked Hairston with one punch to the jaw.

Somehow, he wasn’t ejected and went on to contribute 39 points and 20 rebounds as well as the TKO.

The Lakers achieved some revenge later that season. They beat the Bucks, four games to two, in the NBA’s Western Conference playoffs, then won the NBA title by defeating the New York Knicks, 4-1.

Also on this date: In 1903, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery bought Baltimore’s American League team for $18,000 and moved it to New York. They called the team the Highlanders, but the name was later changed to Yankees. . . . In 1955, Gene Littler won the Los Angeles Open by two strokes and earned $5,000. . . . In 1980, Coliseum Commission member William Robertson said Los Angeles has “an excellent chance” of bringing the Oakland Raiders to the Coliseum.