Philadelphia Daily News - October 18, 1980

Phils Left Stranded

 

By Bill Conlin

 

KANSAS CITY. Mo. – All night, the base paths resembled the Schuylkill Expressway during rush hour traffic.

 

Everywhere you looked guys in blue uniforms were lined up bumper-to-bumper. The Phillies didn't need a third base coach, they needed the Go-Patrol helicopter.

 

"We had a chance to crush this team tonight and we didnt do it," Dallas Green rumbled after Willie Mays Aikens' two-out gapper in the 10th scored Willie Wilson and gave the Royals a 4-3 victory. "We had a chance to push Kansas City right over the edge. Dick Ruthven pitched a magnificent ballgame, but we didn't get it done for him."

 

THE PHILLIES TIED a World Series record by stranding 15 runners in a nail-biter where they came from behind three times to tie the score. Ruthven threw solo homers to George Brett in the first and Amos Otis in the seventh. But he was a pitcher in firm command throughout, a pitcher waiting patiently for his offense to explode for the one big inning, the one key hit that would leave the Royals down 3-0 in this landmark tournament between perennial bridesmaids.

 

"It was the best I pitched this year," Ruthven said after his nine-inning effort. "I had awesome location going for me. But I'm gonna burn Jim Kaat's barn down when we get home, he told me Amos Otis couldn't drive a fastball away from him. So all he did was drive a fastball away from him about 405 feet to the opposite field."

 

The game turned on two balls which Mike Schmidt smoked for a total of three outs. Schmidt, who tied it 2-2 in the fifth with his first postseason homer, went against Dan Quisenberry with two outs in the eighth, the tying run home on Pete Rose's first hit of the Series, runners on first and third. Schmidt smoked a liner to center. It looked like it might drop in, but Otis, playing the third baseman deep, got a good jump and made the play look routine. It was his ninth putout of the game, a World Series record for outfielders.

 

THE PHILLIES' LAST attempt at a hurrah came in the top of the 10th. Bob Boone led off the inning with a single to center and Greg Gross sacrificed the catcher to second. Quisenberry intentionally walked Rose, a calculated risk the way Schmidt has been swinging the bat.

 

Schmidt ripped Quisenberry's first pitch. Second baseman Frank White made a diving catch of a ball destined for the alley in right-center and doubled Boone off second.

 

The Royals 10th was a tense game of chess involving Tug McGraw and Boone, the blazing speed of Wilson and the diamond-studded bat of the magnificent Brett. Boone orchestrated the inning perfectly, but the Phillies still wound up in check.

 

"If I throw Aikens a pitch in the right spot, we're still out there playing," McGraw said.

 

"If I make a good throw on Wilson after doing everything else I wanted to do, we'd still be out there playing," Boone commiserated.

 

U.L. Washington slashed a wicked one-hop bouncer to Larry Bowa's right to open the inning. "I had no chance," the shortstop said. "I just threw my love out there and hoped."

 

WILSON, LABORING through a 1-for-13 Series, was up to bunt. McGraw -wound up walking him.

 

"I wasted too many high pitches trying to get him to pop a bunt up," Tug said.

 

The next hitter was White, also up .to bunt He missed his second attempt and Washington was caught leaning toward third. Boone faked him into breaking for third and gunned him out. It looked like a tremendous break when White struck out on a screwball.

 

With two outs, the focus now fell on Wilson, who would surely be running, and on Brett.

 

When the count went to 1-1 on Brett, Boone knew baseball's swiftest runner would be going. He called a pitchout. McGraw delivered a perfect high, outside pitch. Boone made a quick release and any kind of throw Bowa could handle would have nailed Willie.

 

"All I had to do was make a good throw," said Boone. "I didn't do it. Even if Larry had been able to hold onto the bad bounce I gave him, he would have been out."

 

THEY WALKED BRETT intentionally, electing to take their chances with Aikens, a hitter who burned Bob Walk for a pair of two-run homers Tuesday night.

 

McGraw fell behind 2-1 and he wanted to throw the first baseman a fastball down and away.

 

"I made a mistake with it," Tug said. "I got the ball up to him and he hit the hell out of it."

 

Garry Maddox was shading Aikens toward right-center and had no chance to run down Aikens' savage slice.

