New Jersey Newspapers - June 24, 1980
Camden Courier-Post
Phils duo nears team standards
PHILADELPHIA – The magic number is down to five for both Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton as they zero in on a couple of Phillies all-time records.
Schmidt needs that many home runs to surpass Del Ennis' club record of 259. Schmidt has hit 13 of his 20 total at Veterans Stadium where the Phillies begin a seven-game home stand tonight against the first-place Montreal Expos. In six games between the two clubs (each team winning three), Schmidt has hit a pair of homers.
Carlton, who'll face the New York Mets Friday night in his next start, needs five more strikeouts to become the No. 1 strikeout artist in Phillies' history. Robin Roberts is the current record holder with 1,871.
Both the Phillies and Expos arrived in the last night from a West Coast trip. Philadelphia won four of seven and Montreal lost three of seven.
The Expos, on the strength of a 15-7 June, have taken over the lead in the National League East with the Phillies trailing by just 1½ games.
PHIL UPS – Expos are still without Larry Parrish and Ellis Valentine, both sidelined after being hit by pitches. Parrish has a bad left wrist while Valentine is recovering from a broken left cheekbone . . . Next nine games for Montreal includes six with Phils, three with Pirates . . . Ron LeFlore, Rodney Scott and Andre Dawson have stolen 74 bases in 87 attempts.
Scott was caught for the first time last week after 19 straight steals by Giants' Milt May... Phils are 21-12, Montreal 23-11 in their home games... Phillies had only one home run on west coast swing, by Bake McBride, who has collected eight RBIs on 10 hits off Montreal pitching this season.
Phillies are hitting .284 at home with 36 home runs, but just .250 on the road... Warren Cromartie was on fire on the Expos road trip, hitting in all seven games, 14-28, .500... Pitching matchups for the series: Tonight, Dave Palmer vs. Dickie Noles; tomorrow night, Bill Gullickson vs. Bob Walk and Thursday night, Scott Sanderson vs. Randy Lerch... Last day for All-Star voting is tomorrow... First twi-nighter of season is Saturday against the Mets With a Sunday night game and post-game Independence Day fire-works show ending the home stand.
Bowa on All-Decade team
NEW YORK (AP) - The Cincinnati Reds, who dominated the National League with six Western Division titles, four league championships and two World Series triumphs in the 1970s, dominate the NL All-Star team of the decade, too.
The Phillies had one selection in shortstop Larry Bowa. He, however, shares the position with the Reds' Dave Concepcion.
Led by catcher Johnny Bench, the Reds have six players on the NL team of the 70s. Bench received more than 21 million votes from the fans in the decade, second only to the 22,858,453 votes cast for the American League's Rod Carew.
Selection to the team of the decade, however, did not take the total number of votes into consideration, but was based on the number of starts in All Star Games during the ten years.
During the 1970s, more than 71 million ballots – the largest number in any non-political election – were cast in the voting underwritten by Gillette.
The voting ends tomorrow for this year's game, July 8 in Los Angeles. The pitchers, as before, will be selected by the All-Star managers, Chuck Tanner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles.
The other Reds on the team of the decade (some of them no longer play in Cincinnati) are second baseman Joe Morgan (now with Houston), shortstop Concepcion and outfielders Pete Rose (now with the Phillies) and George Foster.
Carew, a four-time winner of the Gillette Trophy (1975, 1977, 1978, 1979) as the top all-star vote getter of the year, has been on every all-star team since Commissioner Bowie Kuhn returned the selection process to the fans in 1970. The former Minnesota Twin, now with the California Angels, fills two positions on the AL's all-decade team. He was an all-star second baseman during 1970-75 anrd has been the fans' top choice at first base since 1976.
The remaining positions on the NL team are first baseman Steve Garvey and third baseman Ron Cey of the Los Angeles Dodgers and outfielder Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Brayes.
On the AL team, two players share shortstop
honors – Luis Aparicio of the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox and Bert Campaneris of the Oakland A's (now with California). And third base honors are shared, too, by Brooks Robinson of the
Orioles and George Brett of the Kansas City Royals.
The AL catcher is Boston's Carlton Fisk and the outfielders are Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox and Reggie Jackson of Oakland and the New York Yankees and Bobby Murcer of the Yanks.
Carlton joins Giant’s Clark as honorees
NEW YORK (AP) – Phillies pitcher Steve Carlton and San Francisco outfielder Jack Clark were named co-Players of the Week by the National League yesterday.
Clark collected 14 hits in 26 at bats over the past week for a .538 average. He scored 10 runs, drove in four, had two homers and three game-winning RBI. He raised his season's average to .303 as the Giants won five of seven games during the week.
Carlton won both of his starts during the week to increase his major league lead to 13 victories. The Phillies' lefthander increased his strikeout total to 135, another major league high.
Baltimore Orioles righthander Steve Stone, who is second in the American League in victories with nine, was named the AL's Player of the Week.
