Baseball

? Bob Tewksbury, the greatest Yankee to come out of Penacook, N.H., since Red Rolfe, is equally adept with a baseball or a drawing pencil in his right hand. The rookie lifted his record to 5-2 with five shutout innings against the Orioles on Thursday. Tewksbury hopes that someday his works of art—sketches of players and baseball illustrations—will be on display in a gallery.

?When Brewers owner Bud Selig headed the search committee for the commissioner two years ago, his three top choices were Treasury Secretary James A. Baker, A. Bartlett Giamatti and Peter Ueberroth. Baseball now has two of the three in its employ, with new National League president Giamatti in position to get two years' experience under his belt should the Republican party up and draft Ueberroth for the vice-presidential nomination in 1988....

Speculation about supposedly souped-up baseballs misses the mark. The reason so many home runs are being hit is that so many quality pitchers are hurt. The list of injured or ineffective starters includes: Blyleven, Candelaria, Morris, Stieb, McWilliams, Mahler, Eckersley, Trout, Ryan, Dotson, Hesketh, Browning, Hoyt, Cox, Petry, Andujar....

If you think those memorabilia shows aren't profitable, consider this: Pete Rose signed 3,000 cards in six hours at a San Fransisco show that paid him $15,000.

BOWA NOT MELLOW WITH AGE

In his playing days, Larry Bowa was renowned for his temper. Based on Bowa's two-month managerial career in Las Vegas, nothing has changed. He has been ejected four times and suspended twice. In the ninth inning of a game in which Bowa had been highly critical of umpire Pam Postema's calls behind the plate, she came out to break up a mound conference and ended up in an argument so heated that Bowa spit at her....

The latest evidence that management is trying to tighten the fiscal screws is a tacit agreement to limit spending on players in this month's draft to around $100,000. That is why only 10 of the 26 first-round selections had signed two weeks after the draft. To help teams hold the line, there is an agreement that if a team doesn't sign its No. 1 pick, it gets two selections in the first round in 1987 and if teams flagrantly violate the $100,000 limit, they will lose their '87 pick. "There are ways of getting around that $100,000 figure," says one G.M., and indeed, the first two picks—Arkansas third baseman Jeff King and Texas lefthander Greg Swindell—have each been offered slightly more than that. But it will be interesting to see what happens with the Mariners and Red Sox. Seattle took Whiteville, N.C., in-fielder Patrick Lennon, who is asking for $250,000 through agent James Jackson (Reggie's brother). Boston may have to break the bank to land Brockton, Mass., outfielder Greg McMurtry, a 6'3", 195-pound wide receiver who is a leading Michigan football recruit. There is considerable pressure on the Red Sox to sign McMurtry, the best athlete in the draft by consensus of scouting directors....

The survival of the Orioles' pitching staff through mid-June has rested on the shoulders of Mike Bodicker and Don Aase. Boddicker, who is so tough that he has 96 decisions in his last 104 starts, failed to go seven innings in only one of his first 11 starts—that when he tore a ligament in a finger and had to be put on the disabled list. After a complicated set of arm operations, Aase, 31, converted 17 of his first 20 save opportunities and is back throwing 93 mph the way he did when he was 20....

In the season's 51st game, Tom Herr finally got his first game-winning run batted in for the St. Louis Cardinals. The man who had 110 RBIs and 14 game-winners in a storybook 1985 season was hitting under .180 overall and under .160 with runners in scoring position. "I've had suggestions from so many people, I'm sick of it," says Herr. "I've had suggestions from the front office, the media, other ballplayers...."

But no one can explain why players and scouts say Herr looks like he aged 10 years over the winter....