"We've been winning as a team and tonight we lost as a team," Tug said. "We had an opportunity to blow them, out in four or five different innings, and didn't do it."

 

Today is the-swing game, the one which will swing the momentum into balance or leave the Royals in the kind of 3-1 hole the Pirates climbed out of last October.

 

"The pressure is a little different in a Series than in a playoff," McGraw said. "In a World Series it builds gradually as the games go along. All the pressure was on the Royals tonight. If they best us tomorrow, they're even with another game left in their home park. If we win, we're up 3-1 with a chance to end it right here. So tomorrow is a very big game. There'll be pressure tomorrow."

 

BEFORE HE LINED out in the eighth, Schmidt laid down a first-pitch bunt that rolled just foul up the third base line.

 

"A matter of inches was the difference between victory and defeat," Schmidt said. "The umpire told me the ball was six inches foul. If it's fair, Lonnie Smith scores and we win. Then in the 10th, my line drive is six inches away from White. If it goes through we get a run or possibly two and we win again."

 

Schmidt had compassion for Washington's aggressive base-running in the 10th.

 

"You can't really blame Washington on the play." he said. "Frank White is a great bunter and just bunted through the ball. After that. Boonie just made a great fake and Washington got hung up. Once he got hung up he was committed to third and Bob got the throw there in plenty of time."

 

Green didn't like the permanent traffic jam on the bases, but he'll take left on base to nobody on base any day.

 

"WE'RE SWINGING the bats real good,"" Green said after the Phillies flogged 14 hits. "I don't feel good about us stranding 15 runners. Get the number of men on base we had tonight and that's usually Blowout City. But we're getting our hits and we've been getting them. Mike Schmidt looks like he's back in a groove again. He just missed winning it for us with the bunt in the eighth and came even closer to blowing it open with the liner in the 10th."

 

The Royals will come back this afternoon with Game 1 loser Dennis Leonard. He'll oppose Larry Christenson, who pitched six scoreless innings against Houston in his last start.

 

"I know their thinking coming back with Leonard," Green said. "If he wants to use him in a seventh game, he's got to use him tomorrow."

 

Keep the champagne on ice. You might not get to pop the corks this weekend after all.

Bull Burns as Moreland DHs

 

By Bill Conlin

 

KANSAS CITY. Mo. – Greg Luzinski showed up at the ballpark yesterday ready to play. His temperature was normal, his stomach had stopped turning flips and he felt he was well enough to perform any task demanded of him in Game 3 of the World Series.

 

But the Bull sat while Keith Moreland was the designated hitter against the Royals.

 

The Bull sat and the Bull simmered.

 

"Nobody asked me how I felt," he said. "Nobody asked me if I could play. I was ready to play. .Nothing surprises me around here any more. I guess the handwriting is on the wall."

 

THE CHICAGO PAPERS have been filled with rumors that the Phillies and Cubs are cooking up a big deal involving Luzinski and relief ace Bruce Sutter. The Bull has two seasons remaining on his current contract and Ruly Carpenter has turned deaf ears on several attempts by his troubled slugger to renegotiate a new long-term deal.

 

"In my opinion he would have still been a little too weak to perform effectively," Dallas Green said last night after the Phillies lost to the Royals, 4-3, in 10 innings. "He'll be in the lineup tomorrow. Keith Moreland had good success against Rich Gale at Oklahoma City and I wanted him to be the DH. As far as the handwriting being on the wall, the only handwriting will be when I write his name on the lineup card tomorrow.

 

"And I don't plan to ask him how the hell he feels tomorrow, either. Our medical people keep me pretty well informed about how everybody feels. And I don't think a guy who still had a fever when he got up this morning was ready to take on the world."

 

LUZINSKI WAS SCRATCHED from the lineup before Game 2 in Philly when his temperature soared to 103. Trainer Don Seger loaded him up with anti-biotics and had Traveling Secretary Eddie Ferenz book him on an 8 a.m. flight yesterday morning.

 

But the Bull flew in Thursday night instead.

 

"I figured it would be better for me to fly here and get a good night's sleep," he said. "I would have had to get up at the crack of dawn to make the 8 o'clock. I felt good enough to go out to dinner with my father-in-law. The least anybody could have done was ask me how I felt and if I could play."