The Press of Atlantic City
Phillies Must Learn to Lift Game Equal to Opposition
Tales of Hoffman by Harry Hoffman
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Phillies returned home Monday from their first trip to the West Coast a game ahead of Pittsburgh and a game and one-half behind Montreal in National League East. Third baseman Mike Schmidt found that fairly satisfying as he and his teammates look forward to a three-game batout with the Expos starting tonight at the Vet.
“We played real sound baseball. Then we tailed off a bit the last game in San Diego and first two in ‘Frisco. But at least we wound up on the right side of the ledger, 4-3, and we came home still battling for the lead. So that's a big plus,” Schmidt said.
He expects the club to play at the top of its game against the Expos.
“I think that’s the nature of this team. We play our best against the top clubs,” he explained. “When we tee it up against the Dodgers or the Pirates or the Expos we seem to lift our game to the level of the opposition. On the other hand when we play some of the lesser clubs we ordinarily suffer letdowns in our ability to play the game. It is strange and unexplainable.”
Schmidt admits the teams that win division crowns are the ones who do beat up on the bad clubs and manage to hold their own with contenders.
“Take the Dodgers, I think they’ve lost only one of eight to the Giants this season. That gives them a cushion for the tough series against the Reds or us. We play Atlanta 12 times. On ability alone we should beat the Braves nine of 12. As this season progresses we’re going to have to find the way to play consistently well against all clubs.”
Schmidt, as well as everyone else on the club starting with Manager Dallas Green, realize the major reason the Phils find it tough to keep their game on a consistent keel no matter who is providing the opposition. Right now they have only one consistent starting pitcher.
Sunday Steve Carlton had a tad less than his best stuff. Yet he managed to blank the Giants in all but the fourth inning when the home team scored its three runs. By holding them scoreless the rest of the way, Big Steve gave his-team time enough to gather four runs off rugged Vida Blue and a 4-3 victory.
Thus the overpowering lefty with the devilish slider improved his record to 13-2 and ended a slide by his club at three straight defeats. By working the nine innings Carlton also allowed Green to rest his bullpen and make it possible for the manager to pull young Dickie Noles out of the pen again tonight lor a start against the Expos.
Noles was not all that successful in his start against San Diego. But Green doesn't really have a choice. His other premium starter, Dirk Ruthven still has an ailing shoulder suffered when he hit the Vet astroturf trying to field a grounder during the last homestand. Ruthven will miss at least one more turn.
Green will have to go with Bob Walk and puzzling Randy Lerch in the other two games against the Expos. It is not a pitching rotation to bring shivers to the free swinging visitors from Canada.
“I just have to keep hoping I'll get five or six competent innings from my starters so we stay close and then can get a lift from our bullpen,” Green said. “Right now I have supreme confidence in Tug McGraw, Ron Reed, Kevin Saucier and Lerrin LaGrow. I can pull any of them out of the pen and figure they’ll keep us right there until our bats have a chance to decide the issue.”
Schmidt liked the way the bats in the middle of the Phillies' lineup responded to the challenge Sunday.
“We had our backs against the wall after losing three straight and the guys who are supposed to get it done with the bat did,” he pointed out. "Garry (Maddox) got a couple of hits. The Bull (Greg Luzinski) drove home a key run and I came through a couple of times. All of us had been struggling during the previous three games on the trip. But now we should be ready to cause some pitchers big problems during this homestand."
Schmidt still leads both leagues with 20 home runs. His 52 RBI place him second behind George Hendrick of St. Louis. The free swinger also has been maintaining a fairly consistent batting average mat sometimes roams above .300 and seldom dips below .280.
“Patience is the name of the game for a hitter, especially a hitter who is supposed to bang out home runs,” Mike explained. “If they don't have to, pitchers won't bring their fast ball around the plate to me. They'll rely on junk as long as they can and try to get me to bite at bad pitches. But when Bull is going good behind me then I figure on getting more pitches around the plate.
“Sunday, I waited on a couple or pitches that broke to the outside of the plate and went with them. That's what I have to do in that kind of situation. If I try to pull everything then I wind up with a lot of harmless popups. The other way I can still help the team with singles and doubles until the fatter pitches come along."
After the Expos' series the Mets come in for four games including a twi-nighter Saturday and a bizarre Sunday night game. Then the Phils will be on the road until the All-Star Game slated in Los Angeles July 8.
“It would be great to reach the All-Star break on top. If we can just get a little more help from our starting pitchers I think we'll make it. So far this club is proving last season was a fluke. Despite our pitching problems we've stayed right in the middle of the pennant race." Schmidt emphasized.
Carlton Honored
NEW YORK — Philadelphia pitcher Steve Carlton and San Francisco outfielder Jack Clark were named co-Players of the Week by the National League.
Carlton won both of his starts during the week to increase his major league lead to 13 victories. Phillies' left-hander increased his strikeout total to 135, another major league high.
Other National Leaguers who enjoyed outstanding weeks were St. Louis outfielder Terry Kennedy, Los Angeles outfielder Dusty Baker and the Chicago duo of pitcher Bruce Sutter and first baseman Bill Buckner..