Allentown Morning Call - June 29, 1980
The boo is back following a sweep by the Mets
By Jack McCallum, Call Sports Writer
PHILADELPHIA – You could hear them as they came rolling across the artificial plain of Veterans Stadium. More powerful than a locomotive, more insistent than the beat of a big bass drum arid, to Philadelphia's professional athletes, more common than the sound of thunder.
The boo is back.
The Phillies dropped a twi-night doubleheader last night to the New York Mets. losing the first 2-1 and the second 5-4. And it did not go unnoticed. A crowd of 47.169 the second largest of the season drawn by the lure of the $10,000 "cash scramble" between games – was on hand with their lungs working.
The losses were the seventh and eighth in the Phils' last 10 games. Boo. An overworked Ron Reed gave up the winning run in the first game and the two tying runs in the second. Boo. Greg Luzinski now has just four hits in his last 33 at-bats and. worse, just four RBIs since June 16. Boo. Bob Boone is hitting .223. Boo.
And all this is starting to happen just as the Phillies' much-maligned starting pitching staff is coming around. Doesn't it all make you want to just . . . well, BOO.
For the record, the Mets won the second game on Steve Henderson's RBI-single in the top of the ninth. But the Phils looked like a beaten team long before that, particularly with Mike Schmidt joining Larry Bowa on the sidelines with a hamstring injury. Both will be out at least three more days.
The boos started for Luzinski after he struck out in the third inning of the second game. And they were louder after he did the same in the middle of a rally in the fifth. Luzinski s slump couldn't have come at a worse time for the Phillies since Schmidt was in a slump, too. before injuring himself running out a groundball in Friday night's loss.
The boo volume for Boone was worse. After an 0-for-5 doubleheader last night that included a none-out. man-on-second strikeout in the 11th inning of the first game, he is hitting only .223. Manager Dallas Green started Keith Moreland in the second game but Boone appeared long enough to be booed in the bottom of the seventh... and grounded out with two out and the bases loaded.
The Phils were helpless offensively in the first game against Ray Burris but appeared to be breaking out of it in the second.
After scoring their first run in the fourth on Ramon Aviles' sacrifice fly after singles by Garry Maddox and Moreland, the Phils had their best inning of the homestand in the fifth. Pete Rose doubled and. after Manny Trillo grounded out. Greg Gross, who came into last night's game with a .172 batting average, doubled Rose home. Alter Luzinski struck out, Garry Maddox tripled home Gross to make it 3-0.
The Mets scored two in the sixth but Maddox made it 4-2 in the seventh with a run-scoring double, his third RBI of the night.
Rookie Dan Larson pitched as well as anyone could hope in his 6⅔ innings of the second game. He had trouble only in the sixth when Frank Taveras’ single. Joel Youngblood's triple and Steve Henderson's groundout produced the first two runs. Green lifted him with one out and one on in the seventh when John Stearns came out to pinch-hit. And reliever Lerrin LaGrow got out of the inning by striking out Stearns and Taveras.
But Reed let the Mets tie it at 4-4 in the eighth on Alex Trevino's two-run single. Reed had gotten himself in trouble with consecutive walks to Henderson and Ron Hodges after Young-blood's single. Henderson's hit then won it in the ninth as the Phils went -down in order in the bottom of the inning. Boo.
The only consolation for Dick Ruthven. who started the first game for the Phils, is that he doesn't have to look too far for empathy. Randy Lerch. who gave Montreal just four hits and one run on Thursday night but got the loss, knows how he feels. In nine innings last night Ruthven gave up just six hits and one run but came away with a no-decision. It was a particularly strong effort for Ruthven, considering the fact that he's coming back after a 15-day absence because of a shoulder injury.
Reed gave up the winning run in the 11th on Youngblood's single and Stearns' long double to left-center. But even more pathetic was the way the Phils failed to tie it in the bottom of the 11th against reliever Neil Allen.
Maddox led off with a double to right-center, just beating Youngblood's throw with a fine inside slide. The idea now was to get Maddox to third and there were a lot of ways.
Boone, however, saw a way not to. He squared around to bunt on the first three pitches, two balls and a strike. The count reached 3-2 without Boone swinging and. incredibly, he also took a called third strike.
Pinch-hitter Gross got Maddox to third but made the second out on a grounder to shortstop Taveras in the process. And Taveras ended the game by making a good play on George Vukovich's grounder heading up the middle, throwing the rookie out at first by a step.
Mets top Phils 2-1 in opener
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – John Stearns' tie-breaking double in the 11th inning gave the New York Mets a rain-delayed 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday in the first game of a twinight doubleheader.
Joel Youngblood opened the 11th against Ron Reed, 6-2, with a single and raced home on Stearns' hit-and-run double up the left-center field alley to give the Mets their sixth victory in seven games. New York reliever Neil Allen, 4-5, was the winner.
Stearns was thrown out trying for third on his hit. One out later, play was halted by rain. The delay lasted 32 minutes.
In the bottom of the 11th. Garry Maddox led off with his second double of the game. Allen struck out Bob Boohe, got pinch-hitter Greg Gross on a grounder that sent Maddox to third, then ended the game by getting pinch-hitter George Vukovich on a grounder to short.
The Phillies, who have lost seven of their last nine games and scored only five runs in their last four, took a 1-0 lead in the third off Mets starter Ray Burris, who pitched the first nine innings.
With one out. Manny Trillo singled to center and, after Bake McBride flied out. Greg Luzinski singled Trillo to second. Maddox then ripped a ground-rule double to right, scoring Trillo.
The Mets tied it in the fifth on a one-out single by Doug Flynn, which ex- tended his hitting streak to a career-high nine games, a balk by Dick Ruthven and Lee Mazzilli's two-out single, Ruthven, in his first start since a shoulder injury June 13, also pitched the first nine innings.