Camden Courier-Post - October 14, 1980
‘Whiz Kids’ wish successors well
By Theresa A. Glab of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – The Whiz Kids of 1950 are hoping the Phillies of 1980 are not too worn out for the World Series that opens tonight in Veterans Stadium.
"It's better to go into a Series after a couple of days' rest, so I'm a little worried," said Del Ennis, who played in right field in the four straight games that the 1950 team lost to the New York Yankees.
"The team this year won the same way we did, going down to the last game. But maybe they have their momentum going."
The Phillies won the pennant Sunday night in the 10th inning of their fifth playoff game against the Houston Astros; the Whiz Kids won it by defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 10th inning of the last game of the season.
Ennis, who lives in Rydal, Pa., and owns an area bowling alley, will be among the 1950 team members attending the games tonight and tomorrow night.
Eddie Sawyer, the Whiz Kids' manager, will throw out the first baseball tonight and Robin Roberts, a Hall-of-Famer who pitched in two of the 1950 Series games, will have that honor tomorrow.
"It took 30 years and I'm glad they won," said Sawyer, who lives in Valley Forge, Pa.
Roberts, who has been coaching baseball for four years at the University of Southern Florida, said the 1980 Phillies "are probably a better club than we were, but I think we were more consistent."
Andy Seminick, the catcher in the four games against the Yankees, said he would still like to be crouched behind home plate.
"The best part about baseball is being a regular player. Then, you do the next best thing, like coaching or scouting."
Seminick, who now scouts for new talent for the Phillies on high school and college teams, arrived here yesterday from his home in Melbourne, Fla., with his son, Andy Jr., who is a Melbourne policeman.
"I remember most that the Yankees beat us by one run in three of the games," he said.
The veteran catcher is concerned about the grind the Phillies went through to capture the pennant.
The Kansas City Royals, who won their playoff series Friday, "are rested, so that puts them in pretty good shape, although the Phillies are all healthy but worn out," Seminick said.
Dick Sisler, the left fielder whose home run won the 1950 season-ending game, will be watching this Series on television in his Nashville, Tenn., home.
"Sunday's game reminded me of when we won 30 years ago. In both the pennant wins, it happened in the 10th inning."
As batting coach for the New York Mets, Sisler said he was able to watch the Phillies all season.
"I have seen them bounce back. They beat the Mets five in a row in mid-August and knocked us out of the pennant race. I think the Mets series got them going."
Sisler, who just resigned from the Mets after two seasons as a coach because the job was keeping him away from home, said he would like to stay in the game with a geographically closer team "like at Atlanta, Chicago or St. Louis."
"If I don't get back in, I will miss it. I will be 60 years old Nov. 2, but I feel good," he said.
Pitcher Curt Simmons, who won 17 games for the Phillies in 1950 but missed the World Series because he was called into Army service a month earlier, also will be watching the games on television.
"I'm sending my kids; they are taking the tickets," he said.
Simmons said that to win this season's pennant the way the Phillies did, "you have to have some battling guys who never give up.
"Winning is tough. You have to have people who want it bad and keep grinding away.
"Manager Dallas Green kept preaching about character. It sounds like a lot of malarkey, but if you have been on good teams, you know what he means."
Simmons is a part owner (with Robin Roberts) and general manager of the Limekiln Golf Club in Prospectville, Pa.
Another area resident, Stan Lopata, who played as a substitute catcher and a pinch hitter in two of the 1950 Series games, will be unable to see tonight's game because of a previous engagement.
"I'm happy for them and I wish them a lot of luck," he said."
Lopata, who is a sales manager for a concrete company, said he thinks "our ball club was a little better, but I don't know this club so well, so it's a little hard to compare on ability and personality."
Whatever the outcome of the Series, the experience will provide great memories for the Phillies, Roberts said.
"Particularly if this is the only time these players are ever in the Series, it will be something they remember for the rest of their lives."
Cheers greet heroes
By Ron Avery of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – They sang and screamed and drank cold beer in the bitter wind, and when the Phillie Phanatic stepped off the plane waving a cowboy hat, they went bananas.
