Philadelphia Daily News - July 15, 1980

A Wild and Crazy Loss

 

By Bill Conlin

 

This was the game where Lonnie Smith raised his batting average to.410 with five hits and was asked to explain a baserunning mistake which ran the Phillies out of a ninth-inning rally.

 

This was the game where Dallas Green finally threw up his hands and said, "The hell with it. Randy Lerch is going to the bullpen."

 

This was the game where Manny Trillo clubbed a double, homer and triple to take the National League batting lead with a.329 average and his manager said he would have traded one of the hits for a potential double-play ball the second baseman failed to glove in the pivotal eighth inning.

 

This was the game where Larry Bowa compromised his manager's strategy with junior high school baserunning, proving that nobody's perfect.

 

The 44,245 fans who sat or stood on the edges of their Vet seats for three hours, 33 minutes last night without the slightest trace of ennui will remember it as a game where the Phillies' 11 runs, 15 hits and 3 errors didn't quite measure up to the Pirates' 13 runs, 21 hits and 1 error. The bottom line was in doubt, however, until Ron Reed slopped a ninth-inning change-up Dave Parker crashed for a two-run homer which snapped an 11-11 tie.

 

LERCH, A 3-11 albatross casting a shadow of doom over the Phillies bid for a division title, raised his earned run average to 4.74 and lowered his credibility quotient to zero with a line which read 2 plus innings pitched, 5 runs, 6 hits, 1 walk and 1 strikeout. All that stood between Lerch and 3-12 was an offense that kept coming back.

 

On a sultry evening when only Dan Larson managed a lonely scoreless inning for the home team, Green reserved pitching accolades for another occasion. He did not, however, spare Lerch a verbal flogging.

 

"I'm about up to here with him," Dallas said, holding an index finger under an uplifted chin. "I've tried everything to get him going. Maybe a trip down to the bullpen will make him think. I need a more competitive pitcher out there for our guys. They go out and battle and they deserve a pitcher who does the same. It's the second half now... All I want is a good, honest effort out of him. I wanted some reason to run him back out there again. I hoped he would give it to me tonight but it wasn't there. Hell, he's got the second-most innings pitched on the staff to Lefty. That certainly shows I've run him out there."

 

Lerch appears to be suffering from the Bo Belinsky Syndrome, a fatal pitching disease. When the famed lover-pitcher was with the Phillies in 1965-66 nobody in baseball could touch the stuff he had on the sidelines warming up. His fastball was a laser beam in the night, his curve the equal of any in the anatomy of Mamie Van Doren. His slider darted and his screwball was possibly his most awesome pitch.

 

BUT JUST AS Mamie Van Doren was the poor woman's Marilyn Monroe, Belinsky was the poor man's Sandy Koufax. In a game with a hitter up there, his fastball was string straight, the curve hung like a seagull bucking a high wind, his slider backed up and his screwball wasn't nearly as libidinous as its owner.

 

"Herm Starrette keeps giving me hope with reports of what great stuff Randy has in the bullpen," Green said. "I'm not seeing that stuff in the games."

 

Grant Jackson, who was a Phillies teammate of Green's in 1965, never had Lerch's arm. But what he had then he has kept pretty much intact through a long and productive career. He is durable, throws strikes and has as much courage as any pitcher in the game. Jackson survived Trillo's two-out triple in the eighth and a one-out jam in the ninth to work two scoreless innings and pick up his seventh victory.

 

"Yeah, I pitched here with Buck," Green said wearily, a long flight to Houston still ahead of him. "He made himself a helluva pitcher. He's been blessed with a good arm. If you check his career he's hardly ever had arm trouble. I didn’t have our guys taking on him because he's gonna get the ball over the plate."

 

He didn't get it over when he walked Greg Gross with one out in the ninth. And the vocal mob came alive when Smith lashed his fifth hit, a line drive to left-center. ' Gross raced to third and Smith tried to leg it into a double. It wasn’t one-out, bottom-of-the-ninth thinking, not with Pete Rose, whose dramatic two-out single in the seventh drove in two runs and gave the Phils an 11-10 lead, in the on-deck circle. But Lonnie would have gotten away with the ill-advised gamble if he had gone into the bag with a dusty, head-first slide.

 

LEE LACY’S THROW was cut off about 20 feet behind second by Tim Foli, who played the game with World Series intensity. Smith slowed down just as Foli whirled and flipped the ban to second baseman Phil Garner. Smith was easily out. What happened? Lonnie normally runs the bases like a Leyte Gulf kamikaze pilot homing in on, an aircraft carrier. Was he trying to decide whether to go in head or feet first?