Banned in Kansas City

 

By Phillie Phanatic

 

Banned in Kansas City

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Last night, the Phanatic was banned in Kansas City, forbidden to do his act on the field at Royals Stadium. Maybe Steve Carlton best put the whole thing in perspective.

 

“Don’t worry about it," Lefty told me. “They’re still into Nehru jackets here. They'll be ready for you in about 15 years.“

 

But the Phanatic has only three days here, and now they're all going to be spent out of the way. Here's basically what happened:

 

THE PHANATIC has had no problem in visiting parks all season. In fact, the response has been great. Five major league parks, some minor league parks - everyone's been happy with the result. But not here.

 

During Thursday's workouts, the people in the Kansas City special events office started to give me the impression that things weren't OK, but they didn't give me the word until yesterday morning. Bryan Burns, the Royals'  director of marketing and special events, told me that the game is the showpiece and that they didn't want any of the Phanatic's antics on the field or on the dugout roof. In the stands was OK, but not on the field.

 

Now, that wasn't much of a deal. First, they didn't offer me any security, and in a visiting ballpark with rabid fans, that's an important consideration.

 

And second, the Phanatic didn't want people who've never seen him before only to see half the act and go away disappointed.

 

So it was no deal. Before the game, they had a military band on the field, standing there in straight formations, at full attention, playing their music.

 

What kind of entertainment is that?

 

PART OF the problem is that they confuse the Phanatic with the San Diego Chicken, and that's unfair. The Chicken is a little off-color, he interrupts the game, argues controversial calls, things like that. Anyone who's seen the

 

Phanatic knows he's not like that. Bryan Burns said he knew the Phanatic was not like the Chicken. But he obviously doesn't know what the Phanatic does in his act.

 

There is something definitely wrong with an organization that has such a sterile, purist, losing attitude toward baseball.

 

The thing is, baseball today is entertainment, like everything else.

 

Obviously the game is still the thing, and the Phanatic fully realizes that.

 

All he's trying to do is entertain some of the people at the ballpark who aren't totally caught up with the game.

 

By doing it Kansas City's way, you're only going to get the baseball purists to come out, not the women, not the children, not the entire families.

 

THE SCENE in Bryan Burns' office was so incredibly ironic, it was almost funny. While he's standing there, telling me there's no place for me on the field, that the Phanatic just didn't fit in, his secretary is just a few feet away asking for my autograph. And a lot of the other girls in the office had bought Phanatic dolls. Unbelievable.

 

Some questions:

 

If the Phanatic is so unacceptable, so demeaning to the game, then why is there a TV commercial out here promoting the telecast with the Phanatic as its closing shot?

 

And if baseball is the main show, and the K.C. people feel the Phanatic will get in the way, then why do the players compliment me on my act? George Brett, Pete LaCock, Renie Martin, even Jim Frey - they all told me in Philly to keep it up, that the Phanatic was doing a great job.

 

But the Kansas City front office didn't think so, and the Phanatic was out of work. It made for a long, depressing day.

 

And then the Phillies lost.

Rose Still Likes Phils’ Position

 

By Jay Greenberg

 

"Oh, that's right. A day game after a night game. Us old guys are supposed to have the day off."

 

In the best traditions of Ernie Banks, Rose will be back to play 18 innings today, if necessary. A fifth game now is because the Phils stranded 15 runners last night. Two of them were Pete's responsibility in the sixth, but Renie Martin struck him out.

 

"Nah, it doesn't bother me," Rose said. "It's the first time in a long time I've struck out twice in one game, but I'll work it out tomorrow in batting practice.

 

"If somebody said you could be in on a full (Series) share, which clubhouse would you rather be in now, this one or that one? We're one ahead of them and still have two games left at home. If necessary.

 

"IT'S LIKE A tennis game. We're one ahead and they have to break service sometime, right?"

 

"I'm not going to walk the streets tonight, throw rocks at cars. They've got the right guys swinging the bats. Their third, fourth and fifth batters are swinging the bats good and they're still struggling to beat us.

 

"It was the same way in Houston. A team blows you out 8-1, 9-1, you get concerned. But we're outhitting them. We're not playing bad baseball. They're in the World Series, too. They ought to be pretty good.

 

"They knew they were in trouble if we won tonight. No one is going to win four straight."

