Scorecard

BUNNY BAITS BEAGLES

Early this spring a snowshoe rabbit took up housekeeping under Lewis H. Giroux's barn in Winslow, Maine. One day she hopped out from under the barn with six little ones trailing her.

Giroux, though he is a hunter and beagle enthusiast, enjoyed watching them until one of the young bunnies began annoying his four dogs. It took to relieving itself directly in front of the beagles' pen, to their consternation and disgust, which they expressed with loud noises. Giroux grew tired of awakening at 5 a.m. to shoo the rabbit away. And it did no good, since the rabbit would return in a matter of minutes.

Giroux livetrapped the rabbit and twice tried dropping it in remote spots. Each time the rabbit returned to resume its baiting of the beagles.

It took a little thinking, but Giroux finally outsmarted the rabbit. He turned the dogs' pen around so that it faced the woods instead of his lawn. The rabbit still returns to its favorite spot, but the dogs don't care. They now look the other way.

NOTE TO PARENTS

For your son's financial future, if he is athletically inclined, consider basketball.

According to the Professional Football Players Association, which may be prejudiced, a National Basketball Association player has an average salary of $50,000 a year. Major league hockey is next at $32,000. Baseball averages $31,000 and there, down at the bottom of the heap, lies the poor old football player, averaging $28,000.

SLIM CHANCE FOR ELI

ELI's comin'. He is a sports-minded cousin to Hal, the talking computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ELI, for Electronic Line Indicator, was developed by a Houston firm headed by Fred Karsten, a tennis umpire for more than 25 years. Karsten's idea is to eliminate human error in calling ins and outs in tennis and, for that matter, in other sports, like baseball (balls and strikes) and football (first downs and field goals). No more Leo Durocher confrontations at the plate on a bad call by an umpire. No more flung rackets at the stands at Forest Hills. Electronics tells all.