 

"I wasn't undecided about sliding," Smith said, fielding tough questions without rancor. "When he (Lacy) released the ball I lost sight of it. I slowed up to try to locate it. I never saw Foli catch it. I thought maybe it had got away someplace. Then I saw Garner going down with the glove and it was too late..."

 

Some phases of Smith's game are as raw as bathtub gin. But this is a player, fans. He's tough and he's got guts. His grandmother could be making the pivot at second and he'd take her out if it meant staying out of a double play. Until he got confused in the ninth, his five hits, three runs scored and 11th stolen base made the fans forget his first-inning error in left and the throw he made to the plate in the third that was so off line that Orson Welles would have scored.

 

Dallas Green has promised to serve no fine wine before its time and the time has come for Lonnie Smith.

 

“I THINK YOU'VE got to mix aggressiveness with common sense." Green said, "and Lonnie doesn't always do that. Overall he played one hell of a game for us. He’ll be in the lineup tonight in Houston, I’ll guarantee that."

 

Just to prove that even the perfect are not without blemish in a game raging out of control, Bowa doubled with one out in the fifth, the Phils trailing, 8-7, in the two-alarm stage of the conflagration. Boone, who would throw out both Garner and Omar Moreno the next inning, bounced a ball to Foli. Bowa broke for third and the shortstop gunned him out .With two outs and a swift runner in scoring position. Green would have hit for Larson.

 

"I would have hit for Dan if Larry had stayed put," Green said. "But you look back over a game like that and there's a lot of plays you'd like to have back. We walked too many hitters. It takes three singles to score one run. Keep clogging the bases with walks and those singles make the runs score in bunches."

 

Add six walks to 21 hits and you wonder how the Phils held the Pirates under 20 runs. It wasn't easy. And the tying run scored in the eighth when pinch-hitter Ott fired a ball which skidded under Trillo's glove to score Garner.

 

"Tough play right there," Dallas said. “The ball was kissed, but it’s a play Manny can make most of the time the way he's playing. I'd trade one of his hits for that double play."

 

And the manager would trade a week's pay for a powerful, confident effort by Randy Lerch.

 

"He's gonna have to go out there in relief and blow somebody away to regain the players' confidence in him," Green said, "to regain my confidence in him and, most important, his confidence in himself."

 

PHILUPS: Donna Schmidt gave birth to son yesterday. Pop Mike went 0-for-4 (two RBI) and aggravated his groin pull in a rundown after getting picked off first in the sixth... Lonnie Smith was the first Phil to get five hits in a nine-inning game since Richie Hebner in 1978. Bill Robinson lashed four hits for the Bucs... Dave Parker's pair of homers gave him a career total of 16 at the Vet, most by a visiting player... Manny Trillo's third-inning homer was his first since last September 1... Pirates' onslaught represented the season high in hits and runs against the Phils... Dick Ruthven vs. Nolan Ryan tonight in the Dome.

Drugs Bad Reading on Farm

 

By Stan Hochman

 

READING – Mark Davis has won seven in a row and is 13-4 with 132 strikeouts in 133 innings.

 

Ozzie Virgil has 20 homers and is leading the Eastern League in RBI with 71.

 

Do you think they know about Davis and Virgil in Hohokus or Halifax or even Honolulu? Especially in Honolulu?

 

Nope. All they know about the Reading Phillies in Honolulu is what they read in the papers last week about some famous Philadelphia players and some "unnamed" Reading players who supposedly were going to be investigated by a state drug law enforcement agency for allegedly getting amphetamine tablets.from an unidentified doctor through an anonymous druggist.

 

"It hit all over the world," sighed Reading owner Joe Buzas. "My wife's best friend lives in Hawaii. She read about it. called my wife."

 

"And two days later." trainer Dick Cummings said angrily, "it came out that the Reading Phillies were not involved at all.

 

“THE THING THAT bothered me the most was that they implicated a lot of big-league players they named. And they mentioned 'unnamed' Reading Phillies. I don’t believe they have any names."

 

Cummings is 32, a bright, pudgy guy who looks a lot like Alex Karras. He knows that the retractions did not make headlines in Hohokus, Halifax or Honolulu. Especially in Honolulu.

 

"With my background," Cummings snapped, "with my professional status, I take it as a personal insult when they drop ray name in stories like that.