About 6,000 Phillies fans provided an emotional welcome yesterday to the National League pennant winners as they arrived at Philadelphia International Airport from Houston.
It was all a bit disorganized, as most players departed the plane, embraced wives and boarded buses, giving the crowd only a brief glimpse of them.
Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green – who seemed as excited as a schoolboy – managed to get a few of the players onto a platform for brief speeches.
"It was the most exciting series of games I've ever been part of... I've never been prouder to be a baseball player," said relief pitcher Tug McGraw, sporting a huge, black western hat.
Manager Dallas Green seemed almost overwhelmed with emotion as he embraced and kissed his wife again and again.
Green praised the team's "character," saying it was "one of the greatest baseball teams that ever played."
The welcoming crowd started to arrive near the Overseas Terminal of the airport three hours before the plane was scheduled to arrive at 2:20 p.m. Neither on-and-off drizzle nor a cold, wicked wind dampened their spirits.
Two men, recognizing each over in the crowd, embraced saying over and over, "We did it. We finally did it for once."
Mary Reynolds and John Bryson of Willingboro rested on a blanket waiting for the plane to arrive. "We were up all night trying to buy World Series tickets at the Vet," explained Bryson. "We didn't get the tickets, but we had a lot of fun."
Chris Narducci of Turnersville waited with his two young children in the crowd. "I wouldn't miss it. They (the Phillies) gave me a birthday present last night. I was 31. So, I came to say thanks."
Wes Milnes of Barrington was there with his camera hoping for some good shots. "I hardly miss a game and that series with Houston was the best baseball I've ever seen."
Rev. Pasquale Catullo of St. Ivenaeus Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia also waited for the plane. "What an incredible series. I didn't miss a minute of any of the games.
“Yesterday at Mass I asked that everyone say a prayer to Saint Lucy. She's the patron saint for those with diseases of the eye. I said, 'Say a prayer to Saint Lucy for those six men in Houston."
"I was referring to the umpires," said Father ' Catullo. "Maybe it worked; they didn't make any bad calls on Sunday."
Teen-agers John and Jean Garvey of Runnemede came to the airport with their grandfather, Spencer Stewart, who cheered the Phillies in 1950, the last time they won the pennant.
"And I played for the Phillies farm team in Centerville, Md., in 1935," said Steward. "I quit after one season. I was just married and you couldn't live off the $10 a week we got paid."
The two teen-agers had purchased about 15 buttons to wear and save as mementoes of the 1980 season.
"I've lived in Philadelphia all my life," said 60-year-old Edward Greb. "This is the most exciting time I can remember."
Beautiful seats for Series after ugly wait in line
By James Asher of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – Carl Knopp could feel it in his bones. The playoff series was tied and, Sunday's final thriller was still to be played when Knopp had his premonition.
Get to Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, he divined, and buy tickets for a sure thing: The Phillies in the World Series.
So positive was Knopp that he set out from his home in Sicklerville for the Vet, arriving at 7 p m.
Once there, Knopp joined a line of about 400 others in front of the ticket window.
Armed with portable televisions and radios, those Phillies devotees in line watched and listened as their favorite team ultimately triumphed.
Once that difficult game was over, however, the problems for the fans began.
Beginning at midnight, the crowd at the Vet grew and grew and grew, finally reaching about 5,000.
By 2:30 yesterday morning, the shoving and pushing peaked to near pandemonium. Police were called to restore order.
"It got so bad, we thought we would be crushed. I want to know why there was no crowd control" Knopp said.
Near him folding chairs were trampled. People passed out. Others were so tightly pressed together that they were not touching the ground. Approximately 50 persons were injured. Some were intoxicated. Others were knocked down, police said.
Once police arrived, all became orderly.
But for Knopp, whose bleary eyes attested to the kind of night he spent, all was not ugly.
More than 12 hours after he arrived, the ticket office opened. Knopp waited some, more and finally bought tickets to two series games, the sixth and seventh.
For Knopp, it is now up to the Phillies to make it that far.
Phillies ‘Walk’ into Series spotlight
By Bob Kenney, Courier-Post Sports Editor
PHILADELPHIA – Bob Walk, the brash rookie who came up and won 11 games this summer, will be on the mound tonight when the Phillies open their first World Series in 30 years.
