The Press of Atlantic City
While Royals Stadium Makes Phillies Homesick…
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One look at the right field fence at Royals Stadium Thursday, and Bake McBride knew that the Philadelphia Phillies’ afternoon workout took on a new significance.
"The fence hooks real tight, like in Montreal. When it hits the corner, you're never sure what's going to happen,” said McBride, half-smiling, half-grimacing. "They put four fly balls into the corner for me to take a look, and they all did different things. One scooted out, one around, one straight up and one got stuck in the bullpen to gate. I tried to plant my foot at the gate another keep it from rolling through, but it just hopped my foot and rolled on in."
It was suggested that Garry Maddox might have to spend more time in the neighborhood to back up McBride, and McBride said, "by the time he got there, the damage would already be done. What has Willie Wilson got, six inside-the-park homers? I see this fence and I know why."
There are other things about this park, one of two stadiums located in the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex, that will make the Phils seem far from home. Even though this is the first World Series in history where both teams play on artificial turf.
For one, the power alley fences in left and right-center are 14 feet farther (385-371) than the Phils' home at Veterans Stadium. And it's 410 to dead center, compared to 408 in Philly.
Also, this is an open park, with stands only shielding the field from behind the plate. And late last night the winds came whipping into town, promising a cold, and perhaps frustrating weekend for Phils' power-hitters.
"That so?" shot back Tug McGraw. "They tell me only two guys have hit home runs to that grassy knoll (outside left center) and I saw Mike Schmidt pop three of them there in batting practice today with no sweat. I think they're in for a surprise."
Mike Schmidt, who led the majors in home runs with 48 during the regular season, but who has yet to park one in the playoffs or World Series, thinks that this could easily be an unfriendly park for power hitters. But he added that, as the Phils have proven so often in the past few weeks while clinching the division and National League titles, power is something that this team doesn't have to rely on as much anymore.
"In Montreal we relied on home runs," said Schmidt, whose two-run blast in the 11th put away the Expos with a day left in the season. "But in Houston, we've proven to ourselves what we can do just by worrying about making contact and keeping a rally going.
"I don't go up there now thinking that I have to put one out of the park for us to score runs. I stay in there and get a single, somebody else will do the same and it just keeps going. We believe that everybody on this team can deliver the big hits because we've now seen it enough times.
"And you know something? When you're swinging easy that's when the home runs happen. Bake's three-run shot in the first game (which sparked a 7-6 victory) is a perfect example.”
Dallas Green, like any manager in this situation, stayed cautious. "What we've proven is that we can win two in a row, just like the Royals can win two in a row.”
However, he expanded on that bromide and explained, perhaps, why the Phils have been so hot lately, especially when they got behind.
"The biggest reason for us showing the discipline we have is that we were behind for so much of the season,' said Green, whose Phils only held the division lead for 16 days during the summer. "When you're trying to catch people, it tends to focus you on the situation at hand, and think in terms of taking that one important step when you get the opportunity."
The Phils now have a rare opportunity to make this a short, bloodless execution. And, save for Greg Luzinski, they are in relatively good health to make the try.
Luzinski, Green's designated hitter in the opener, carne down with a stomach virus and was scratched from Wednesday's lineup for rookie Keith Moreland.
"(Trainer Don) Seger visited his house before we flew here, and Bull had a fever of 101," Green said. "We left him home to rest an extra day, and he will join us tomorrow night (tonight). However I would suspect that Moreland will be back as the DH tonight."
Garry Maddox, who left the game Wednesday when he fouled a ball off his knee, suffered nothing more than a good bruise and will be back in the lineup. And Bob Boone, who injured his foot blocking home plate during a crucial play in Sunday's league championship finale in Houston, has showed no ill effects, going 3-for-5 in the two games so far, with two runs and two RBI.
Dick Ruthven, 17-10 in the regular season and the hero of the fifth game in Houston with two innings of shutout relief, will pitch tonight, despite a touch of a cold that is just now breaking up.
Green said he will counter with Larry Christenson on Saturday, but did not announce Sunday's pitcher. Speculation centers around rookie Marty Bystrom, who started the finale with the Astros - especially if the Phils can go three up.
… Royals Relieved To Hear Brett Back in Lineup
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The World Series is not supposed to be a pain in the posterior, though don't try telling that to the Kansas City Royals at the moment.