 

Still, the thought that the Phillies might have had that chance, with one more hit at any number of times last night, was lingering. Mike Schmidt just barely got under a Rich Gale pitch in the second inning with the bases loaded. Amos Otis caught the ball 15 feet in front of the warning track.

 

The next time up, Schmidt hit it where only the Royal bullpen could catch it. It was his first World Series home run, which was nice for historical purposes, but unfortunately it only led off an inning and tied the score.

 

Mike's 10th-innning drive with two men on, fell only into Frank White's glove, which left Bob Boone trapped off second and Schmidt with only one RBI to show for three well-hit balls.

 

"YOU COULD HAVE hung the wash on it if it had gotten out of the infield," said Mike. "I hit it hard, just what you want to do in that situation and he dove and caught it. It was a helluva play."

 

Then Schmidt's fine sweep tag, when he hustled back to third to take Bob Boone's throw to nail a stealing U.L. Washington, appeared to have taken the Phillies out of the bottom of the inning. That was until Willie Aikens lined a Tug McGraw pitch just out of Garry Maddox' reach.

 

"The only disappointment is that we got such a good game from Dick Ruthven," said Schmidt. "If we'd scored five runs, we would have won.

 

"And if I get one more hit with guys on base we win, too. But I feel good up there and we'll have another chance. It's not a great sense of disappointment. We didn't execute well, they got a couple breaks tonight.

 

"Nobody said it was going to be easy. The best thing about this is that I've only got to wait, what, about 12-13 more hours. This is great. That's a beautiful stadium out there.

 

"We hit well enough to win. That's why it's a best-out-of-seven instead of a best-two-out-of-three. There's a chance for the breaks to even out."

 

Someone brought up Brett's home run. Did Schmidt have any special admiration for George's speedy return from a proctologist's table?

 

"It can't be any fun playing with your rear end burning," said Schmidt.

 

''But this is a World Series, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You gotta be in a wheelchair not to play."

Brett’s Pain Is Behind Him

 

By Tom Cushman

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Appearing before an assembly of the global media in an interview area under Royals Stadium late last night, George Brett issued the following bulletin on the medical case that has had America spellbound since the details were first shared with the public earlier this week.

 

"My pain is all behind me," said George, who certainly has a way with words.

 

It was in this spirit that the George Brett story flipped another page last night an evening when the Phillies were to notice the first slippage in their command of World Series ‘80.

 

Arriving at the stadium from St. Luke's Hospital by taxi in the late afternoon, Brett asked that his name be added to the lineup. "I told Jim Frey (the manager) I felt great," George recalled after a performance which would suggest he is as honest as he is awesome.

 

Brett slammed a home run to right field in the first inning, nearly took Dick Ruthven out of the park again in the fifth, doubled in the eighth, and was aboard via an intentional walk in the 10th when Willie Mays Aikens stroked the hit that readmitted the Royals to this 1980 tournament.

 

HANDSOME, STYLISH, gifted, a man whose presence transforms the Kansas City Royals from an ordinary team to one of accomplishment, Brett certainly seemed an heroic figure as he later moved into the interview area where the first question was:

 

"George, how are your hemorrhoids?"

 

To his considerable credit, George Brett does not snarl or throw things at people who ask this question, preferring now that the problem has been corrected to laugh along with the rest of the world.

 

"It wasn't amusing to me at first" he was saying, after moving over to his locker last evening. "There was too much pain. Now that the operation (a blood clot within the hemorrhoid was lanced, relieving the pressure) has taken care of that, I plan to have some fun with it."

 

Brett was asked if he had any problem fielding. "None," he replied, "but I told the manager if there was to write me in as 'Preparation DH.'"

 

"Are you embarrassed by all this?" someone wanted to know.

 

"Of course not," George Brett said.

 

"I'm rather glad I have them."

 

Seriously? "Seriously, I was embarrassed at first," he admitted. "I had hoped it wouldn't become public knowledge. It's not the kind of thing you go around discussing with your friends.

 

"I MEAN, YOU meet a guy you know on the street and exchange the basic greeting, which is, 'How you doing?' You "don't say, Oh. I got hemorrhoids.'"

 

By the hour George Brett took the field for the second Series game in Philadelphia Wednesday, the world knew. Brett removed himself after six painful innings that evening. "Coming back on the team plane afterwards I stretched out across three seats and got some relief," he said.

