Bad Habits

The Flyers have played poorly before, without getting Wayne Cashman nearly half as ticked as he was last night. But as Cashman stood in a gloomy Maple Leaf Gardens corridor and delivered a clenched-jaw harangue, he clearly had more on his mind than just a scattergun 3-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The thing is, Cashman can spot a trend. What he saw last night was a loss caused by careless, indifferent play that followed a Sunday victory over Tampa Bay in which the Flyers had to come from behind late against the NHL's worst team.

It was called Great Britain's "winter of discontent," a characteristic understatement that nicely hides the anger and disruption that presaged a national political upheaval. In early 1979, first the truck drivers went on strike, then public service workers, water workers, ambulance drivers, sewage staff and dustmen walked off their jobs. Streets were strewn with rubbish. Picket lines had grown violent. Even the dead were left unburied. On March 28 of that year, the shaky Labor government lost a crucial test in Parliament by just one vote.

Americans who eat low-fat foods often still end up gaining weight. That's because they start calculating fat grams, but stop counting calories. The fat-free myth and other confusion about food leads many people to take on bad eating habits, the authors of a new study on eating trends said. "The good news is that people are more aware of what they eat," said Barbara Levine, director of the Nutrition Information Center at New York's Cornell Medical Center, who helped analyze the study.

Derrick Coleman returned to the lineup. Rex Walters hit some three-point shots when the game mattered. And that's about where the good news ended for the 76ers last night at Gund Arena. Call it rust from the all-star break, the fact that they were up against the league's top-rated defense, or just plain mediocrity. It really wouldn't make a difference. The result: Cavaliers 105, Sixers 94. "We had some real good looks and just didn't shoot the ball well tonight," coach Johnny Davis said.

Spiritual conversions are not unknown in boxing. George Foreman was a glowering thug in his first incarnation as a fighter until he was reborn as a jolly, Scripture-quoting man of the cloth. Fortunately for Big George, both versions came equipped with considerable punching power. The latest convert is Oliver McCall (28-6, 20 KOs), who takes on England's Lennox Lewis (29-1, 24 KOs) for the vacant World Boxing Council heavyweight championship tonight (HBO, 10 o'clock) at the Las Vegas Hilton.

It's a good thing for Ursinus that three years ago, offensive lineman Sean Barrera just happened to be eating dinner in the cafeteria at the same time linebackers coach Pete Spurio walked in. And it's a good thing Barrera, who had never played football but was a power forward on the school's basketball team at the time, decided to accept Spurio's offer to play for the team. Behind Barrera, a 6-foot, 280-pound offensive tackle, and his linemates Saturday, Ursinus pounded out a 27-0 victory over Washington and Lee. The win gave the Bears their first 2-0 start since 1957.

When it comes to driving habits, some drivers' quirks in this area could drive you crazy - and it'd be a pretty short drive. Ask police and automobile clubs in and around Philadelphia and its suburbs the most frequently mentioned failings of area drivers and you get an instant list of woes. They range from following too closely and not turning on headlights in low-light or bad-weather conditions, to failing to yield when merging and to improper lane changes. Drive a bit farther away to New Jersey, New York or Maryland, and the top problems are speeding and failure to wear seat belts.

Someday, Kevin Stocker will look back on his 1995 season and it will seem - well, forget that cliche. It will probably seem like a nightmare. "It was horrible," Stocker said. "It was a bad year for the Phillies and a horrible year for me. " How horrible? Stocker hit .218. He hit .217 against lefthanded pitchers and .219 against righthanded pitchers. He hit .167 in April and .185 in August, and .218 in May and .213 in June. "I had all year to find it and I couldn't find it," Stocker said.

To paraphrase Moses Malone, 'peat, 'peat and repeat? Not this time. If streaks were made to be broken, the 76ers found a way to snap their two- straight-wins embarrassment of riches like a twig. Protect a lead? Build on what they had? Get the opponents down and keep them down? Maybe next time. This isn't a basketball team, it's a 5-18 excavation crew. These guys lead the league in digging themselves holes. Next on Oprah: trying to climb out of the cellar and not doing a very good job. On this we've-seen-it-before night, the Sixers dropped a 99-94 decision to the less-than-dazzling Milwaukee Bucks at the CoreStates Spectrum, building a 52-37 advantage, then seeing the Bucks score 37 of the next 48 points.

Who could oppose a line item in Pennsylvania's budget giving $100,000 to the Montgomery County Association for Retarded Citizens? Or $150,000 to the Delaware County Drug and Alcohol Commission, or $100,000 to the YWCA in Northeast Philadelphia? The do-good citizens' lobby group Common Cause, that's who. And it has good cause to do so, while Gov. Ridge and legislative leaders just have bad excuses for continuing a poor public policy. The point here is not to eliminate small state grants to worthy nongovernmental organizations.