"I've got my confidence back up to 100 percent," said Walk, who is being pressed into action because the Phillies exhausted their pitching corps winning the playoff series in Houston.
"Bob Walk will pitch Game One, Steve Carlton will start Wednesday and we'll go from there," said Dallas Green, the first-year Phillies' manager.
"THE SERIES just behind us ranks with the greatest baseball played in a long time. Now we've gotta get off our emotional cloud and play baseball."
Walk will oppose Kansas City ace Dennis Leonard, a 20-game winner three times in the last four years, when the showdown gets underway in Veterans Stadium tonight at 8:15.
The Phillies' desperation pitching situation reminds long-time fans of the gamble made in 1950, the last time Philadelphia was in a World Series.
Jim Konstanty, then the top reliever in baseball history, was handed the ball by Manager Eddie Sawyer and almost bailed out an overworked staff but lost, 1-0, to the New York Yankees in the first game.
WALK CAME up in midseason when Larry Christenson was injured and bailed out the Phillies with a series of well-pitched games. He leveled off late in the year and had some control problems which cost him. But he came back to beat the Chicago Cubs in a must-win situation the last week of the season and seems ready.
"Walk can pitch," said Pete Rose. "That's the difference in this game now. Kids come up from the Oklahoma City's 49ers, or 89ers, or whatever they are called and have so much poise."
The Phillies will also have to make a decision on a designated hitter. In even years, the DH rule is used in the World Series and the Phillies will add one batter to their lineup.
"Right now, I don't know what we will do," Green insisted. "We will sit down with our scouts and talk it over."
GREEN WAS expected to use Lonnie Smith in left and Greg Luzinski as the designated hitter. But Del Unser contributed two key hits in Sunday night's pennant-clinching win and Greg Gross had three key hits in the playoff series. Both are lefthanded.
"We've got the greatest team atmosphere we've had in a long time," said Green, who says he is not worried about his team being tired.
"This club is used to the peaks and valleys."
"There is no way I am too drained," said Mike Schmidt. "There is too much at stake to be tired."
ROSE FEELS the Phillies are in a great position as they open the series.
"Our team is loose," he said. "It really grew up the last six or eight weeks of the season and learned a lot about winning and losing.
"I'm a firm believer in momentum. I'd rather be in our position than Kansas City's. You could chain me to a pole for two days with no sleep and, if you told me there was a World Series game tonight, I'd be ready."
True Phillies’ fans have paid their dues
By Ray W. Kelly of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – One baseball wife was standing in the airport telling another baseball wife that only a small percentage of the fans in Philly really deserved the pennant the Phils had brought to the city.
The baseball agent, who was standing with them, agreed. He thought that people here were feeling a little too sorry for themselves when they talked about how long they waited for the team to get into the World Series.
Heck, fans in Chicago had suffered a lot more and weren't half as nasty to their hometown players as the Phils. And, the same was true in San Diego and Atlanta to name a few.
Now, it is never a good idea to get into debates with the wives of athletes in any sport because you are at a distinct disadvantage. You might win a skirmish of words in an airport, but such a battle of words and wits have been know to be fought on many fronts. And no one has the ear of the king like the queen.
The lovely ladies of the Phillies have indeed suffered during the difficult times, taking much of the booing as criticism of their men personally. Their defensive instincts are laudable, if not slightly misguided in a world where each game is a new day and each play judged on its individual merits.
What many in the Phillies family fail to realize is that fans don't just maintain a love-hate relationship with the current team. The man-in-the-street's emotions are also guided by a close kinship with history.
How can a gal, who grew up in the Midwest thinking a hoagie was the first name of the guy who wrote, "Stardust," envision what it was like for the people in this town to go year after year to a hellhole called Connie Mack Stadium and root for a team that bunted runners along in the first inning of a game?
How can an agent, who spent his youth wondering if the surf was up instead of being lowered into sewers in search of half-balls, even begin to fathom the endless seasons of negative reinforcement that so many of the sports teams heaped upon the people here?