 

"I went from the plane to the hospital, and at 9 o'clock the next morning the doctors came in, woke me up, and said they were gonna operate. They promised there was a great chance I could play again tonight if they were successful, but to tell you the truth I wasn't thinking much about baseball at the time. Of course, I never do when I'm away from the park. If I concentrated on it like some guys, I'd be too tight to play the game."

 

By early yesterday afternoon, George Brett knew he was ready to resume swinging at the Phillies. "I laid in bed all day Thursday and most of today," he explained, "and then when it was time to get moving again I almost didn't make it to the ballpark.

 

"MY BROTHER (Ken) and Jamie (catcher Jamie Quirk) had said they'd pick me up, but when they called the hospital they were told I'd already checked out. I was dressed and waiting at 2 o'clock. When it got to be 3:45 I was nervous, so I called my brother's place and found out he'd already gone to the park. I ended up taking a cab, but the driver didn't know how to get to the park when the traffic is heavy. I had to give him directions.

 

"I think he recognized me," George Brett added. "When he let me off, he said, 'Good luck tonight."

 

The luck was to belong to George and his teammates. The Phillies knocked around Rich Gale, the Kansas City starter, added seven hits off relievers Renie Martin and Dan Quisenberry, but left 15 runners stranded on the basepaths while the waters of the ballpark fountains danced in the background.

 

The Royals did not seem to notice, so involved were they in foulups of their own. Even in the 10th, after U.L. Washington had singled and Willie Wilson walked with no outs, they threatened to give it back. Attempting to bunt, Frank White missed the ball and Washington, on the way to third base, was cut down.

 

White then fanned. With Brett at the plate, Willie stole second, a move which invited the Phillies to walk George. They accepted eagerly.

 

"The manager told me to go," Willie later pointed out, "and what he says, I’m gonna do."

 

GEORGE BRETT shrugged. "I saw nothing wrong with it," he said. "I would have needed a double to get Willie home from first. And Aikens had no trouble getting him in from second.

 

"I feel very good about the win. The Phillies came in here needing only two of five, but they didn't relax. They played great baseball and that we were finally able to beat them under those circumstances means the momentum may have shifted a little. The other important thing is that I now know I can play the rest of the way."

 

George says he was able to maintain good humor during his ordeal partially because the fans would not let him do otherwise. "You wouldn't believe the cures which were phoned in," he points out. "Orange peels were a favorite. One person said that if I baked banana peels and then placed them on the hemorrhoids, they'd shrink.

 

"One of my favorites is a vase of flowers somebody sent. There were the stems and leaves, but instead of buds there were little packages of hemorrhoids medication attached.

 

"I even got a call from Maui... and that's in Hawaii, man. I think it's fair to say that I've made hemorrhoids famous."

 

George Brett insists that he played without pain last night. "Except for when I hit the home run and somebody patted me on the butt," he added. "Now, that hurt. I don't know who it was but I intend to look at the films and find out."

 

Considering the position of his team at the time of the blow, and his own position in recent days – both of which could he described as prone – George was asked if he didn't feel that his first-inning home run was especially meaningful.

 

Thinking about that only briefly, George Brett nodded. "It meant a lot to me," he said, "because I didn't have to slide."

Willie Mays Aikens Earns Respect

 

By Ray Didinger

 

KANSAS CITY. Mo. If Willie Aikens worked in an office, if he taught school or painted houses, no one would much care about his middle name. Willie Aikens, plain and simple, would do very nicely.

 

But, as fate would have it. Willie Aikens is a baseball player, he is appearing in his first World Series and he is doing some truly remarkable things so, whether he likes it or not, his middle name is now clattering across every teletype in the country.

 

Willie Mays Aikens, that's what they're calling him these days. That's what they called him when they introduced him before the first World Series game in Philadelphia. They said it slowly, dramatically, the words falling like mallets on a base drum.

 

Willie... Mays... Aikens.

 

They had Willie Aikens at a press conference here Thursday and, once again, he was asked to tell the story about how he got his middle name. How his mother named him Willie and the doctor who delivered him added the Mays.