The fact that they are down 2-0 to the Philadelphia Phillies, and led both games at Veterans Stadium, is enough to grimace about.
But nobody wanted to know about those troubles, per se. The topic of the day as the two teams changed sites for tonight's third game of the best-of-seven (8:30 p.m., Dick Ruthven vs. Rich Gale) was still George Brett's hemorrhoids. Brett underwent an operation Thursday, and should be able to play in tonight's game.
Earlier this season, Royals' catcher Darrell Porter came out of the closet and freely talked about his battles with alcoholism in the hopes that it would shed light on the problem and help those facing it.
If someone came to Brett, who underwent minor surgery Thursday to remove a blood clot from the troubled area, and asked him to host the National Hemorrhoid Telethon, he would probably tell him to put the idea, pardon the expression, where the sun doesn't shine.
There were a lot of expressions like that during an afternoon press conference, presided over by Dr. John Huryer, the proctologist who performed the operation at St. Luke's Hospital here.
The problem first flared up during the Series opener Tuesday night, and there was some doubt, and much talk, about whether the American League batting champion would be in the lineup Wednesday for the second game.
Brett did play in the contest, which the Phils eventually won 6-4, and collected two singles and a walk against Steve Carlton.
However, during the Phils' two-run fifth, Brett could not get enough range to reach a Keith Moreland grounder way to his left, or a shot down the line by Garry Maddox. And by the seventh the pain was such that Manager Jim Frey had to take him out of the ball game and put in Dave Chalk. He flew to Kansas City stretched out across three plane seats and it was decided that the only way out was the knife.
"The pain and discomfort was such that the standard used in treatment just couldn't handle the situation," said Huryer. "It was decided to perform the surgery, which involved making a small incision and removing the clot. There is still pain from the incision, but the pressure is greatly relieved. He'll stay in the hospital today, sitting in hot tubs and resting, but he will be ready for tomorrow night.”
Then came the questions - and what questions! Press conferences like these should be recorded for posterity, in Mad Magazine or a collection of Redd Foxx's greatest hits.
Could this happen again? "Although I doubt it, it could happen. George has a full set of hemorrhoids."
What happens if he slides or dives for ball? "It won't be comfortable."
Will he need another operation, and can it hurt his career? "The only thing you get from hemorrhoids is some discomfort. You can't do anything worse."
Did the pressure from his attempt to hit .400 (Brett wound up hitting .390) help trigger the condition? "There are a lot of things that could cause it. The nerves story is just that."
Then somebody asked Dr. Huryer to spell his name one more time and he closed the whole circus on an appropriate note.
“Just think of the expression, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get."
Frey, when he took the podium, announced that "I'm not even going to try and top that..."
Then the Royals' rookie skipper assessed his team why was down 2-0 to the Phis, even though they've scored 10 runs and are batting .292.
"I think the only thing we haven't done that we did this season is we haven't been able to control Philadelphia's offense effectively enough," Frey said, referrng to the Phils' .311 batting clip and 13 runs.
The Royals' speed has been notable in its absence so far, especially left fielder Willie Wilson. The author of 79 base thefts this year, Wilson scored the Royals' first run after getting on with a walk, but he is 0-8 in two games, and U.L. Washington and Frank White have gone only 4-for-16.
"I'm not pleased by any means. My job is to get on base and I'm not doing it," said Wilson. "I was 0-for-5 Tuesday and I thought about that a lot when I came up to the plate last night. I struck out three times and that didn't help things.”
Gale, 13-9, went through one season stretch this where he won 11 straight games. He has had shoulder problems through most of the season, and has not pitched since the season finale against Minnesota. Frey said, however, that he will be ready tonight.
"He came to me and told me his arm felt better than it had for four months," said Frey, who will come back with Leonard and Gura over the weekend. "When he is right he can neutralize a team, and if he could do that for 5-7 innings that would be fine with me.”
And even though his team was down two games, Frey gave them the day off after heavy morning rains soaked the artificial turf at Royals Stadium.
“I woke up at eight, then at 10 when it looked like the end of the world outside," Frey said. "At that point I figured if the rest of the players felt as bad as I did, 25 swings of batting practice weren't going to help us.”
For Not Wanting The Job, Phillies’ Green Has Excelled
By Pete Wickham, Press Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY (AP) - Dallas Green might best be described as the reluctant dragon.