Sure, you can tell these latecomers about it. They look at you with the same look you get when you tell your kids that you actually walked to school, played games that weren't invented by Mattel and saved for things that cost less than a dollar.
A farmer can come around here and tell folks about the dust bowl. He can even show highlights of "The Grapes of Wrath." But, the people, who sat on the front stoop on warm summer nights and listened to the voice of radio announcer Gene Kelly echoing down the streets and alleyways of this area, could never know what it was like to choke on the dust of a dying family farm. Some things, you just have to live or learn at the dinner table.
To the players, wives, agents and anyone else who feels the need to pass judgment on fans they could never understand, let me say that what the Phillies gave the people Sunday transcends a baseball tradition that has seen almost five generations of sports fans witnessing just one World Series.
It goes to the heart of a city that deserved better than the embarrassment so many teams brought to its door. If you don't know how Connie Mack was forced to sell one of the finest teams out from under the fans… if you weren’t there when the Eagles were losing 12 games a season in front of sellout crowds... if you didn't die by inches with the 1964 Phillies... then stop feeling so indignant and realize one thing.
Like a foster child who has been beaten repeatedly in the past, the sports fans in this area are not about to behave or look at life like some kid who grew up in Kansas with Auntie Mae.
The 1980 Phillies have given these people self respect and much more. It has given them the chance to show the rest of the nation that no matter what W.C. Fields said, Philly isn't a joke. Hell, that genius funnyman was one of us!
This is no time to be thinking petty thoughts. This isn't an opportunity for the members of the Phils or anyone connected with them to seek vindication. This is the chance to be more than a baseball hero.
The husband who gives these people the crown of baseball won't become immortal. But honey, it'll be the next best thing.
‘As the World Series Turns’ opens tonight
By Rusty Pray of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – Most people are under the impression that the World Series – yep, the honest-to-goodness World Series – begins here tonight.
That impression, however, is a mistaken one.
What will take place is the opening of a new soap opera, "The Weary and the Rested," starring the pitching staffs of the Phillies and the Kansas City Royals.
The theater-in-the-round production is based upon the true-life experiences of the men on the mound. And, as far as the Phillies are concerned, the script comes right from the message on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Dallas Green will bring his huddled masses to Veterans Stadium tonight with sirens wailing and brass bands blaring... not in celebration of a pennant won, but just to keep them awake.
To say the Phils' pitching staff is tired is to say Mao's troops were foot-sore after the Long March. It took nine Phillies pitchers five days and 50 innings of the damndest baseball you ever saw to trudge past the stubborn Houston Astros in the playoffs.
"Sure," sighed Green yesterday, after the club arrived in Philadelphia, "they're tired. We used the devil out of them, but everybody is sound. Tugger (Tug McGraw) worries me most. The last 10 days, we used the heck out of him. He rested today and, knowing Tug, he'll have his juices flowing tomorrow.
"But we just can't keep using him two innings every day."
Poor McGraw. He has pitched in 10 of the last 15 games, including all five against the Astros. Since Sept. 26, when the final days began, McGraw has worked 19 pressure-packed innings, nearly half of them over the weekend.
He doesn't need a day off in Philadelphia, he needs two weeks in Acapulco. McGraw has pitched so much, he wakes up in the morning to the thump of his glove hand hitting his thigh.
"The drama is building and so is the pressure," said McGraw. "This is an exceptional year for baseball. Me? I feel good, but I'm thankful for the day off. I'm building to a very high emotional plain. I'll be ready.
"The only thing I'm disappointed about is that I can't hit because of the DH... I had this incredible bunt hit in the 1973 World Series. It was a highlight of my career."
McGraw, however, isn't the only member of the staff with a home address in the Valley of Fatigue. Virtually every starter was folded, bended, mutilated and spindled in the gut-wrenching effort against the Astros.
Indeed, there is only one guy on the staff whose arm doesn't feel like it's been through a wrist-wrestling tournament. That's rookie righthander Bob Walk. And he is Green's starting pitcher for the Phils' first World Series game in three decades.