 

WILLIE WAS BORN during the 1954 World Series, you see, and that was the series in which Willie Mays made his memorable over-the-shoulder catch at the Polo Grounds, the series in which Mays led the Giants to their first world championship in 17 years.

 

The doctor took one look at the baby he had just delivered and decided he, too, had the potential to be a superstar. He gave him the middle name "Mays" and Willie Aikens, now 26, has been lugging the name, and its implications, around ever since.

 

"It's not that I dislike the name," Aikens said, following last night's 4-3 Kansas City victory, "It's just that I'd prefer not to use it in this (baseball) setting. I ask them not to use it when they introduce me here.

 

"I just think it sounds too big, too cocky. It sounds like I'm comparing myself to Willie Mays or I'm trying to be another Willie Mays. I'm not. I have enough trouble just being Willie Aikens sometimes."

 

Perhaps, but it would seem Willie Mays Aikens has one thing in common with his famous namesake and that's a knack for delivering clutch plays in mid-October. Last night, Aikens got the big hit, a towering drive over the head of Garry Maddox which drove in the game-winning run in the 10th inning.

 

THE HIT WAS a great relief to all the Kansas City players, since it brought them back from the edge of extinction and put them in a position to even this World Series at two games apiece with a win this afternoon at Royals Stadium.

 

But it was a particularly gratifying moment for Aikens who had been lifted in similar situations against left-handed pitchers during the regular season.

 

When Manager Jim Frey let him bat against Tug McGraw last night with the game on the line, it was the vote of confidence Aikens had longed for.

 

"I saw the whole thing taking shape," Aikens was saying in the jubilant Kansas City clubhouse. "When we got our first two men on in the 10th, I figured I'd be coming up with a chance to win it. I started psyching myself up, getting those positive vibrations going.

 

"We got a tough break with U.L. (Washington) getting thrown out at third but, when Willie (Wilson) stole second I knew what the Phillies were gonna do. L knew they would walk George Brett (intentionally) to get to me.

 

"I was hoping (Frey) wouldn't pinch-hit for me," Aikens said. "He pinch-hit for me one other time with the winning run on and it really disappointed me. I've always considered myself a good hitter, a good RBI man.

 

"I MIGHT NOT hit lefthanders for a great average but that doesnt mean I can't hit them. Hey, when the chips are down, I feel like I can hit anybody.

 

"When (Frey) sent me up there tonight, I thought, 'OK, this is your chance. Yon've gotta do it. End it right here.’”

 

McGraw missed with a breaking ball, then threw a fastball which Aikens fouled away. McGraw threw another breaking ball outside, falling behind in the count 2-1.

 

Aikens dug in up to his ankles, waiting for the fastball which he felt was sure to come.

 

"I knew he didn't want to walk me, not with Hal (McRae) up next,". Aikens said. "I was guessing fastball and that's what he threw me. It was up and on the outside part of the plate.

 

"I didn't try to pull it. I went with the pitch. I hit it the other way but I knew I hit it good."

 

The ball took off toward the waterfall beyond the fence in left-center. It was a high drive and it sliced away from Maddox who tried desperately to run it down.

 

THE BALL DROPPED well beyond Maddox' grasp and skipped to the wall. The centerfielder was just picking it up as Wilson screeched home with the decisive run.

 

“I didn't think he could catch it," Aikens sid. "I know he's a great centerfielder but he plays so shallow... no way he can get that deep that fast.

 

"It felt great, too. I feel like I proved something to a lot of people tonight. I proved I'm a major league hitter; I can hit anybody. I proved it to the whole world."

 

"That's it," Jose Cardenal shouted from a nearby locker. "Tell 'em, Aikens."

 

"One time this year," Aikens went on, "we played in Detroit and (Tiger manager) Sparky Anderson walked Hal McRae to pitch to me in the ninth. I got a hit and won the game.

 

"The next day in the newspaper. Sparky said he would walk Hal McRae a thousand times to pitch to me. That really made me mad. I think I deserve more respect than that.

 

"ITS LIKE I WAS reading the World Series matchups in the paper the other day. The writer gave Pete Rose a big edge over me at first base. I don't see it.

 

"I'm a better hitter than Rose. He hits singles and doubles. I hit with power and drive in runs. I might not be the fastest guy in the field but I catch anything that comes my way. I don't give that much away defensively.

