Camden Courier-Post - June 1, 1980

Maddox’ defense helps Phillies win

By Rusty Pray of the Courier-Post

CHICAGO – In the glare of Mike Schmidt's two home runs, it may have been difficult for fans to notice the considerable contributions center fielder Garry Maddox made to the Phillies' 7-0 victory yesterday over the Chicago Cubs.

But they were there, nonetheless, for any of the 27,448 in Wrigley Field who cared to see what separates Maddox from other major league outfielders. Included in Maddox' seven putouts were three sensational catches that helped keep the Cubs off the scoreboard against Steve Carlton and reliever Dickie Noles.

"He's probably over there right now feeling kind of bad because he didn't get any hits, didn't help our offense," a besieged Schmidt would say later in the Phillies' clubhouse. "But his defense was probably as important as any home runs I hit or somebody else's RBIs.

"Defensive plays in center field don't show up in boxscores, so the only people who really know about them are the ones who watch the game."

What you won't see in today's box-score is a startling catch Maddox made on Bill Buckner in the first, dashing from left to right-center and snaring the ball at the warning track as he fell to his back to avoid a collision with Lonnie Smith.

"I didn't see Lonnie," Maddox said. "You know someone with (his) speed is somewhere near the ball, but all you can do is go after it as hard as you can."

Neither Smith, who started his first game of the season in place of Bake McBride, who is having some knee trouble, nor Maddox called for the ball. The fact that they didn't collide is a near-miracle. The fact that Maddox caught the ball is, well, something on the order of Divine intervention.

Wrigley Field is not the best park in which to play the outfield. The wind is always tricky, the sky always high, the sun often glaring. Fly balls were fooling outfielders all afternoon and seemed to particularly baffle the Cubs' Dave Kingman, who was making his first appearance after missing nine games with a mysterious shoulder injury.

"Wrigley's a tough park to play in," said Maddox. "You have to watch the wind at all times. There's a high sky, no clouds, and you've got to wear sunglasses.

"The wind wasn't blowing out to left. It was blowing across, and balls hit into the wind were doing tricks."

Maddox' two other catches were not quite as tricky. He merely ran from left-center to catch a blooping fly ball to center by Kingman in the second, and performed a knee-high running snare of a ball hit by Mike Vail, who had a hitting streak stopped at eight games, after Kingman had opened the seventh with a double.

He just played center field as good as it can be played today," said Phillies Manager Dallas Green. "You can't say enough about Garry in center field today."

Well, perhaps that is enough. If Maddox provided defensive splendor, then Schmidt put on an equally-impressive offensive show. Schmidt's first home run came after Pete Rose, batting second in deference to Smith's speed, drove in the game's first run with a single to center in the third.

With the count 0-1, Green decided to play a little hit-and-run, giving Rose the green light. Schmidt got a fastball from Chicago lefthander Willie Hernandez on the outside part of the plate and sent it dutifully to the opposite field.

Schmidt's second, his 16th of the season, came off reliever Bill Caudill to lead off the seventh. It was rope of a line drive that was interrupted in mid-flight by a screen atop the left field wall. The homers gave Schmidt a career-high 12 in May (he hit 11 in May last year), his highest total for the first two months of a season, and put him on a pace that would give him 63 by October. Last year, Schmidt hit his 16th home run in the club’s 51^st game, putting him 20 games ahead of his 45-homer pace of a season ago.

Carlton, meanwhile, won his ninth game of the year in style, stopping , the Cubs on four hits through seven innings. Noles worked two hitless innings of relief.

PHIL UPS – Smith doubled in the. third and drove in a run with a single in the fourth... Greg Luzinski added an RBI single to the three-run fourth... Rookie Bob Walk was to start today against Dennis Lamp... Matchups for Pirates series, which begins tomorrow, are: Randy Lerch vs. Don Robinson, Dick Ruthven vs. Eddie Solomon, Carlton vs. John Candelaria.