May 13, 1985 | Volume 62, Issue 19

Although I'm too young to remember baseball the way it was played in the spring of 1943, my father used to tell me about it. That was the year the major leagues opened the season with something...

During their spring migration, birds northbound from the Yucatan Peninsula must fly almost 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to reach the Texas coast. There are no islands along the way. The...

The team's leader was a burly, drawling, red-bearded fellow who would fit better in a stock car than a sports car. The No. 2 driver was a ribald Scot named Ireland, an erstwhile Grand Prix driver...

PRO BASKETBALL—Each of the four conference semifinal matches started out a lopsided 2-0, but at week's end, only one series had been decided. In the East, Philadelphia swept Milwaukee 4-0 with a...

JIM BORNEDGEWOOD, MD.

MAT MANIASir:As a die-hard Flyers fan, I congratulate you on your fine April 29 coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs (Housebreaker On The Loose). However, I confess that, upon seeing that...

Two months ago a sporting legend passed away. He stood only 21 inches at the shoulder, yet he was a giant in his field, both a Naismith and a Ruth, the creator of a sport and its greatest...

Have you ever wondered what makes one sailboat go faster than another? Lots of folks have a rough idea—better design, better crew—'but few really understand the mechanics. Two who do are Gary...

ENVIRONMENTAL UPDATE

•Pat Williams, Philadelphia 76er general manager, on 7'6", 190-pound Sudanese center Manute Bol, of the University of Bridgeport (Conn.): "He looks like he went to the blood bank and forgot to say...

As the Philadelphia 76ers swept away Milwaukee, a not-so-little child, Charles Barkley, led them

As the Cubs and Padres met in a minisequel to their fall classic, it became obvious that a rip-roaring rivalry was in the making

Associate writer Craig Neff has written stories on Olympic sports, and he's equally at home at the pool, the track and the mat. His piece on the Cubs-Padres series (page 32) now exposes him to the...

Steve Courson, 29, is an offensive guard with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He stands 6'1" and weighs 285 pounds. He was with the Pittsburgh Steelers for seven years before going to Tampa in 1984. An...

By the summer of 1983, Charles J. Radler of Pittsburgh was one of the five biggest dealers of anabolic steroids in the U.S., a member of an elite group of operatives, each of whom grossed upwards...

Maxwell Smart would have had little use for the Puma RS Computer Shoe ($200) because there is no phone concealed in it. James Bond might have looked cursorily at it; without secret compartments...

Three brothers reared in Ohio are starring in three sports at three colleges, and a fourth is coming up

Auburn outfielder/back Bo Jackson must decide whether to hit or run

When Steve Carlton misses a turn, as he did on April 28, that's news. It was only the seventh time he has skipped a start since joining the Phils in 1972. Carlton, who is 40, left his next start...

Feel the breeze. According to an informal poll of players, managers and coaches in both leagues, these players take the biggest swings in the game:

Howie Newman, a sportswriter for the Lynn (Mass.) Daily Evening Item and a songwriter (Blasted in the Bleachers), positively hates the DH. "It curdles my blood," he says. So when he found out that...

CAL RIPKEN JR.: The Oriole shortstop hit .565 (13 for 23), slugged 1.087 (three homers, three doubles) and drove in 11 runs to help Baltimore win four of five and move into first place in the AL East.

Pepperdine flattened an eclectic field at the NCAA championships

It has been eight years since Pumping Iron, a film documentary by George Butler, introduced Arnold Schwarzenegger to a world that had paid only scant attention to bodybuilders since that beach...

One spring evening when I was 14, I stepped into a suburban Boston intersection, shouldered a Louisville Slugger and laid into a baseball. The ball flew over a broad lawn, slammed into the roof of...

It was like a cockfight with me as one of the roosters, but the arena was a tennis court and I was surrounded by several hundred Indonesians screaming through a fetid haze of kretek cigarette...