Wilmington Evening Journal - January 1980

Phillies select two pitchers

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies chose four pitchers in yesterday's two phases of the annual January free agent draft.

Righthander Tony Ghelfi of LaCrosse, Wisc., was the first-round selection of the regular phase, when the National League club got the 14th pick.

Scout Don Williams reported Ghelfi, who attends Iowa Western Junior College, "has a good strong arm with very good velocity." But he said the 18-year-old needs more pitching experience, especially on his breaking ball.

Another righthander, Ron Richardson, 18, of Albany, Ore. and Lin-Benton Community College was taken on the second round.

In the secondary phase, the Phillies drafted left-handers Jim Harris, a 20-year-old sophomore at Ranger (Texas) Junior College, and Steve True, 19, of Seminole (Okla.) Junior College.

The secondary phase covers free agents who were drafted previously but didn't sign.

Quotable quotes from WSBA fete (excerpt)

Quoting the WSBA banquet guests:

"I don't see any strike threat (to delay the upcoming baseball season). The players don't want a strike and the owners don't either. From a strictly baseball standpoint, I don't anticipate any problems in getting spring training started on time. But if there is a strike, I'm sure the Phillies players will work out on their own. We're all anxious to get back on the winning track this season." – Phillies Manager Dallas Green

•       •       •

"Stay healthy – that's all we have to do to win next season. With the young team the Phillies have, we don't have to do anything else, just stay healthy. And maybe add some pitching. Nobody, but nobody, ever has enough pitching." – Phillies first baseman Pete Rose

This roast was on the rare side – not at all well done

By Al Cartwright, Staff Writer

IT WAS SO BAD it was good.

They billed it as the Athlete Entertainer of the Year Award, whatever that means. I still don't know. It also was billed as a roast, with pro athletes. That I could accept, all of the nearly three hours of it, although the format was a little strange.

"Our stage manager tonight is Helen Keller," said Marty Allen, the bushy-haired comic who served as emcee, halfway through the confusion.

This was at the Boardwalk Regency in Atlantic City, which brought in a deep squad of sports people as the night's entertainment for the benefit of Philadelphia's Child Guidance Clinic. The clinic was to receive a check for $5,000 from the hotel.

Garry Maddox. Mike Schmidt and Larry Bowa of My Beloved Phillies are very much involved in fund-raising for the clinic, especially Maddox. As befitting their positions, they were dazzlingly attired in tuxedoes. At the other end of A la carte the haberdashery ladder was Jerry Sizemore, the dreadnought who plays tackle for the Eagles. He showed up be-sweatered and shirtless, although he did bring along his mustache. It was the consensus of the group that there is no collar in the country big enough to fit that neck.

"Personally, I think everybody here is over-dressed," Sizemore drawled.

You had the feeling the troops had been there for several days, getting tuned. Let us just say they were very loose. The show just kind of fell together, as if it had been rehearsed for, say, all of 20 minutes. They were divided into groups for what was a stand-up roast, and there were group captains: Tim McCarver, also beautifully be-tuxed; Joe Torre, Tug McGraw, Ron Jaworski, Harry Kalas. Each introduced his players, who did turns on the mike, which is where the roasting came in. By the time Kalas got on – actually, he invaded the stage and demanded to get on before his suit went out of style – well, enough time had elapsed to build another casino – and also have it licensed.

If you could hang in there, it was a pretty hilarious night, although the entertainment quality would have made Phil Crosland, or any other critic, hang up his pen. You may get the message when you learn that one of the highlights was a round of "Simon Says." They brought down Lou Goldstein, Simon himself, from Grossinger's as the conductor. He drafted a bunch of the athletes for the game. Can you picture Gorilla Monsoon, the rassler, and Harold Carmichael, the stratospheric end, playing Simon Says? It happened.

MARTY ALLEN WAS introduced as a Los Angeles Ram and came out wearing a helmet and toting a football and scratching himself where athletes scratch themselves and went on to reveal that the sport has done a lot for him: "It has brought me fame, money – and a knee I can hear out of."

As the evening sometimes literally wore on, I assumed that any "award," and nothing happened there, would go to the guy who was judged the Hardiest Survivor. Torre, the Mets' manager and former MVP ("I hit .363 that year, little realizing that I was going on to manage at the same percentage"), was sneaky-fast on stage. He did an impression of Bake McBride, the Phils' shuffling outfielder who always seems to be listing both to port and starboard, that destroyed me.

Bowa built up Schmidt as one of the more dedicated Phillies: "Every morning at 8 o'clock during the off-season he's in the clubhouse, lifting weights and stretching and getting himself in super condition – and every year he goes out and hits .250."

Dusty Baker of the Dodgers made it a point to personally thank Steve Carlton and the rest of the Phillies out front – "for my two championship rings," slyly letting the house lights bounce off the one he was wearing.

Allen to McCarver: "Now that you're retired as Carlton's special catcher, who's going to talk to – and for – him?"

McCarver: "Bob Boone – and he can have him."

And what roast with McCarver in the house would be complete without a reference to what passed during his career for his throwing ability? Not this one. McGraw made sure: "Tim tonight has definitely proven that his breath is as strong as his arm."

McCarver, who is headed for the bright lights of TV color-casting, looked pretty much at home on this entertainment side of sports. He both gives and takes winningly.