"Bob Walk is the best man available at this time," Green said. "He ran into a little problem near the end of the season. He lost his poise and control a little. But he bounced back against Chicago. I have no qualms about using Walk. I wouldn't use (Dick) Ruthven after he pitched last night. I want nine innings and a win from Walk. I don't have anybody planned (to come in early). I always go with the way the situation is and the way I feel during the ballgame."
Where are Nino Espinosa and Randy Lerch when they're needed?
Walk hasn't worked since going 7⅓ strong innings against the Cubs Oct. 2. But, Green was right. Walk did struggle, and his last start was his best in two months.
"I heard a little about starting last night, but I didn't know I'd start until an hour ago," said Walk, who finished the season 11-7 with a 4.56 earned run average. "I was very surprised.
"There really was not any opening for my talent in the National League playoffs. I've never come in in relief in my life. It would have been tough to stick me in there in those types of situations like there were in the last two games. I'm not disappointed at all."
Neither are the Royals, who can't wait to begin slashing at Walk. Left-handed hitters like George Brett and Willie Mays Aikens will be more than pleased to introduce Walk to the American League way of doing things.
"If Bobby gives us six, seven good innings, we won't be in too bad of shape at all," said Phillies' pitching Coach Herm Starrette. "I really believe Walk can hold them down. It's a matter of him concentrating and making good pitches when he must.
"Walk's really our only option. There aren't too many other alternatives."
The Royals will have the luxury of using a pitching staff as rested as a guy who just spent a week on the Riviera. Righthander Dennis Leonard has been sitting around since last Thursday waiting to start tonight's game.
Lefthander Larry Gura last worked on Wednesday and Paul Splittorff on Friday. Manager Jim Frey didn't have to use Rich Gale at all in K.C. sweep through New York.
And, Kent Tekulve clone Dan Quisenberry was used as sparingly as a collector's item car.
So tonight will begin the "Weary and the Rested." Further installments are planned.
Royals will be ‘Astro-tuff’
By Jeff Jacobs of the Courier-Post
PHILADELPHIA – The words vibrated off their eardrums like George Brett's line smashes assault the right field wall.
Where were you when the Phils won the Rational League pennant?
The question was pounded into the Royals' heads over and over again yesterday at Veterans Stadium. It was one of those, where were you when World War II ended? Where were you when Bobby Thomson's shot was heard around the world? Where were you when the lights went out?
PUT HUNDREDS of sports media together in one ballyard, and the world's biggest echo chamber can result.
"To tell you the truth, I only watched the first six innings," Manager Jim Frey said. "I didn't want to root for Philly or Houston. I'm too superstitious. I went into a back room and played a game of Hearts with four cowboys: Dave Chalk, Jamie Quirk and the two Bretts."
"We left our hotel in New York about 10:45 Sunday night, got to Newark Airport a half-hour later and about 80 people crowded into a room with one TV," George Brett said. "I was the 80th guy. Couldn't see a thing."
The American League champions were enjoying a scenic bus tour of North Jersey while the Phils were engaging in insane heroics.
IN A FITTING tribute to pro sports in the '80s, tonight begins the first World Series played completely on Astroturf . But there is nothing artificial about the Royals.
By Labor Day, Kansas City polished off the rest of the stumbling American League West. After taking a September cruise through the doldrums of their schedule, the Royals returned to work and humbled the New York Yankees three straight in the playoffs. Larry Gura beat the Yanks in Game One. Twenty-game winner Dennis Leonard, tonight's starter, beat the Yanks in Game Two. And Brett's mammoth homer in Game Three stifled George Steinbrenner's and Reggie Jackson's giant egos for, oh, at least two weeks.
The Royals play sound defense. They hit harder than Bill Bergey, finishing with a .286 team average – the highest in 30 years. And it was rumored that twice this season, Willie Wilson finished in a photo finish with the speed of light.
The Royals have the best table-setter in the game in Wilson (.326, 79 steals, 133 runs). They have the best hitter in the game in Brett (.390, 118 RBIs, 24 homers in only 449 at bats), and a relief pitcher with 33 saves in creative-thinker Dan Quisenberry.
"WILL A three-day layoff hurt? We had a three-week layoff during the end of the season, and people brought up that question," Brett said. "Then, we went out and swept the Yanks."