 

"I haven't seen any overuse of drugs in the minor leagues. That's been over-stated. There should be more concern about alcohol, though.

 

"As for amphetamines, my ballplayers don't take 'em. I've never given them out. And it's an insult to even mention them to me.

 

"I'm not saying everybody here is an angel, but they're very consistent people."

 

Davis has been the most consistent of all. He gave up four hits and one tainted run in five innings last night and then sniffled to the showers with a cold and a 10-1 lead.

 

Let the record show that he has been taking aspirin to fight the cold and medication approved by Cummings.

 

HE IS 19, left-handed, with a big-league curve ball, which was missing last night. And even if he is from California, that doesn't mean he's into the mellow outlook on life.

 

"If anybody is gonna do anything," he said before last night's ballgame, "it's his personality. It's not because he's from California or from Georgia.

 

"I'm from Livermore, that's the Bay area, just outside San Francisco. Those 'trends' you're talking about start mainly in Southern California.

 

"My part of California is just like this – hills, trees.

 

"Everybody on this team is basically around the same. Everybody here is trying to advance. All I've seen is people trying to play baseball."

 

Davis' parents happened to be visiting him this week so he was spared the fretful phone call from home.

 

"Nobody called," he said. "They know me. I don't think anybody is gonna worry about what they see in the paper.

 

"Most of the guys took it kinda hard. You know you're not involved... you know it isn't true."

 

"The guy who wrote it should be shot," snarled Virgil, who skipped batting practice with flu-induced aches and pains.

 

"Why would he write stuff like that? I got a phone call from my mom right away, asking what was going on.

 

"MY DAD WAS WITH me, in Glen Falls, because it was the All-Star break and he had time off. He said the story said guys on our team were involved. I said, 'What?'"

 

Virgil had two hits last night, drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. He hit only.231 here last year, but he hobbled through the second half of the season with a back injury.

 

"You hear some comments," Virgil said. "They call us 'drug-o's' and when I walk up to the plate the other catcher will ask me where the 'greenies' are.

 

"You spend a lot of time telling people it's not true. None of it is true."

 

Ironically, the Reading club has been playing well and attendance has bristled in the aftermath of the "drug probe" stories.

 

Last night, on Campbell Soup night (free admission with five soup labels) they drew 1,734. putting them 9,000 ahead of last year's pace.

 

"The fans." said GM Mark Helminiak, "have the attitude that it was blown way out of proportion.

 

"Kids today are more personable. Their dedication is increasing. They are not troublemakers.

 

"I think." said Buzas, "this is the greatest bunch of young players I've been around in all my years in baseball.

 

"Look. I don't set down any type of rules. I expect 'em to behave.

 

"WHEN THIS THING broke. I was very much stunned.

 

"I think we played it cool. But I felt bad for the kids' families, in their own home towns. They must wonder what kind of team we've got here.

 

"I know our fans don't believe any of it. And the doctor (Dr. Patrick Mazza) is beloved here in the area. He's a low-key guy.

 

"I could see how he'd have a relationship with Bowa or Luzinski. They go hunting, things like that.

 

"Dr. Mazza is still the club doctor. And he will be... until proven otherwise. I don't yet see anything wrong with what he did.

 

"If he wrote prescriptions 10 months ago... he did nothing under the table... and are the laws in New Jersey the same, about examinations?

 

"But for our guys, the drug situation never entered my mind. I box with 'em, I wrestle with 'em. I'm 61 and I'm like one of 'em.

 

"I'm not naive. I'm pretty certain we've had guys who have used marijuana. But not hard drugs.

 

"I asked my son, he's 28 now, and he said, 'Yeah, I tried it but I didn't like it.' All kids, they go away to school, they try it. I don't think that's a big deal.

 

"Hey, I'm not condoning it. I'm one guy who is reluctant to take even aspirin."

 

ASPIRIN IS WHAT Davis was taking for his cold last night. It helped him get rid of his headache, but it may have drained him of his curveball too.

 

"The best curve he threw was the last curve he threw to strike out the last hitter in the fifth," said Manager Ron Clark, after Reading won. 10-3.

 

"He threw 80 pitches, but if the score had been 1-0 he'd have stayed out there."

 

Super-scout Hugh Alexander was there, behind home plate. And should the Phillies ask Clark if Davis is ready?

 

"I don't think he's ready at this time," said Clark.

 

"He needs another half-year at this level and a half-year at Triple-A.

