Scorecard

SENIOR CITIZEN

Does George Allen like older players because the Redskin coach is four years older than he says he is? According to a transcript from Michigan Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti, Allen was born on April 29, 1918, not 1922 as listed in the Redskin press guide.

The guide also omits the fact that Allen attended Michigan Normal for three years before moving on to Alma College. At Michigan Normal, Allen was mostly a C student, although he did get an A in physical training. A classmate recalls that Allen was nothing in football, but every Sunday he would listen to the radio and chart the pro games while others were trying to study.

HOODLUM

A figure from boxing's criminal past surfaced in Philadelphia last week. Frank (Blinky) Palermo, onetime numbers racketeer, fight manager, fixer, convicted extortionist and henchman of the late Frankie Carbo, the Murder Inc. gunman who became the underworld boss of boxing during the 1940s and '50s, applied to the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission for a license to manage. The application is scheduled for a hearing Jan. 23 and, oddly enough, Howard McCall, the commission chairman and a former trainer, appears sympathetic. "I never had any trouble with Blinky," McCall says.

In his heyday under Carbo, Palermo had a large stable of fighters, including lightweight champion Ike Williams, whose purses he stole. In 1959 Los Angeles promoter Jackie Leonard was brutally beaten after testifying before the California State Athletic Commission that Palermo and Carbo had attempted to muscle in on half of the earnings of welterweight champion Don Jordan. As a result of this case, Palermo and Carbo were tried and convicted in federal court in 1961 of conspiracy and extortion. Carbo, who got 25 years, died in a federal pen two years ago, and Palermo, who got 15 years, was paroled in 1971.

Palermo's lawyer argues that his client, now 71, has been "completely rehabilitated" and should therefore be licensed. It is one thing to give gainful employment to an ex-con; it would be quite another thing to grant a license, which is a privilege, to Palermo, whose record of corruption is unequaled in boxing.

DOWN THE RIVER

One by one, the historic trout streams of New York's Catskill Mountains, where dry-fly fishing began in the United States, have been disfigured. New York City drowned a storied stretch of the Neversink for a water-supply reservoir, and cut the summer flow of Schoharie Creek to nothing with the construction of a dam. The state highwaymen straitjacketed portions of the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill with cement and steel to build the new Route 17. Now fishermen, led by Trout Unlimited, the Federation of Fly Fishermen, the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, are up in arms over a threat to Esopus Creek.

One of the few blue-ribbon streams remaining within reach of thousands of anglers in the New York metropolitan area, the Esopus supports a large wild trout population, including a remarkable run of rainbows. The key 11.9-mile stretch is estimated to contain as many as 11,000 wild fish per mile. Alas, the state Power Authority plans to put a pumped storage hydroelectric plant on the Schoharie Reservoir. Opponents argue that the Esopus, which gets a life-giving infusion of cold water from the reservoir, would be irreparably damaged by turbidity and warm water caused by constant fluctuation of the reservoir water levels as a result of the plant operation.