Philadelphia Daily News - June 4, 1980
Phils Get A Charge From Draft
Maybe the Phillies are thinking ahead. Surely they know their team of veterans will need drastic changes in a few years.
So they made their first two picks in yesterday's amateur free-agent draft a battery. An 18-year-old battery.
Henry Powell, an 18-year-old catcher from Pine Forest High in Pensaco-la, Fla., was picked on the first round. The Phillies' pick in the second round was Larry Knight, 18, a right-handed pitcher out of Lookout Valley High in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Powell, who packs 210 pounds into a 5-11 frame, was scouted by Andy Seminick, former Whiz Kid catcher.
"He's got a quick bat and is aggressive at the bat," Seminick said in one of his reports.
The Phillies compiled a small library on the young catcher, 16 reports in all.
"Very strong, good athlete," Randy Waddill, an area scouting supervisor reported.
The 6-1, 175-pound Knight was scouted by Carl Lowenstine: "Shows outstanding arm strength. Fastball has major league velocity with good life and hop to it. Power type who really challenges hitters."
After two rounds, the draft moved into the secondary phase, which includes players who were previously drafted, but who didn't sign. The Phillies selected 13th in the regular phase, but 21st in the secondary phase. They took Kevin Romine, a centerfielder-shortstop from Costa Mesa, Calif., followed by Tim Lambert, a right-handed pitcher from Pomona, Calif; shortstop Ken Dowell from Sacramento, Calif; catcher Fernando Perez from Susanville, Calif; right-handed pitcher Ed Wojna from Monroe, Conn., and outfielder John Whitt from San Pedro, Calif.
Tug Fit to Be Tied
By Thom Greer
PITTSBURGH – Tug McGraw is convinced there should be a provision in baseball for games to end in a tie.
"You've got to have a tie game now and then so you (players) can wake up feeling good," the Phillies’ southpaw reliever and proponent of the bizarre was saying late last night.
"If yon win a game, you go out celebrating and wake up feeling like hell with a hangover. If you lose, you get up feeling like hell because you're depressed."
At that moment, McGraw was blowing steam out of both ears in an effort to avoid waking up feeling depressed. He had just lost a 4-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Pirates, on Ed Ott's bases-loaded single in the bottom of the ninth inning, and was headlong into a tirade of shouting four-letter words unfit for print in a family newspaper. The loss dropped the Phillies four games behind the Bucs in the National League East.
"I FIGURE TOU got to go ahead and get the red ass now," McGraw said of his second loss against no wins this season. "You've got to get it out of your system as soon as possible."
What surely gripped the hell out of Tug McGraw was that he made only two mistakes during the four innings he worked. When he came on to relieve starter Dick Ruthven in the sixth inning, he was the ultimate firefighter. He was Red Adair in Phillies blue. Ruthven, who gave up four straight hits and two runs before feeling the sting of Manager Dallas Green's hook, left McGraw standing in an inferno with the tying run on third, the go-ahead run on second and nobody out.
Mike Schmidt's leaping stab of Bill Madlock's liner toward left took care of the first out. McGraw then erased Ott with a pop fly and Dale Berra with a strikeout. McGraw's next inning was a breeze, despite a triple by Omar Moreno.
McGraw called his first mistake "my Frank Sinatra pitch."
"I threw him (Willie Stargell) a fly-me-to-the-moon fastball," McGraw said. And Stargell launched it to the stars to tie the game at three.
A double, Mike Easler's second of the night, and two intentional walks later and McGraw was in the furnace once again with the bases loaded and only one out. And again he escaped. Berra popped out and Moreno looked at a called third strike.
Ott called McGraw's second mistake a "watermelon" pitch.
"I ALWAYS FEEL confident against Tug because he doesn't like to throw his screwball to left-handed hitters," said Ott, whose shot to right was beyond the grasp of Bake McBride. "I always go up looking for the fastball or the curve. And Tug's curve just hangs there. The one I hit to right (actually, McGraw said it was a slider) came up there looking like a big, juicy watermelon."
Despite his 0-2 record, McGraw still maintains a 2.89 ERA. "Tug's had good stuff most of the year," Green said. "This one was really discouraging to lose because Tug pitched his tail off. No question about it. He was great getting out of the jam for Rufus. Then he created one himself and got out of that."
"It's just a matter of breaks," said Pirates Manager Chuck Tanner. "We got the big break tonight and we had the last at-bat."
Perhaps the Bucs' biggest break came in the Phils' ninth inning when Garry Maddox, on with a single to left, was caught stealing. It was more like a pickoff because reliever Grant Jackson, who hiked his record to 5-1, caught Maddox leaning and fired to first base as the fleet centerfielder tried to get to second. Stargell's throw to Berra covering second beat Maddox by 10 feet.
“I think Grant saw him (Maddox) taking off," explained Green. "And once he takes off he's got to go. He almost jarred the ball loose at second, so it was his best move."
Green was positive, however, that the Phils' biggest problem last night was, "We just couldn’t score any runs after three."
AND THE THREE Phils runs came early, virtually silencing the 22,141 Pirates fans who surely suspected The Family was about to take one on the chin. Schmidt crushed his 18th home run of the season in the first inning to drive in McBride. who had doubled to left. And Greg Luzinski tripled high off the center-field wall in the third to score Schmidt, who had walked ahead of him.
But that was it. They didn’t get another hit off Eddie Solomon, who was finally relieved for a pinch-hitter in the Pirates fifth inning. And they could muster but three more hits the rest of the way off three Pittsburgh relievers.
The Pirates, meanwhile, batted Ruthven and McGraw around like punching bags. The ended the night with 13 hits, including eight off Rufus.
"That's what makes the Pirates," Stargell said between sips of his customary post-game pinot chardonnay. "Until the game is over, we just keep coming at you. Everybody contributes something. Tonight was the best example. We got good pitching from Solomon, good relief-work, sound defense and good pinch-hitting that helped account for 13 hits.
"They (the Phillies) don't have anything to be ashamed of because tonight you saw what the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh rivalry is all about. You saw two great ballclubs take it right-down to the wire. Tonlght, we happened to win. But there'll be another game tomorrow."
In baseball, somebody always wins. No, Tug, there are no ties in baseball.
PHILUPS: Steve Carlton (9-2) and John Candelaria (2-4) are scheduled for the final game of this series tonight... In the wake of the bench-clearing brawl that erupted when Kevin Saucier hit Bert Blyleven on the hip with a retaliation pitch last Monday, the National League instructed the umpires for this series to waive the normal warning when a batter is allegedly brushed back and to eject a pitcher the first time he throws at a batter... Willie Stargell's home run was his 43d against the Phillies and set the stage for the Pirates' 12th come-from-behind win of the season... It was Grant Jackson's 12th straight relief appearance in which he has not allowed a run.
Czurley Wins $125
There were five winners last night in the Daily News Home Run Payoff contest. In the third inning of the Phillies-Pirates game, Greg Luzinski's triple and RBI won $125 plus four tickets to a Phillies game for Anna Czurley of New Castle, Del. Ticket winners were M.R. Harrison, also of New Castle, Michael Pelko ot Allentown, Hoddy Funk of Doylestown, and Stanley and Edna Kobus of Conshohocken.
So far the Daily News has paid out $4,980.
Today's entry coupon appears on Page 63.