 

"I think he's got the stuff. I know six games this year he could have won in the big leagues.

 

"But do you rush a 19-year-old kid up there, where he has to win right now? Where you can't afford to give him three starts to get his feet on the ground?

 

"Although, you never know, he might go up there and shut 'em out the first time out."

 

Clark was very happy to be answering questions about curves instead of chemicals. He's 37, with a terrific sun-scorched perm, and an interesting approach to managing.

 

"I have only two rules," he said. "Be on time... and play hard.

 

"THE PLAYERS SET the rules. It's better that way. If I set the rules and they break 'em, then it's my fault.

 

"We show 'em films in the spring about drugs, about what's gonna be out there for 'em.

 

"We tell 'em this is their chosen profession, what they've been wanting to do since they were eight years old. We tell 'em don't let a little bit of alcohol or women get in the way of making it to the big leagues.

 

"The odds are great enough as it is. But there are guys with limited ability who get to play in the big leagues. I was one of 'em.

 

"I tell 'em they're not fooling me. If they stay out all night it's gonna catch up to 'em. We don't catch 'em all the time, we don't police 'em all the time.

 

"When the story broke I told 'em to let me handle it because I knew it was all bull.

Madlock Won’t Soon Forget 1980

 

By Jay Greenberg

 

The second plague of the season to strike Bill Madlock is a throbbing left thumb. "It seems like such a simple, stupid thing," said Madlock last night, "and it hurts like hell. When I swing, when I make contact, when I catch the ball.

 

"You watch our infielders throw the ball to me after an out, they're lobbing it to me. The doctor said it was like (Dave) Kingman's and he needed surgery. The doc says he could drain it, or he could shoot it with novocaine, but he said that it might slow down the healing process."

 

Last night Madlock compromised, treating himself with a grueling 30 minutes watching "This Week in Baseball" on a chair in front of a television set in the visiting Veterans Stadium locker room. His teammates were taking batting practice at the time, which Madlock agrees he could really use.

 

His batting average, going into last night's game, was .235. "Seventeen RBIs," he says. "If everything's right, I pick that up in three weeks. I could do that with my eyes closed."

 

But not, apparently, with a swollen thumb, and certainly not while sitting out a 15-game suspension for putting his glove in umpire Gerry Crawford's face.

 

IF THE TWO-TIME National League batting champion was looking for himself on "This week in Baseball” no one had to tell him he had the wrong week. And maybe year. "You talk about a season," Madlock said. "Both physically and mentally, everything's been down."

 

He was smiling, though, when he said it. Madlock is a thoroughly engaging person. The outgoing Pirate Fam-a-Lee appears, after three other major league stops, to be Bill's proper setting. There are worse places to be when you're hitting .238 and worse moods to be in, too. He turns down the sound on the TV to talk, plays with the Phanatic and stays in the lineup.

 

The other side of Bill Madlock surfaces here and there in tantrums, the last of which, in early May, made baseball civil libertarians arch eyebrows. Though Crawford said his face was swollen from Madlock's glove, it was Bill's position throughout the lengthy appeal process that all he did was embarrass an umpire whose red-neck reputation was already well-established.

 

"Right after it happened," said Madlock, "a Pittsburgh writer came to me and said I was going to be caught between the umpires and Chub Feeney (the National League president). And that I was going to be the example.

 

"They wanted Feeney to prove he was going to back them up and I was the next case up. I'm not saying I didn't deserve a suspension, but was what I did deserving of the biggest suspension in baseball history? If they (the Pirates) hadn't paid me, I would have been out $30,000. That's nuts.

 

"IF I HAD IT to do over again, I would have just served it right off the bat. All the things they (the umpires) were saying in the papers, all the things they were putting me through. I couldn't take any pitches with two strikes, that's for sure.

 

"The reason I did appeal was that I thought it was uncalled for. Umpires have been hit, spit on, kicked and this seemed like a double standard. I've seen a lot worse than what I did. What did (Dickie) Noles get?"

 

Noles, who threw a bat at an umpire in Los Angeles, got three games. "I'm just looking forward to the next case, that's all," said Madlock. "They seemed to be saying worse than hurting a guy, was embarrassing him. I got so much negative press. People just wrote what the umpires said, because my attorney told me not to say anything about it when it was on appeal."

 

While Feeney was collecting evidence and Madlock continued in the lineup, the umpires finally set a deadline. Only after they announced they would begin ejecting Madlock did Feeney uphold the suspension. And only after Pirate President John Galbreath asked Madlock to drop his appeal to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn did the Pirate third baseman finally give in.

