Philadelphia Daily News - July 5, 1980

15 Winners In Payoff

There were 15 winners over the Fourth of July holiday in the Daily News Home Run Payoff.

Yesterday, in the eighth inning of the Phillies-Cardinals game, Herbert Schroeder of Philadelphia won $40 and four tickets to a Phillies game on a Greg Luzinski double and Bill Haeffner of Drexel Hill won $10 and tickets on a Pete Rose single. Dan Samuels and Mary Gifford of Philadelphia each won four tickets.

In the fifth inning of the first game of Wednesday's twi-nighter, Winfield Scott Howell and Jim Otter of Philadelphia, and Kenneth Sheridan of Newark, Del., each won tickets.

In the eighth inning of the nightcap, Dick Shenberger of Levittown won $35 and tickets on an RBI single by Pete Rose; J.H. Morrison of Bellmawr, N.J., won $25 and tickets on a Keith Moreland sacrifice RBI, and J G. Cooke of Philadelphia and T. Williams of Wilmington each won $10 and tickets on singles by Bob Walk and Lonnie Smith. Alvin L. Lee and Fred Medora of Philadelphia, Claire Neary of Pennsville, N.J., and Leroy H. Coombs of Villas, N.J., each won tickets.

So far the Daily News has paid out $9,895. To enter, send the coupon on Page 29.

Nino Effort for Naught

By Joe Castellano, Special to the Daily News

ST. LOUIS – It was Pete Rose playing out his cliche: testing a rookie, rounding third base and heading for home like a fullback who suddenly discovers the open field. The classic confrontation, the kind the inventors of the game must have had in mind when they laid out the bases more than a century ago.

"All I could hope for was to knock the ball out of his hands," Rose was to say.

The hope billowed up and burst, however, for St. Louis catcher Ted Simmons took a throw from rookie rightfielder Leon Durham on the short hop and tagged out Rose to end the eighth inning. And the Cardinals survived the magnificent debut of Nino Espinosa and went on to defeat the Phillies. 1-0, on a home run by George Hendrick in the 10th inning at Busch Stadium.

"THIS KIND OF game usually is decided on a home run or a play like Pete tried to make," said Dallas Green. "It was one of those daring plays, one that might turn the game around."

A daring play, vintage Rose. The Phillies' first baseman already had been slapped in the head by a fan, on a play near the stands a half inning before. And that made him a bit more competitive. Which is like Orson Welles being made a little more obese by a cupcake, or Bo Derek being made a bit more beautiful by lipstick.

"I'm just thankful I didn't have the ball in my hand, because I'd have thrown it right at that guy's chest," said Rose, who caught a Hendrick pop fly near the stands and relayed the ball to the infield before the spectator took a swipe at him. "I lost it there for a minute."

"It" was his composure, which Rose harnessed by the time he batted with two outs and nobody on in the top of the eighth. Thoroughly booed. Rose responded by beating out the bouncing ball he hit to the hole between third base and shortstop. And that brought up Greg Luzinski. who lofted a ball into short right field.

"I didn't pick up the ball," said Durham. "I saw him hit it, but until (first baseman Dane) Iorg pointed up in the air, I didn't know where it was."

Durham finally discovered the ball, soon to be a Luzinski double, then ran it down to the Cardinals' bullpen mound. And from there he threw home. "If he hits the cutoff man, we score easily," said Larry Bowa.

DURHAM DID NOT; his throw sailed toward home, where Simmons snapped it up. "If there was ever a time to challenge somebody," said Green, "it was in that situation. He had to make a hell of a play to throw him out, and Simmons had to make a perfect play to tag him and still hold on to the ball when Pete jarred him."

Score that one hell of a play, one perfect play, one significant out. And send the game into extra innings, an area of comfort for the Cardinals under new Manager Whitey Herzog. Now 15-11 under Herzog, the last-place Cardinals have won six of seven extra-inning games since Ken Boyer was fired June 8.

The deciding run was provided by Hendrick, who ended one-hour and 56 minutes of heat-induced torture by driving his 17th home run of the season into the left-field seats.

The home run was the first of the year given up by reliever Kevin Saucier, who, if you don't count Espinosa (which nobody did before yesterday), had the second-best ERA on the team. The time has come to count Espinosa, of course, for he gave up just two hits in eight innings in his first appearance of the season.

"He just pitched great," said catcher Bob Boone. "He didn't have a whole lot of velocity, but he kept them off balance. He has great arm action, and that's how they get fooled. His arm comes through real fast, but then he leaves (the ball). It just kind of dies there.

"WHEN THEY TRY to crush it, which they were trying to do, they get off balance. You see the ball good, and you know he's not going to blow it by you, so you try to crush it. But it's never there in a good hitting area."

Espinosa's most significant problem was that his offense was doing nothing with Cardinal starter Bob Sykes, who joined Cincinnati's Charlie Leibrandt as the only lefthanders to beat Philadelphia this season. "Sykes pitched one hell of a game, you've got to give him credit for that," said Green.

Sykes pitched around eight hits in completing the 10 innings. In only two of those did the Phillies get more than one runner on base.

"He wasn't quite as good as Nino," said Rose. "But he really took advantage of the ballpark. All the balls hit hard were to right-center, center or left-center. What surprised me was that both pitchers were throwing the ball up today. There were umpteen popups, and that's a sign of throwing up. But I guess you can get away with that in a big ballpark."

The theory was as weighty as the humid air until the bottom of the 10th, when Hendrick burned a Saucier changeup.

"IT WAS AN OFF-SPEED pitch, away from him." said catcher Keith Moreland, who replaced Boone in the eighth inning. "With one out, I just wanted to keep the ball in the ballpark. I wanted to keep Hendrick from hitting a home run. I didn't do a very good job of it."

Mercifully, it ended the game, played through 96 degrees and humidity severe enough to friz the Fonz's hair. It was almost hot enough to dull the enthusiasm of Pete Rose.

"The heat's all right," Rose said. "I didn't mind the heat until I ran from first to home on that play. That took it out of me. Maybe if I was safe, though, it'd be different." Indeed, in more ways than one.

PHILUPS: Third baseman Mike Schmidt, still suffering from a hamstring injury sustained June 21, will not start in the All-Star Game Tuesday night. Cincinnati's Ray Knight has been named to replace him. "I'm still going out there, but it doesn't look like I'll play," Schmidt said. "The only thing I can do is pinch-hit." Schmidt has not played in the Cardinal series. "We decided to shut him down," said Dallas Green. "That's the only way to repair that hamstring."... Pete Rose was also named to the National League All-Star team as a reserve... The five-game series continues today with Randy Lerch (3-10) going against ex-Phil Jim Kaat (2-5) and concluding tomorrow with Steve Carlton (134) facing Pete Vuckovich (7-5).