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- Slalom champion Jill Kinmont BootheJANUARY 31, 1955Grant Wahl | February 24, 1997
- JILL KINMONTIt has been six months since pretty 19-year-old Jill Kinmont took a bad spill during the Snow Cup ski race at Alta, Utah and broke her back. At...July 25, 1955
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"Platoon," barks Tiger manager Sparky Anderson. No, that wasn't his Oscar vote; it's his solution to Detroit's uncertainty at DH and catcher. Sparky has patched his team's holes with fresh grunts like ex-Brave Terry Harper (career average .254) and Mike Heath, he of the Charlie Sheen bristle cut and recent hellish combat experience behind the plate in St. Louis. Harper will share DH time with John Grubb, while Heath will team with Dwight Lowry to replace the departed Lance Parrish. "Well, we won't finish last," says Anderson, sounding uncharacteristically forlorn. Watch out—this could be a trap. Sparky, ever the canny strategist, let the so-called experts pick his Tigers apart in spring training, then turned to his team and delivered the old boys-the-world-thinks-we-stink-and-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it? number. "It opened our eyes and got us right down to business," says Detroit pitcher Dan Petry. Though flawed, the Tigers could open a few eyes. They still have a strong pitching staff. Jack Morris returns, albeit reluctantly, and Petry, who averaged more than 17 wins a season from 1983 through '85, has apparently recovered from last summer's elbow surgery. Some fear that Detroit cannot survive the loss of Parrish. "He was the rock, the big wheel, the pillar that held up the whole structure," mourns Petry. But Anderson, who has never before entered a season without either Parrish or Johnny Bench, says, "No one player can be that important to you. If he is, you must not have much of a team." [This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.] 
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