"I saw George Brett slide headfirst on a (soap) commercial," Phillies' first baseman Pete Rose said. "He plays like me. I gotta like him."
"Our club will not change to play the Phillies – no tricks, no magic, no surprises," Frey said. "Leonard's our starter, because of the right-handed power the Phils have."
The Royals have a cast of confident characters. To a man, they agreed Veterans Stadium appears to be a great ballpark in which to swing a bat. They also cried, almost in unison, "We don't know much about the Phillies, and we don't know anything about (Phillies' starting pitcher) Bob Walk.
THE BIG debate yesterday was whether the World Series was a needed showcase for the Royals, who do not operate in a major media center.
Phillies-Royals battle it out on NBC
By Fred Rothenberg, Associated Press
NEW YORK – Although it's not being played in the major markets of Los Angeles or New York, which would have attracted more viewers, the 1980 World Series between the Phillies and Kansas City is on NBC-TV tonight (8 o'clock), "back where it belongs," according to the network's recent promotional blitz.
NBC used to be the sole carrier of baseball's crown jewels until Commissioner Bowie Kuhn took part of a page from pro football's TV book and added another network to the picture. ABC ended NBC's 30 consecutive years of exclusive World Series coverage in 1977 and has handled the fall classic in alternating years since.
For the baseball fan, this has been a mixed blessing.
NBC still does a better job of locating the ball and covering the big-games than ABC. While football flows in 10-yard increments in a vertical direction and basketball follows the bouncing ball, baseball is the toughest sport to direct. The small, white baseball moves faster, travels farther and lands in more unpredictable places.
NBC follows hardballs better because its cameramen have tracked them longer and Emmy Award-winning Harry Coyle, directing his 32nd Series, has great instincts about the game. He does the job of juggling cameras for the best action shots better than anybody.
But competition never hurt any industry, and ABC's personalization with player close-ups and interview inserts have helped inspire NBC to round out its overall coverage with a sharper journalistic sense and a better feel for the sport's entertainment value.
And following behind ABC's league championships series will not hurt the coverage, says Mike Weisman, NBC's coordinating producer. "What ABC did was build interest in the Phillies and Royals," he said. "We served the same purpose last year when we did the playoffs."
Weisman doesn't think ABC's doing the Darrell Porter drug-and-alcohol addiction story precludes the NBC treatment. "You can't take anything for granted. ABC just touched the surface on these things, and a week later, new story lines develop anyway. That's why live sports is so exciting.
"And I think the public's appetite for postseason baseball is insatiable. It's a function of the openness of baseball. It's hard to get close to an offensive lineman in football, but baseball players are more exposed, more recognizable. If people now know what Manny Trillo looks like through ABC, that's only better for us."
ABC had its guest Cy Young pitcher, Jim Palmer, and so will NBC – Tom Seaver, who impressed executive producer Don Ohlmeyer with his no-nonsense, analytical style in 1978. He'll join regulars Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek in the broadcast booth. NBC's second team of Merle Harmon and former umpire Ron Luciano will have roles in the pre-game show. Tuesday night, Luciano is supposed to be in a light-hearted spoof of "Star Wars" called The Umpire Strikes Back.
Seaver will focus on pitching as only a scientific pitcher can do it. The Cincinnati righthander was allowed to select someone to chart the pitches and he hired teammate Paul Moskau.
"Now we'll be able to know at any time how many pitches the Kansas City or Philadelphia pitchers have thrown and how they have pitched to specific batters," Weisman said by phone. Moskau, who will not be on-camera, will also keep track of the speed gun on the pitchers.
Seaver's inclusion might alienate Kubek-Garagiola, who have gone alone for the regular season, and Harmon-Luciano, who have been dropped to a pre-game role. But that's show-biz.
"The back-up color guy has never been involved in the booth before," said Weisman of Luciano, the former umpire who has shown to be an excitable broadcaster but an awful interviewer in his rookie season. "During the game, we'll have Luciano miked for any rule interpretations that might come up. We want to take advantage of Ron's warmth, enthusiasm and knowledge of the rules."