The handsome 6-foot, 5-inch manager of the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies didn't want the job.
In fact, he. still doesn't want it.
Green, however, is a 25-year career man with the Phillies, a personal friend of owner Ruly Carpenter, a soldier who does what he's asked.
He was asked in the final month of the 1979 season to succeed Danny Qzark as manager of the Phillies, leave his post as director of the farm system, go down in the dugout and see why some of the best talent in baseball wasn't producing.
Green took the assignment. He discovered he had a team used to having its own way. The tail was wagging the dog. The talent was there, but togetherness was lacking. There was too much "I" and not enough "We."
The coming of Green was a shock to the troops. The change from the do-as-you-please Ozark to a rough-and-tumble guy whose whisper was a scream almost produced a palace revolution.
Green insists that he wasn't on any ego trip. All he wanted was a winning effort from players among the highest salaried in baseball.
Green didn't carry any eye-opening credentials himself as a major league player. He was a so-so pitcher from 1955 through 1967, a major league lifetime record of 20-22 for 185 games.
He did, however, bring with him a knowledge of the game, acquired as a player, minor league manager, coach, an assistant and finally director of the minor league system.
He also was the first Phillies manager in years with absolute authority to to make stick the rules he set down. No more running over the manager's head to Carpenter when a player didn't get his way.
Green took the job with the understanding that Carpenter, almost a father-like image to his players, would turn the other cheek when he saw his children being spanked.
When he gathered his team in spring training last March, Green wasted no time letting the players know the party was over.
"You gotta stop being so cool. Get that through your heads. If you don't you'll get so buried it isn't going to be funny. Get off your rears. You tell everybody you can do it (win) but you give up," Green admonished.
It's not every manager that infers his team has some quitters.
Green told them he wouldn't stand for any more nonsense, that he wanted a "We" team, not an "I."
Many of the players were bitter over Green's high-handed tactics. They thought he would back off, but if anything he got tougher.
The stars found they were on the same plane as the utility players. They discovered that Green used all his players, and he wouldn't hesitate to bench a petulant star if he wasn't producing.
Through the season Green criticized his players openly in the media. They didn't like it. There were a number of private meetings between the manager and players.
Green even said he felt some of his players were rooting against the Phillies in the NL pennant race. He didn't name names, but made it plain that if this team didn't make it in 1980, there would be a wholesale shakeup.
He accused some of doing all the little things he didn't like just to burn him up. He said through the media that it was time to put all things aside, if it's the children at home or the manager, and to say, "We" not "I."
Although they fought him all the way, the Phillies got the message. They became a team under the whip. They won their division, beat Houston in the NL playoffs, and now lead in the World Series over American League champion Kansas City, 2-0, in the best-of-seven set.
Green feels he has succeeded, although he says a few players may not yet have bought his tactics.
"One of the things I worked all on all year was creating a real feeling on this club and they have responded," Green said. "We get the juices flowing in the dugout and it helps our nine guys on the field. I think we've become a real 25-man team. Everybody's pulling for everybody else and we really share that feeling."
But the reluctant dragon doesn't want anymore of managing. He prefers to step up in the organization as general manager or assistant, until Paul Owens retires.
"I prefer not to manage," he said recently. "Enjoyable is not an adjective I'd used to describe this job.”
Win or lose in this World Series, Green feels he's done his job and wants to get out of the dugout. He does, however, want a say on his successor. He doesn't want what he's accomplished to vanish - the message that you can't win on talent alone.
Mike Schmidt, one of baseball's brightest stars, put it best when he described the season: "We're now doing to teams what they used to do to us."
The Phillies have become a team in the mold of the New York Yankees. They're never out of a game regardless of the score. It's a scrappy, never quit team.
Score one for Dallas Green.
Cosell Strikes Out Again
Deeb on TV
Howard Cosell, the relentless jerk who doesn't understand the first thing about baseball, showed his true colors the other night during ABC's telecast of the Houston Astros-Philadelphia Phillies playoff game.
Philly slugger Greg Luzinski had been pulled in favor of a late-inning defensive replacement. But Cosell was so busy inflicting his awful, stuffed-up voice on us that he didn't even notice the giant's absence for two innings. At one crucial point, he said Luzinski was in the on-deck circle, despite the presence of a decidedly smaller man there. Somebody finally pointed out his mistake and Cosell, typically, blamed it on an "incorrect" scorecard that he'd been handed.
