April 15, 1985 | Volume 62, Issue 15

The 12-year-old boy was understandably shy. Recently moved from a quiet farm to Rockford, Ill. (pop. 7,000), he was frightened by the bustle of this teeming metropolis. As he later recalled, he...

Not long ago, I watched a late-night TV rerun of the movie Semi-Tough. In it, Robert Preston plays the owner of a pro football team, and seeing the actor on the screen took me back instantly...

I've been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember—but I've been only a fan, not a player. In my case fan stands for fantasy, not fanatic. As a kid in the '50s I spent hours starring in...

PRO BASKETBALL—With a week to go in the NBA regular season, one playoff spot in each conference remained unclaimed. In the battle of the East, Cleveland had a 34-44 record, while Atlanta was...

JANNE KLEPEKWESTERN SPRINGS, ILL.Janne, 17, of Lyons Township High, became the first gymnast in Illinois to win three consecutive all-around state titles. She averaged 9.425 in four events (floor...

THE SAGA OF SIDD FINCHSir:Three cheers for George Plimpton's marvelous April Fools' Day article The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch (April 1). Lane Stewart's imaginative photography—especially the...

In the story A Troubled Star Begins To Shine (April 1), it was reported that Jacksonville Bulls running back Mike Rozier had confessed that he received payments of $200 a month from Nebraska...

Ralph Kiner was awkward in the outfield and slow on the basepaths, and for most of his career he played for the error-prone second-division Pittsburgh Pirates. Usually he was overshadowed by stars...

THE TULANE SCANDAL: A TIME FOR HARSH MEASURES

•Rocky Bridges, San Francisco Giants coach, on the team's new shortstop Jose Gonzalez, who recently changed his last name to Uribe: "Jose was truly the player to be named later in the trade."

When the editors first read George Plimpton's April Fools' story, The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch (April 1), they felt it would be widely enjoyed as a delightfully told, if not entirely plausible,...

As Chicago's Ron Cey will tell you, baseball can lift you up—and take you down. Turn the pages for a glimpse of the game that's off the wall, wrong side up, down and dirty, even glovely.

Let's play hardball. Choosing winners and losers is never easy, and justifying the choices is hardest of all. This year we make our case for 1985 with a colorful array of graphs, ratings,...

Is relief pitching the final piece in the puzzle? Now that the Blue Jays have it, how will they respond to the pressure of great expectations? Is Tony Fernandez the Amadeus of shortstops? Will Ian...

Sparky Anderson has nothing so mundane as a single season on his mind. He wants to win the whole decade.

Cubs manager Jim Frey remembers clearly his conversation—what little there was of it—on the telephone last December with Ray Fontenot, the left-handed pitcher the Cubs had recently acquired from...

"I'm trying to get my stroke back," says Tony Gwynn, the San Diego rightfielder and defending National League batting champion (.351). "I'm lunging at the ball. My problem is I'm comparing...

Rarely has so much excitement attended a Mets preseason: overflow crowds at mere spring-training workouts, an Opening Day sellout, guaranteed sales of one million tickets for the season. And it...

Contact lenses are depriving many children of potential heroes. Before contacts, kids with glasses were able to endure the taunts of friends with 20/20 vision because they could take comfort from...

Starting pitcher Dennis Martinez and reliever Tippy Martinez may not be brothers or cousins, but both are closely related to the prospects of the Baltimore Orioles. With lefthanded starter Mike...

Fleet of foot, sure, but that's only one aspect of new pinstriper Rickey Henderson. The rap sheet says he has a poor attitude and scores low in that all-important category called team play. "I...

"You're loaded," White Sox manager Tony La Russa told John McNamara, the convivial new Red Sox skipper, one afternoon in Florida. "You're really loaded. I look at that lineup, and I can't believe it!"

Steve Balboni is the strong, silent type. He's so strong he hit 28 home runs in only 438 at bats, 10 of them over the course of 14 games between June 23 and July 6. He's so silent that when he got...

There has been an about-face on the Atlanta Braves coaching staff. Manager Joe Torre, big-time and polished, is out. Rookie Eddie Haas, small-town and stolid, is in. Pitching coach Bob Gibson,...

The top line of the eye chart—E—was also the bottom line for the Phillies in '84. They were the Whoops Kids. Four times they made five or six errors in one game, and in one of those, the losing...

The White Sox may not play any differently, but they'll certainly have a different look. They've got a new-look manager, Tony La Russa of Tony La Russa Uses Hair Spray fame. "If I'd known what...

Because the Twins finished tied for second in the AL West last year, remaining in contention until the final weekend, management sold a team-record 5,000 season tickets, prepared to host the 1985...

Dizziness overcame him, then lightheadedness, and oh, the swaying. Rookie reliever Ken Howell nearly fainted last June the first time the Dodgers' bullpen phone tolled for him. He splashed some...

After they lost free-agent Bruce Sutter to Atlanta, the Cardinals summoned three forms of assistance: spiritual, psychological and powerful.

Songs spawned by baseball range from such all-but-forgotten turn-of-the-century items as Let's Get the Umpire's Goat, Take Your Girl to the Ball Game and The Feds Are Here to Stay (they stayed all...

You've got to hand it to those venerable Astros. Last season the team's three senior players, Joe Niekro, 40, Nolan Ryan, 38, and Jose Cruz, 37, continued to confound Father Time. Niekro's...

The Cleveland Indians are what most people would like to be: young, talented and thin. Since this is baseball, the last, an absence of bench strength, could present a problem. But when it comes to...

Manager Pete Rose is going to help the Reds immeasurably. His players are having fun again, and if they can tap into the biggest heart in baseball history, they will be contenders.

Chuck Tanner was smiling. At the time, his Pirates, last in the NL East in '84, were 1-10 in spring training. Injuries had beset six key players, and George Hendrick, the big bopper acquired from...

Fortunately for their state of mind, both Dave Collins and Jay Howell have a sense of perspective. They'll need it this year, because both are on the spot. All the A's are asking Collins to do is...

Hubie Brooks thinks about the trade all the time. The numbers just didn't add up. Exchanging one player straight-up for four didn't seem right, especially when he was one of the four. Then he had...

The Milwaukee Brewers resemble a classic movie character. Ah, but which one? Are they a destitute Scarlett O'Hara, vowing never to go hungry again? Or are they Norma Desmond, the faded movie queen...

Seattle general manager Hal Keller has made some bad trades (see Caudill, Bill) and no one has ever accused him of being a workaholic, except when it comes to crossword puzzles. Keller, who was...

You could say Mike Witt finished strong last year. On the last day of the season, he pitched a perfect game against the Texas Rangers, winning 1-0. It was the first perfecto in Angels history and...

Vida Blue stepped smartly from the mound, and as he approached the Giants' dugout, he tipped the bill of his cap to acknowledge a standing ovation and blew the crowd a giant diaphanous bubble-gum...

At 37, Texas's Tom Grieve is the youngest G.M. in the major leagues. In the offseason, when he made deals for DH Cliff Johnson, 37, infielder Toby Harrah, 36, and pitcher Burt Hooton, 35, people...

Voice of Summer Mel Allen is 72, but he's not "going, going, gone"