Higher ratings for TV and more fans to watcn at home, which translate into more money for both baseball and NBC, are the reasons for night baseball in October. And if 25 million more fans can watch weekday games at night, who's to argue with democracy?
But these two teams aren't network favorites. Although Kansas City-Philadelphia might be an exciting series, it won't create the kind of stir that the Yankees and Dodgers do in the big cities. Still, NBC got lucky with the Hollywood actors strike, which disrupted the opening of the competitive prime-time schedules.
So ABC and CBS will wait to unveil their big guns after the Series, while some 100 million tune in this week to NBC Sports version of “Shogun."
Wendelstedt behind plate for opener
PHILADELPHIA – When the World Series opens tonight at Veterans Stadium, veteran National League umpire Harry Wendelstedt will be behind the plate.
Wendelstedt was one of six umpires named yesterday by the commissioner's office to officiate the 1980 World Series.
In addition to Wendelstedt, Paul Pryor and Dutch Rennert will be representing the National League.
Bill Kunkel, Don Denkinger and Nick Bremigan were selected from the American League.
Other assignments for tonight's game are Kunkel at first, Pryor at second. Denkinger at third, Rennert in left field and Bremigan in right.
The practice of using six umpires, including one on each foul line in the outfield, began with the World Series of 1947.
Pryor will be working his third World Series. He had previously been assigned to the 1967 Series between Boston and St. Louis and, with Wendelstedt, worked the 1973 Series between Oakland and the New York Mets.
Both Kunkel and Denkinger worked in the 1974 Series between Oakland and Los Angeles.
This will be the first Series assignment for Rennert and Bremigan, although both worked the 1979 All-Star Game and their respective league championship series in 1977.
Kunkel, a former pitcher, was a member of the 1963 American League champion New York Yankees.
Designated hitter rule explained
This is the year the designated hitter will be used in the World Series. An explanation of the rule follows:
A hitter may be designated to bat for the starting pitcher and all subsequent pitchers in any game without otherwise affecting the status of the pitcher(s) in the game. A designated hitter lor the pitcher must be selected prior to the game and must be included in the lineup cards presented to the Umpire in Chief.
It is not mandatory that club designate a hitter for the pitcher but failure to do so prior to the game precludes the use of designated hitter for that game. Pinch hitters tor a designated hitter may be used. Any substitute hitter for a designated hitter becomes the designated hitter. A replaced designated hitter shall not re-enter the game in any capacity.
The designated hitter may be used defensively, continuing to bat in the same position in the batting order, but the pitcher must then bat In the place of the substituted defensive player, unless more than one substitution is made, and the manager then must designate their spots in the batting order.
A runner may be substituted for the designated hitter and the runner assumes the role of designated hitter. A designated hitter may not pinch run.
A designated hitter is "locked" into the batting order, no multiple substitutions may be made that will alter the batting rotation of the designated hitter.
Once the game pitcher is switched from the mound to a defensive position this move shall terminate the designated hitter role for the remainder of the game.
Once a pinch hitter bats tor any player In the batting order and then enters the game to pitch, this move shall terminate the designated hitter role for the remainder of the game.
Once the game pitcher bats for the designated hitter this move shall terminate the designated hitter role for the remainder of the game. (The game pitcher may only pinch-hit for the designated hitter).
Once a designated hitter assumes a defensive position, this move shall terminate the designated hitter role for the remainder of the game. A substitute for the designated hitter need not be announced until it is the designated hitter's turn to bat.
Phils underdogs on Reno bet line
RENO, Nev. (AP) – The Kansas City Royals are favored to win the World Series by odds of 6-5, Harrah's Reno Race and Sports Book said yesterday.
Harrah's is giving even odds on the Phillies' chances of winning the series.
A Harrah's spokeswoman said the odds for the opening game of the series are the same as the overall series odds.
Kuhn’s dad dies
PHILADELPHIA – Louis C. Kuhn, father of baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, died at his home in St. Augustine, Fla., yesterday.
Kuhn, 87, had been ill for some time.
The commissioner will leave for St. Augustine this morning and will miss the first two games of the World Series.