He then uttered that oily, nervous, insincere laugh he occasionally resorts to when he's cornered like a rat.
Mind you, catching Howie the Shill in a gross error or outlandish statement isn't all that difficult. It happens all the time, especially when he tries to comment on baseball, a sport of which he's both ignorant and hateful.
Last year, for instance, during the World Series, Cosell. kept jamming both feet into his mouth. He once declared: "Willie Stargell has sent word to me that his hotel room was robbed last night. The wires will soon have the story.”
The truth was that the wire services transmitted that story hours earlier. So did hundreds of print reporters and dozens of TV and radio stations. Cosell's absurd claim of a Stargell "exclusive" touched off gales of laughter and such deadpan oneliners as: "Howard's latest scoop is that the Pope recently visited America."
In any event, Cosell was back this year - not on the World Series itself (which is being televised by NBC this time), but on the pennant playoffs. And as usual, his presence was intolerable to anybody who holds any affection whatsoever for the Great American Pastime.
For years, Cosell told anybody who'd listen that baseball was a colossal bore, that the game was "too slow," and that the only folks who enjoyed it were "old men and small children.” All that changed, of course, as soon as ABC landed a piece of the network TV contract for baseball.
Now Howie whips himself into fits of slobbering ecstasy while saluting the beauty of the sport - and while offering valentines to the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s.
But besides Cosell's two-faced commentary, there are other problems that render ABC almost unwatchable for baseball. The worst is the network's visual coverage.
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it's indisputably true: Producers Chuck Howard and Dennis Lewin and director Chett Forte still don't understand that the best way to follow a fly ball is to train your camera on the outfielder. That's exactly how the knowledgeable fans do it at the ballpark. But ABC persists in treating home runs and fly outs as if they were 9-iron shots to the 17th green at the U.S. Open.
When camera operators are directed to "go to the sky" for fly balls, the viewer loses all visual perspective, the essential ingredient to baseball appreciation.
Lewin admits that he and his ABC cohorts were "butchers" when they first began televising baseball regularly in 1976. But now he claims: "We're on an even par with our competitors at NBC."
That's funnier than some of Rodney Dangerfield's material. The fact is that ABC's baseball coverage continues to stink. The too-frequent switching between cameras strictly for effect; the constant bombardment of phony "crowd noise" when things actually are quiet; and the generally unrevealing replays combine for a sluggish and infuriating evening of baseball on TV.
Naturally, ABC makes a big to-do about the logistics of covering a ballgame. The network continually brags about its 13 cameras, its three mobile units, its 100 technicians and yes, that ubiquitous Goodyear Blimp.
“ABC absolutely crazy with "beauty shots,' " said Vin Scully, who might be the greatest baseball announcer of all time. "They're love with that blimp. In fact, ABC's peak performance at a sports event would be to have the Goodyear Blimp take a picture of the other Goodyear Blimp."
Sad to say, but that's about all we get out of ABC's baseball work - a few "beauty shots" interwoven with the uninformed commentary of Cosell and some herky-jerky camera work that gives you a headache.
It's unfortunate that ABC owns even a slice of the network baseball pie. But after enduring Cosell & Co., the real fun began when (1) the World Series started and (2) the action switched over to the professionals at NBC.
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SPORTSBRIEFS: Look for that Muhammad Ali-Larry Holmes laugher to get televised in prime time on Friday, Oct. 31, by ABC. The tape of the title bout, in which Holmes pitched a shutout over a sluggish Ali, will be part of a two-hour block of TV boxing that night.
Shooting Stars: Regency Show Goes Network for New Year’s (excerpt)
By David J. Spatz, Press Entertainment Writer
Bally’s Park Place is taking advantage of World Series fever by unwrapping what has to be the most lavish casino television commercial yet seen. If you missed it between innings of the Phillies-Royals games Tuesday and Wednesday, the 60-second spot features a cast of dozens of disco dolls and dans cavorting up and down the casino's 93-foot escalator, around the casino and in the intimate Park Cabaret, all the while singing the praises of the Third Game in Town. Just to make sure it was done right, Bally bossman Billy Weinberger suddenly pokes his face in front of the camera and lip-synchs the chorus of the jingle.