"Go ahead and make a fool or yourself," Allen said as he handed the mike to him.

McCarver: "No problem. I've done that before."

Allen: "Yeah – I seen you catch."

OK, so you had to be there. You will be delighted to know they will not be taking this show on the road – by what I sensed to be popular demand. Simon Says "forget it.”

Dallas Green Era is on the horizon

By Hal Bodley

PHILADELPHIA – OFFICIAL inauguration of the Dallas Green Era is less than a month away. And when the Phillies report to their spring-training base in Clearwater, Fla., on March 1 under their new manager, they're in for a rude awakening.

"It's not going to be a country club, you can count on that," Green promised the other day. "We're planning an interesting spring training, but it's going to be tough. We want to get ourselves in shape so we can play 162 games and hopefully another eight to 10 after that. We want to be ready for the season and not have the breakdowns we had this past year."

The Phillies, of course, are hoping to rebound from a fourth-place finish in the National League Eastern Division. Everybody's favorite in 1979 was hampered by injuries, inconsistent play and off-years by key players.

The combination cost Danny Ozark his job as manager. He was fired on Aug 31 and replaced by Green. That was only on an interim basis, but when the former farm director signed a contract for 19B0 in October, he said there would be a return to fundamentals, beginning in spring training.

"I haven't changed my mind. Not one bit," said Green as he looked over some of his plans for the training period. "I'm a minor-league guy. We run 150 kids through a pretty grueling program at the complex and we believe that that has helped them over the growing-up period of baseball.

"Major leaguers are different. There's no question about that. But I think if you get away from the basics and you get away from the idea that you can play yourself into shape and forget that conditioning and fundamentals are how this game is won, you're in trouble. Our ball club has pretty good talent to play pretty good baseball, but it doesn't have enough talent to overcome all the problems that forgetting how to do certain things on the field and being a little bit out of shape tend to cause."

GREEN SAYS his spring-training sessions will be organized to the minute. They will start an hour later in the morning (10 o'clock) and run later in the afternoon. They will not be like a Marine camp, but the players will work.

All-Star shortstop Larry Bowa, one of the hardest workers on the team, agrees with Green.

"We didn't work as hard as we should have in Florida last year." he said. "I think we just went through the motions. I think everything is won in spring training. The harder you work down there, the easier it is to execute during the season. It was a pretty easy camp. Danny Ozark put his trust in all the players. It was more or less 'do what you want to do to get in shape' kind of thing I know we didn't work as hard as we should have."

"That's human nature." says Green. "It is our job to push them some and we plan to do that. I'll tell you one thing: there are good players on this tram who want to win. I think it's going to be important in spring training that we get that across to them. We won the division three years in a row and then the thing fell apart last season. It was quite a shock for them to go through, the firing of Danny Ozark, the roughness and gruffness of me something most of them have not been used to the past six or seven years. It was a big blow.

"I thought they handled it well, especially in September. What we're trying to got across is that they can win, that they have the talent. Most of them have a sincere desire to win a championship for Philadelphia and it's got to start in spring training."

Pete Rose

Everything is still rosy with Hammerin’ Hank

Associated Press

CINCINNATI – Pete Rose says there is no ill will between him and slugger Hank Aaron regarding Rose's selection as The Sporting News player of the decade, and that Aaron "was misquoted'' when he allegedly said he should have received the honor.

"Henry was misquoted, because I talked to him last night," Rose said on Bob Hertzel's "SportsTalk" radio show last night. "Henry did not say that I should not be the player of the decade.

"All I can say is that Henry is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he was tremendous both on and off the field."

Aaron had been quoted as saying. "As for player of the decade, I think the things I achieved overshadowed anything anyone else did."

One of those accomplishments, Aaron's career home run record of 755, may never be equaled, Rose said.

"That record is the one we'll never see broken as long as we live," he predicted. "With relief pitching today, the size of the ball parks, the stamina it takes to play every day... I don't see anybody breaking it."

Aaron won't dispute that he fully intended to snub baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn by refusing to attend an award ceremony Monday.

But he insists he didn't intend to demean Rose or Rose's selection as The Sporting News player of the decade.

"It's a damned lie," Aaron told The Cincinnati Enquirer in a telephone interview yesterday from Los Angeles. "I never said that I, not Pete Rose, should have been named 'Player of the Decade.'

"Pete Rose and I are the best of friends."

Pete loses Mexican fans

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – Pete Rose of the Phillies stood up the Mexican sports establishment and angered a couple of promotors by pulling a disappearing act before showing up in Cincinnati yesterday, the Philadelphia Bulletin reports.

The newspaper reported today that Rose was supposed to present an award yesterday to Mexico's top athlete of 1979 at a banquet, but he failed to show up.

The banquet honored Daniel Bautista, world record holder in the 20-kilometer walk and gold medal win ner in both the 1976 Olympics and the 1979 Pan American games.

The banquet and award were sponsored by Levi Strauss & Co., which made an advance payment of $5,000 through the Philadelphia Speakers Bureau here, the newspaper said.

Richard Arroyo, international public relations manager for Levi Strauss, said Rose disappeared for two days after promising on Monday to fly to Mexico City.

"Our own suspicion is he just felt the engagement or commitment was inconvenient for him," Arroyo said.