April 14, 1986 | Volume 64, Issue 15

On Sept. 7, 1984, Calvin Griffith turned over to banker Carl Pohlad a Twins team that led the American League West by half a game and had some of the best young players in the division. The Twins...

Rumors circulated all winter that the only Expo with any seniority, Andre Dawson, might be dealt. "I was sure I would be gone," said Dawson, whose teammates were so happy to see him at camp this...

When Dale Murphy was called for jury duty this off-season, the National League home run champ was nervous about the questions he might be asked during the selection process. "I was worried the...

The Red Sox are the George Chuvalo of the American League East: dangerous, but punchy. In the last two seasons six of Boston's regulars have hit at least .291, and six of the first seven batters...

Steve Yeager is a 37-year-old catcher with sequoia legs who thought he was going to finish his career in Los Angeles caddying for Mike Scioscia. Wrong. The Mariners had a bunch of young pitchers...

A strange voice thundered from the showers in the White Sox locker room: "I am the great and powerful Oz!" The Chicago players looked up from their lockers and workout equipment. Could it be? Had...

The Phillie brass went out hacking wildly in the off-season, the way the Whiff Kids had done all last season. What the cuts brought were some intriguing goods, which could make the Phils a hit. A...

What Angel manager Gene Mauch needs most this season is:

When Bobby Valentine wasn't performing the spring training duties of a major league manager—i.e., evaluating talent, sounding upbeat and squinting—he was scurrying about like a minor league...

The Houston Astros' new manager, Hal Lanier, married Mary Ross of St. Louis on March 6. That match may have been made in heaven, but the Astros' prospects for the '86 season aren't quite as lofty.

Harvey's Wallbangers are ancient history even though Robin Yount, Cecil Cooper, Paul Molitor, Ben Oglivie and Jim Gantner are still around. The rebuilding program of general manager Harry Dalton...

For all their pitching woes, the Indians did bring one great arm to training camp. Unfortunately for the Tribe, it belonged to pitching instructor Bob Feller, who at 67 is a bit over the mound....

If he accomplishes nothing else this season, manager Roger Craig at least wants to give the Giants a different look. No more long stirrups on uniform socks, he has decreed. No more jeans on...

If anyone had told Syd Thrift a year ago that he would leave his thriving Virginia real estate business for the job as G.M. of baseball's worst team, well, says Thrift, "I'd have thought they were...

Johnny was a mason and a Lithuanian nationalist and the first man I worked for after I left baseball (the phrase I always use). I was a $45,000 bonus baby, a pitcher with the Milwaukee Braves in...

PRO BASKETBALL—Atlantic Division champion Boston, 3-1 for the week, won an NBA-record 28th consecutive home game with a 122-106 defeat of Detroit and extended the streak to 29 two nights later by...

BOB ZUPCICLEVITTOWN, PA.Zupcic, a 6'3", 203-pound sophomore outfielder, is batting .295 for 28-9 Oral Roberts. Last summer he led Liberal (Kans.) to the National Baseball Congress title with a...

SHOW SOME RESPECTSir:Last fall I read with particular interest, in your special college basketball issue (How Do You Like Your Hoops? Nov. 20), the no-holds-barred debate among Curry Kirkpatrick,...

DILEMMA IN THE NCAA: NOT ENOUGH COPS

•Sparky Anderson, Tigers manager, on shortstop Alan Trammell's chronically tender shoulder: "Pain don't hurt you."

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Around the batting cages this spring, he was one of the most talked-about acquisitions of the off-season. Whitey Herzog buttonholed him for trade suggestions, which is a little like having Dwight...

Tony Gwynn speaks softly and swings a tiny bat, but posts some hefty numbers

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.AESCHYLUSAgamemnon

SIGN OF THE SPRING

1. Outfielder George Bell, shortstop Santiago Garcia, catchers Ernie Whitt and Jeff Hearron, and pitchers John Cerutti and Omar Bencomo from Toronto to Pittsburgh for catcher Tony Pena, lefthanded...

The hitters may be exceptional nowadays, but those in the National League still have to face the pitcher at the left, Dwight Gooden. Once again, SI's baseball staff has gone out on a limb to rank...

"And now," Gary Carter beams, "he has developed a changeup."

Not to make 25 managers choke on their morning coffee, but the Royals won their world championship with an off-year. Starters at seven of nine positions in the batting order had average or subpar...

Toronto methodically won 99 games last year to take the so-called toughest division in baseball, but something was missing. Perhaps it was something as small as the consonant omitted from new...

This is how much life among the New York Yankees has changed: The owner recently labeled himself "stupid." George Steinbrenner seemed to turn over a new leaf this spring. When a daylong downpour...

Owner Marge Schott had a busy off-season. She drew a grievance charge by her reserve catcher, called Pete Rose classless, alienated the city of Indianapolis and tried to hoist her pet pooch to...

The Cardinals and the Mets may be the best rivalry since the Yankees and Red Sox in the '70s. "To put it mildly, they don't like one another," says Clint Hurdle, who knows. He played for the Mets...

We all know that in his enthusiasm Sparky Anderson is prone to making ridiculous statements. How about this one: "The 1984 Tigers wouldn't belong on the same field as this 1986 team." In case you...

True or false? The Dodgers' chances of repeating as NL West champions were ruptured right along with Pedro Guerrero's left patellar tendon when the leftfielder caught a cleat trying to abort a...

"Did you realize," Earl Weaver says by way of introducing himself, "that my five starters have a .592 combined winning percentage, the best in the league? Now I'm talking lifetime, and our...

When manager Jim Frey got the dispiriting news that his star pitcher, Rick Sutcliffe, had been hit on the thumb of his pitching hand by a batted ball and had been rushed to the hospital for...

"It's easy, I know, for a manager to sound optimistic in the spring," A's boss Jackie Moore said almost apologetically, "but I'll be honest with you. I'm really excited this time around." Moore...

A strange sound pierced the desert air: "Bip, Bip." A flash of speeding feet, then a slow-settling cloud of dust. "Bip, Bip." The Road-runner? No. Leon (Bip) Roberts, the San Diego Padres' tiny...

Garvey, by Steve Garvey with Skip Rozin (Times Books, $16.95), is a disturbing, provocative book. It can be profitably read by anyone fascinated with the theme of outer success and inner...

If England's imperial wars were won on the playing fields of Eton, then perhaps America's greatest war novel was written on the playing fields—the baseball diamond, to be exact—of Syracuse...