 

"I don't know," Aikens said, "maybe I'm just a player who's never gonna get much respect."

 

Chances are Willie is gonna get his respect now. He is having a dynamite World Series with four extra base hits, and five RBIs in the first three games.

 

Aikens tied a World Series record by hitting two home runs in Game 1 at Veterans Stadium. That game just happened to be played on Willie's birthday, Oct. 16.

 

"Yeah, it was a nice present," he said. "It would have been a lot nicer if we had won the game, though."

 

The reporter who did the World Series matchups might be considering a retraction right about now. Pete Rose is currently one-for-11, although his one hit was a big RBI single in the eighth inning last night.

 

"WILLIE AIKENS is one of the major reasons we're here," Jim Frey said last night. "He hit the ball well for us all year, but particularly over the last two months.

 

"Earlier in the year, he was trying to hit the long ball and you can't do that in this park. You have to learn to swing more for the gaps, for the line drives. Willie is doing that now."

 

Aikens agrees. He hit .278 for the season, with 20 homers and 98 RBIs, all respectable figures.

 

But he did most of his damage late in the season, after he caught on to the subtleties of playing in this roomy stadium.

 

To give you some idea just how spacious the outfield is here, Willie Aikens picked up the first triple of his major league career last night, looping a ball past a sprawling Lonnie Smith in left.

 

THE BALL ROLLED to the wall and the 6-2, 220-pound Aikens rumbled into third with his first triple since his days in Salt Lake City, 1977.

 

"Man, I was tired after that," he said. "It took me 10 minutes to catch my breath. I can't run too fast. I've had trouble with my knees the past couple years.

 

"That's one thing Willie Mays and I don’t have in common, speed," Aikens said, smiling.

 

"I'd rather not have to run hard. I wish they were all like that last hit tonight, where I can walk 'em out, nice and slow."

City to Raise Hail with Parade If Phils Do It

 

By Kit Konolige

 

The last time something like this happened. Broad Street resembled an outtake from "Lawrence of Arabia" with a cast of millions, if you were going by Police Department estimates.

 

That was May 28, 1975, and the Flyers had just won a second straight Stanley Cup. Police officials estimated the crowd watching the victory parade on Broad Street that day at 2.3 million, which happened to be the approximate population of Philadelphia.

 

PLANS FOR a parade and John F. Kennedy Stadium rally, if the Phillies win the World Series, were announced yesterday by city officials. They are patterning their strategy after the 1975 parade route of the victorious Flyers.

 

It would start at 18th and Market Streets, go east to City Hall and continue on to JFK Stadium at Broad and Pattison. Phillies players would be sitting atop several flatbed trucks, with the first-stringers riding with Mayor Green and the benchwarmers trailing in another vehicle.

 

Here's how it would work:

 

•  If they win the World Series tomorrow, the parade will be Monday at 1 p.m.

 

•  If they win the Series in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, the parade will be Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.

 

•  If they win here Wednesday night, the parade will be Thursday at 11:30 a.m.

 

The city's plans, of course, depend on the Phils winning the Series. If they are victorious, the hope is for a safe, secure parade, but that wouldn't be easy given the huge crowd expected.

 

This time around, city officials are taking pains to ensure the safety of everyone: fans. players, VIPs, etc. If you go to the parade, you could still have loads of fun while following these rules:

 

•  Don't bring your car. Use public transportation (a SEPTA schedule will be published and broadcast as soon as it's available).

 

•  Stay on the sidewalk.

 

•  Don't break the law.

 

At JFK Stadium, Gov. Thornburgh and Mayor Green would speak for a few moments, and then Phillies announcer Harry Kalas would introduce the players. The stadium gates would open at 9 a.m. on the day of the parade, and the first 103,000 people to show up would get seats.

 

THE PARADE ITSELF would consist of 13 vehicles holding about 200 people, including players and their families, police and fire rescue units, an 18-piece band, the press and city officials. It should take about 90 minutes for the parade to reach JFK from City Hall.

 

City Representative Richard A. Doran said the plans were "what the Phillies management wants." Police Commissioner Morton Solomon promised a "maximum effort by the Police Department." Extra details will be put all over the city, especially in some areas of South Philadelphia where trouble had occurred during the Flyers' parades.

