Scorecard

LOGIC BY THE BAY

It appears there will be two major league baseball clubs in the Bay Area again this season, which is at least one more than common sense or economics would seem to dictate. For a while it looked as though the Oakland A's would move to Denver, but owner Charles Finley received a setback last week in his efforts to break his 20-year lease with the Oakland Coliseum and sell out to Colorado oilman Marvin Davis.

The Oakland politicos who run the stadium were willing to let Finley off the hook only if the San Francisco Giants agreed to change the name of the team to something more ecumenical—like the Bay Area Giants—and play half their schedule in Oakland. But San Francisco Mayor George Moscone feels that San Francisco Giants has a certain ring to it and he consented to no more than 20 to 30 Giant games being played in Oakland. Even this much may have seemed magnanimous: Moscone's city, after all, has a team that wants to stay; Oakland's team wants to go.

Yet if logic prevailed—and it is usually the first casualty in the impassioned Oakland- San Francisco civic rivalry—San Franciscans would swallow hard and admit what has long been obvious. Candlestick Park, the Giants' home, has artificial turf (objectionable to baseball purists), is all but inaccessible by public transportation and is too windblown and cold for baseball. Oakland's ball park has real grass, enjoys more favorable weather and—because it is served by BART, the local rapid-transit system—is more convenient than Candlestick even for many San Franciscans. A strong case could be made for the Bay Area's surviving ball club—whatever they call it—to play all its games in Oakland.

DON'T FORGET THE SKEWERS

How do you get Sammy Davis Jr., Eydie Gorm�, Steve Lawrence, Bud Wilkinson, Muhammad Ali, Jimmy Connors, Paul Hornung, Jack Nicklaus, Cloris Leachman, Paul Anka, Bob Griese, Don Shula, Pancho Gonzales, Reggie Jackson, Telly Savalas and Gerald Ford to attend a $150-a-plate University of Miami athletic fund-raising dinner?

You roast Woody Hayes. Those celebrities, no doubt drawn by the opportunity to get in some licks at the Ohio State coach, are scheduled to be on hand Feb. 23 for the dinner at Miami's Omni International Hotel. Conspicuously missing from the list—so far, anyway—is Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler. After trying to reach Bo for two weeks, roast organizers finally contacted Mrs. Schembechler, who wasn't much help. "If you reach him, please tell him to call home," she said. Bo was out recruiting, trying to get at Woody in another way.

CAN YOU TOP THIS?
Three weeks had gone by since the roof of the Hartford (Conn.) Civic Center Coliseum collapsed under a weighty accumulation of snow and ice, forcing the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers to move to Springfield, Mass., 24 miles away (SI, Jan. 30). Last week, in the aftermath of a fresh 20-inch snowfall, intrepid Hartfordites trudged into the Civic Center's adjacent—and intact—exposition hall to attend something called the Contractors Remodeling Trade Show. Among the exhibits were several featuring methods and materials for repairing roofs.

LET 'ER RIP
Earl Campbell rushed for 1,744 yards and scored 19 touchdowns on his way to the Heisman Trophy last season, but there is one vital Campbell stat that has been largely overlooked: he also went through 90 tearaway jerseys. University of Texas equipment manager Bubba Simpson says the cost of tearaways was $720 for Campbell—and about $2,000 for all Longhorn ballcarriers and quarterbacks. Campbell was given one of his torn jerseys as a keepsake and the rest were donated to charities to auction off.

BOUND AND DETERMINED