 

"I was going to take it the last step because Bowie is a lawyer and I thought he'd look at it in the sense of whether justice was being done," said Madlock. "My teammates were really good about it. I'm sure there was some thought that I should just serve it and get it over with, but nobody here prejudges you. It was the same way with (Bert) Blyleven when he left the club. Everybody just waited to hear his side of it .

 

"BUT I HAVE A lot of respect for Mr. Galbreath, and it was obviously hurting my play. So I just served it."

 

Since then, Madlock says he's satisfied that the umpires are, too. "I just go out and play the game, I say hello to the umpires and they've treated me fairly.

 

"Then I got hurt. You talk about horsebleep years."

 

The fact that Madlock is talking freely about his troubles can't hurt nearly as much as his thumb does. He cut off one throw from left field last night by going to his knees to try to cushion the pain. He went 2-for-5, hitting one ball hard, and driving in a run with a bloop single. The bloop was taken more encouragingly than the rope. "Maybe," he said after the 13-11 Pirate victory, "my luck is finally changing."

 

"What's made it not so bad is that we're still winning, at least enough to stay in the race. We've had a lot of injuries. I'll get my hits, an we'll get going."

 

In the meantime, Madlock is killing more than his share of rallies and the World Champions are a game-and-a-half out of first. While there is no question the Pirates would not have outlasted Montreal a year ago without Madlock's late June addition, Dale Berra, an excellent propect, sits on their bench. And Madlock's $300,000-a-year contract, which got him through waivers from San Francisco to Pittsburgh, is up at the end of 1981. The suspicion is that he might be moving on sometime before she becomes a big-bucks free agent.

 

"I LIKE IT here," he said. "I want to stay. There's really only two teams I want to play for and both are in Pennsylvania."

 

If the suspicion is that the Phillies were his only other choice last night because it was a Philadelphia writer taking down the notes, it's because Madlock's reputation is well-established.

 

He has, on occasion, been known to say a few words on behalf of Bill Madlock. "Just think," he said to a Chicago writer at last year's World Series, "If I'd kept my mouth shut, I'd still be a Cub."

Parker’s Bat Rules the Vet

 

By Dick Weiss

 

Manny Trillo of the Phillies leads the National League in hitting with a sizzling .329 average. But that spoiled-sport Chuck Tanner has his own darkhorse candidate for the batting Championship.

 

"Not many people realize it," the Pittsburgh Pirates' manager was saying last night, "but before this season is over. Dave Parker is going to be in the thick of the batting race. I guarantee you, hell be hitting over .300 and he's going to make a lot of people pay."

 

Parker may be batting only .286 today. But the powerful rightfielder is starting to collect some unpaid debts, walloping two home runs last night during Pittsburgh's 13-11 victory at the Vet.

 

The first was a two-run shot to the right-field seats that knocked lame-duck starter Randy Lerch out cold in the third. The second was a screeching rocket off Ron Reed in the ninth that landed in approximately the same place, driving in Tim Foli from first and breaking up an 11-11 tie.

 

Timber. With or without the recuperating Willie Stargell, the Lumber Company is back in business. Parker, who also singled in the fifth, had three of the 21 hits the Pirates busted against Phillies batting-practice pitching.

 

MOST OF THIS show of force was designed to show rookie catcher Keith Moreland and other unbelievers that the National League East will be more than a two-team race between the Phillies and the Montreal Expos this season.

 

Poor Keith had made the mistake of speaking his mind on a pre-game radio interview last weekend. And the Pirates was quick to jump on his candid remarks.

 

"I heard that he made a statement that it was a two-team race between Montreal and themselves," Parker said. "And that we had lost our leadership and that we had internal problems with our personnel. He might have woke us up.

 

"At least gain a little seniority before you pop off."

 

Parker was personally angered by Moreland's brashness.

 

"Yeah." he said during batting practice be fore the game, "It's a two-team race – us and the Yankees."

 

After the game, though, he played the role of the diplomat, refusing to count anybody out of the picture.

 

"The whole division is pretty even," he said. "The New York Mets are only five games out. They have excellent personnel, good pitching and a guy, Joe Torre, who they like and they'll play for. He gets the most out of those guys.

 

St. Louis – they haven't even reached their potential yet. They got all the hot hitting but no pitching. If they can get some pitching, who knows? They may run through the league, too."

