Scorecard

ANOTHER PROBLEM FOR PETE
Seven Baltimore merchants whose stores are only half a mile from Memorial Stadium have gone to court in an attempt to stop the Colts from playing the Miami Dolphins there on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 11. Originally, the Colts were scheduled to play the Dolphins in the Orange Bowl that day, but someone belatedly found out that the Dec. 11 date belonged to Florida A & M for its annual Orange Blossom Classic. For Pete Rozelle, the solution is simple. The Colts and Dolphins switch home-and-home dates, with the Colts going to Miami on Nov. 21 and the Dolphins to Baltimore on Dec. 11. But a Saturday afternoon game two weeks before Christmas would create parking and traffic tangles, the merchants say, that would cause them "irreparable loss of sales, income and customers" during the peak of the holiday shopping season. Simple again. Just switch the game from Saturday to Sunday, right? But the Saturday afternoon date is to accommodate NBC, which televises pro football on Saturday afternoons in December after the college season ends. Thus a direct economic confrontation: NBC needs the game and the merchants need their Christmas sales. Interesting case. Stay tuned.

STORM KING (CONT.)

The eight-year-old fight between conservationists and Consolidated Edison, the New York power company, a landmark struggle for ecologists, seemed to come to an end last week when a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld by a 2-1 vote Con Ed's right to build a power plant on the Hudson River at Storm King Mountain. But groups opposing the plant insist that the legal battle will continue—by carrying the suit to the Supreme Court, or by challenging the validity of a "water quality certificate" issued by New York State, or by asking the courts to reexamine, among other points, the fish-mortality study offered in evidence by Con Edison.

Con Edison held that the fish study clearly demonstrated that ecological damage from the power-plant operation would be minimal, but Dominick Pirone, a biologist representing the Hudson River Fishermen's Association, argues that the study was misleading. "The mathematical equation used to project the probable mortality of young fish, particularly striped bass," says Pirone, "considered the Hudson as a river that flows only downstream. But the Hudson is to a great extent a tidal estuary, and the ebb and flow of the tides have a significant influence on fish life. Instead of a 3�% to 4% mortality, as Con Ed claims, the correct figure is 35% to 50%, which would be an ecological disaster. We want the court to be aware of that discrepancy."

CANDOR

LSU has a promising freshman defensive end named Donald Freeman, who is distinctive among LSU football players because he is both black and a "walk-on." That is, he showed up for football practice on his own, asked if he could try out and made the freshman team. LSU has two other black freshmen football players, but both are on scholarship.

Coach Charlie McClendon, curious as to why he lucked into such a fine prospect, asked the 6'1", 205-pound Freeman how come he had not gone to Grambling, perennial football power among predominantly black colleges and the place where an unheralded black high school player from Baton Rouge would be more likely to land.

"Coach," said Freeman, "I couldn't make it at Grambling. You have to weigh 250 to play defensive end for them."

AYUH
An item here a few weeks back about the synergistic relationship of sea gulls and garbage prompted a resident of the state of Maine to tell us about a local real-estate dealer. He was showing a piece of property to some summer people (who are always gulls in Down East stories) when they noticed a flock of the large sea birds circling an area just over the hill from the land they were looking at. "Isn't that pretty," they remarked as they watched the graceful, soaring flight of the gulls. "Ayuh," replied the real-estate man, "that's our bird sanctuary." Which is how the summer people ended up owners of a lovely piece of land just a wing flap from the town dump.

CAPITOL PUNISHMENT