 

Four emergency medical stations would be available: 16th and Sansom streets lire station; 711 S. Broad St.; 13th and Shunk streets, and in the immediate vicinity of JFK Stadium.

 

About that 1975 crowd estimate: An enterprising reporter, with the help of a crowd-estimate expert, calculated the amount of square feet along the parade route (2,237,000 square feet) and concluded that about 600,000 people was more accurate.

 

Anyway, it seemed like 2.3 million.

Rose Makes The Grade

 

By Robert Strauss

 

Dear Pete Rose,

 

I hope you win the World Series. Smack a home run and show the Royals. How do you like being in the World Series?

 

Kert Geldersma, fourth grader, of Kansas City, Mo.

 

PS. Can I have your autograph?

 

KANSAS CITY – Kert was one of two fourth-graders at the 582 -roster Southeast Elementary School who voted not to rename the school as the George Brett Southeast Elementary School for the duration ol the World Series.

 

Kert said he likes Pete Rose "more than just about anything."

 

"I just plain old want Philadelphia. I've got a quarter bet with my friend," said Kert a catcher with the Silver Fox baseball team in the South Piatt County Athletic Association.

 

The other dissenter at Southeast Elementary, Pride Turpin. said he favors Mike Schmidt. Both have faced teasing and taunts from their classmates for their nay votes.

 

If these profiles in courage aren’t inspiring, think of Mayor Green, who arrived in enemy territory shooting off one-liners like a pair of western six-guns.

 

TAUNTING THE HOME team fans, Green – touring Kansas City with his wife Pat and Kansas City Mayor Richard Berkley – said he arrived with some drugstore remedies "which I think the people of Kansas City and the team are going to need."

 

Green said he had an remedy for ulcers, "which I think they may well develop in the course of the next two games."

 

And a cold medication '"for the tears they will shed as inning after inning the Phillies pound home runs over Kansas City walls."

 

However, Green wasn't as brave as he may have sounded: he also brought with him District Attorney Ed Rendell, wearing a bright red Phillies jacket and a red sweater.

 

GREEN'S PHARMACEUTICAL grab bag didn't have anything in it for ailing Kansas City third baseman George Brett who was discharged from St. Luke's Hospital yesterday afternoon following minor surgery to lance an external hemorrhoid.

 

Brett – who sneaked down a back stairway to avoid an expected crush of press and fans – "looked like he could run," according to a hospital staffer. Yesterday afternoon, at least, he didn't have to. The only people there were two photographers and one 125-pound newspaper reporter.

Phils’ Rooter Hits Paydirt

 

By Robert Strauss

 

KANSAS CITY – Amidst the piles of blue corduroy Royals cowboy hats that make this city look like a welcoming party for Paul Bunyan's Babe, the blue ox, one can still find a measle or two of Phillie red.

 

"I was coming into town to do some business and here I am," said Bill Rooney, a Germantown native, standing behind the Phillies third-base dugout during pre-game batting practice. He was wearing a Phillies cap and hoping that Garry Maddox would sign a souvenir baseball.

 

"I had to be in San Diego for a couple of days and was coming to our home office in Kansas City," said Rooney. who now works in Pittsburgh for United Computing Systems.

 

"I got on the plane and what happened? I meet Ballard Smith, the president of the San Diego Padres. He gave me eight tickets when he found out I was a Phillies fan.

 

"I've been a fan since 1949 and this is my first Series game," he said.

 

"Yeah, it's great," beamed Rooney's lucky buddy, Joe Accardi, a West Philadelphia and Upper Darby boy who now works for United Computing in Kansas City and got to wear his Phillies cap in Royal Stadium because of Rooney's fortuitous choice of airline seat companions.

 

OVER BEHIND third base, sitting with Kansas City attorney   Sr., was his Royal-capped son, Darrell Jr., who just started a residency in Philadelphia's Children's Hospital dental program and flew back to his hometown for the game.

 

"I guess I'm a diehard Royals fan at just the wrong time," said Darrell Jr. "And on top of that, it's my girlfriend's birthday Sunday. She's back in Philly. Happy birthday, Linda!"

 

The younger Havener said he flew in from Philadelphia on Trans World Airlines. "It's Kansas City's home airline," he said proudly. "And I got free drinks because I was the only 'person on the plane besides the stewardesses who would wear a Royals cap."