 

THE EXPOS LEAD the Phils by a game and the Pirates by a game-and-a-half in the standings. But, with the Phillies on a trip to Dante's Inferno this week with games in Houston and Atlanta, and the Pirates entertaining San Francisco at the beginning of a 10-day home stand, the East could become even more scrambled than ever.

 

Parker is just starting to unscramble himself from a series of nagging injuries that have not kept him out of the lineup but have interfered with his effectiveness.

 

"I've been playing lately with an extremely sore knee, a tight Achilles' heel, a bad shoulder," he said. "Just a few of the things that have gone wrong with me.

 

"But I'm the type of guy who can go out there and do an adequate job, even if I'm hurting. I'm hurting pretty bad right now. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm limping pretty bad when I'm running back to my position. You hit a ball, you forget all about that and just take off.

 

"But it's pretty hard for me to put any pressure on my back leg. And that's the leg you drive the ball with. I get occasional pains when I miss the pitch. If I make contact, it's not that bad."

 

AND HERE, ALL along, you thought Parker was indestructible. He certainly appears bionic when he plays in Vet Stadium. Parker has hit 16 home runs there in his career, most by a visiting player.

 

Parker's home runs last night, his 11th and 12th of the season, were his first since before the All-Star break. He picked out a fastball from Lerch. He hit a change-up from Reed. "Home runs are basically accidents," he philosophized. "I just try to make hard contact. Get the bat speed and get the bat through the zone. I can't really think about home runs. I think it makes you start doing things mechanically wrong. In other words, pulling your head, pulling out your front foot. So I just concentrate on the basics and try to make hard contact."

 

Parker did admit he was looking for a way to get this marathon over when he stepped to the plate against Reed in the ninth. The opportunity presented itself after Foli led off the inning with a single to right.

 

"You got to think long ball in that situation," Parker said. "This game had gone on for what. three hours and 45 minutes. And you start thinking to yourself, 'I'd like to drive one out of here or hit one in the gap and give Timmy a chance to score.

 

"When you play the Phillies, you're never really safe. They have an excellent offensive team, good speed. When we get together, you never know what to expect. You might see three 2-1 scores. But this is a game you might see two-three times a year when we hook up."

 

It was a perfect game for Parker to emerge as a star. After all, he had just announced his candidacy for the batting title. "What's leading the league, anyway?," he asked. "About .329. Two hot weeks and I figure I can be right there."

 

That is the frightening thing about the Pirates.

Trillo’s 1^st Pays Off $1,050

 

By Lorenzo Biggs

 

While Alan L. Kitts of Philadelphia was savoring his favorite team's victory in the Pen-Del baseball league – Rachuba 7, Nate Ben's 0 – he was hit with more good news. In the third inning of the Phillies-Pirates game, Manny Trillo's first homer of the season sent $1,050 flying his way.

 

The homer made Kitts the second $1,000-plus winner in as many days in the Daily News Home Run Payoff. Sunday, Bill Coyle of Atlantic City won $1,025 on Garry Maddox' solo homer.

 

"I was listening to the game on the radio coming home from a Pen-Del league game at Temple field," Kitts said. "I've been involved with the league since 1973. I was riding home with team manager Jim Wentzel, who called me 'a lucky stiff when he heard the news."

 

LUCKY ISNT THE word. Kitts says that patience and perseverance, along with a little praying, is what really paid off.

 

"I'm a born-again Christian," said Kitts. "I've been praying about some things. And the Lord has shown me some things."

 

Kitts is a fan of all Philadelphia teams. But last night's 13-11 Phillies loss was hard to take. "1 wish they would have won tonight," Kitts said. "It was crazy... Sometime I get frustrated with the Phils and their managers."

 

Kitts has been a faithful contestant in the Home Run Payoff. "I've been sending in about 50 to 100 coupons a year," he said.

 

Kitts, a stamp dealer, plans to use the money in a variety of ways: giving some to his church, possibly traveling overseas, paying off his health club membership, catching up on bills. And, he said, "I going to support some kids to go away to camp."

 

Thomas Turner of Philadelphia won $50 plus four tickets to a Phillies game on Garry Maddox' double. Ann Durbano won $10 and tickets on Bob Boone's single.

 

Winner of tickets were, Cheryl Sedlah of Kennett Square, Jesse Fenton of Philadelphia and Merry DeWitt of Havertown.

 

So far the Daily News has paid out $12,275.

 

Today's entry coupon appear on Page 14.