The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 17

tMIMAKKtT M.mfc,, F.D.I.C. Local State, National Sports News sang ortsToday Fridav Mnrnincr Aiianotn; moc SALTS ten Louis Servos'! SAU STXR TOYOTA Mo. I Ittfhl War To Bui Sinct I9fi Friday Morning, August 15,1986 Phone 74 l-Mll. ext. 244 Cowboys are not about to deal Dorsett THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.

(AP) Dallas Cowboys President Tex Schramm said Thursday he will not trade Tony Dorsett even though the 10-year veteran running back fumed over Herschel Walker's five-year, $5 million contract. "I told him didn't even intend to talk about trading him." Schramm said after meeting with Dorsett. "We'd never trade Tony. He is top much a part of our organization." Dorsett said he wanted to be traded or given a raise in view of the deal made with Walker, a refugee from the hibernating USFL who came to terms Wednesday. Dorsett warned that if his demands were not met, he could be a "disruptive force" on the Cowboys.

Schramm told The Associated Press on Thursday: "Tony would like to pull back what he said. He feels sorry he let it flow out. He didn't mean it. He was just mad and being egged on by the media." Dorsett, who receives an annual salary of about $450,000 plus fringe benefits, agreed he got out of control. However.

Dorsett olid not apologize. "My feelings haven't changed a great deal," Dorsett said. "I had a nice conversation with Tex so they would know where my head is at and know where they are at. I think the contract "surprised everybody and I showed some immaturity. It was a fit of rage." Asked if he would take back what he said Wednesday.

Dorsett said, "I would take back yesterday. Instead of saying things publicly I should have gone behind closed doors and I might have handled it a lot better. Todav is a new day." Dorsett added. "I would like to say it svas uncharacteristic of me Dorsett laughed. Dorsett did not repeat he wanted to be traded but did not take it back.

Asked about the reaction of the fans, he said. "I'm not worried about the boo birds. They don't put bread and butter on the table. They have a tendency to forgive and forget." Schramm said he and Dorsett "shook hands before he left. Sure, he was still a little hurt but he'll be OK.

He's a good kid, a good man." Schramm said things would be fine once Walker gets back to camp. "Things will calm down, life goes on," Schramm said. "We've got a football game coming up." Walker, who is expected to practice in a Cowboys' uniform for the first time on Friday, agreed to a guaranteed contract on Wednesday. Asked if he would renegotiate Dorsett's contract, Schramm replied, "I feel comfortable with his contract." Dorsett, who had fallen into financial trouble over several sour business ventures, missed training camp last year until the Cowboys' renegotiated his contract. Dorsett had originally welcomed the thought of playing in the same backfield with another Heisman Trophy winner, but was steamed when details of Walker's contract came out.

"If this team does not pay me Hke they are paying their other back, I would suggest strongly that the team try to trade me or pay me because I'll be very unhappy and I can be a very disruptive force," said Dorsett. "I don't want to be here. When you pay a guy more than me, you've told me he's your back. I'm not second fiddle to a'nyone." Walker was to return from personal business in New Jersey and attend but not play in Saturday night's exhibition game in Los Angeles against the Raiders. Schramm said he can remember grumbling among the Cowboys' players when Dorsett was signed in 1977.

"It's just a historic thing," Schramm said. "Tony came in as the Heisman Trophy winner out of Pittsburgh and got a big salary and some of the veterans started grumbling. It happens every year with No. 1 draft choices. It's a fact of the game." Walker, 24.

the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, set a professional football rushing record for one season with 2.411 yards for the USFL New Jersey" Generals in 1985. Quarterback Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers is believed to be the highest paid player in the NFL at an estimated Si.3 million a vear. to AngeleS dgers second to complete a second inning double play. APLaserphoto Steve Sax Astros streak past LA HOUSTON (AP) After winning three games in a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Houston Astros and Glenn Davis are brimming with confidence as they take to the road for nine games. The Astros padded their lead to five games over San Francisco in the National League West following another late-inning rally that produced a 3-2 victory over the Dodgers Thursday night.

After Fernando Valenzuela, 15-8, had stymied the Astros on only two hits, Davis capped Houston's three-run rally in the eighth with an RBI single that scored Billy Hatcher from second base. "It just happened," Davis said about the comeback. "We just got something going on him. He was still pitching just as effectively." Davis, the National second-leading home run hitter with 24, thinks the team's optimistic outlook is becoming a tradition more than an occasional fling. "We've just got something started that won't seem to stop," Davis said about the fact that the Astros have picked up nine of their last 13 home victories in their last at-bats, and 19 altogether.

"I credit it to a feeling of mental awareness that has created a rnore positive attitude," Davis said. Houston's Kevin Bass was en- See ASTROS, Page 2B Berndt is convinced he can turn Rice program around HHITQTnv HOUSTON (AP) Rice University Coach Jerry Berndt has carved a successful football coaching career out of not listening to the advice of his friends. They told him he'd be committing professional suicide if he took the head coaching job at Penn and they smiled smugly when he went 1-9 his first year in the Ivy League. Penn then won or shared the Ivy League title over the next four years before Berndt resigned to accept his latest challenge against the advice of his friends, of course. "They thought I was even crazier this time," Berndt said.

"They felt it would be impossible here." But Berndt is convinced the same positive thinking that turned around the Penn program, will work in the Southwest Conference. "We have a top ll that can play with anybody in the league" Berndt said. "I'd be extremely disappointed if we didn't jump up and beat somebody we aren't expected to beat this year." Berndt is coming to a school that is similar to the one he left, with high emphasis on academics! Rice has been called the Ivy League of the Southwest. He's not coming to a similar conference, but Berndt still believes Rice will flourish once again. "I think the strength of the conference will enhance our position at Rice," Berndt said.

"There are some outstanding athletes who will come to Rice to get a quality education and to play in a top conference." The Owls do have some weapons awaiting Berndt's instructions. Quarterback Mark Comalander led the Owls in total offense last season with 1,156 yards although he missed the final five games with a separated right shoulder. "He's the best passing quarterback I've been around in 24 years of coaching," Berndt said. "He has a strong arm and can put the ball where he wants it, plus he has greatconfidence." Backing up Comalander will be See BERNDT, Page 2B Time's running out on Little Former Dickinson blue chipper and UT quarterback attempting to fulfill dreams of career in pro baseball Rv VIDV DfUIT ByKIRKBOHLS Austin American-Statesman AUSTIN Donnie Little stood alone in the middle of a patch of brown grass in the outfield at the Concordia Lutheran baseball diamond. Squinting to block out the glare, he leveled his gaze at the man standing near home plate who was spraying fly ball after fly ball in his direction.

Every ball was an adventure. One he fielded cleanly with his bare hand after the ball ricocheted off the baked ground Seconds later, he misjudged a line drive, and it easily eluded his glove. He was working out in relative anonymity at a sport he never played after graduating from Dickinson High School. Just a few hundred yards away was Memorial Stadium, where as a Texas Longhorn he regularly performed before 80,000 spectators. Did Bo Jackson start this way? It's been the better part of eight years since former quarterback Donnie Little has taken baseball seriously.

But baseball has always been in the shadows of Little's career, and he's reluctant to let go completely. He's played twice this week for the semi-pro Austin Collegiates in the National Baseball Congress regional baseball tournament, working baseball in between a daily, three-hour Spanish class and a part-time job for a heavy equipment company. He lacks another semester's work at UT to fulfill the requirements for his communications degree and is weighing some options in the public relations field. "Baseball was my first love," Little said. "I still read the box scores every day." It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that LitUe could someday find his own name among them.

It is possible but not likely. Little will turn 26 Oct and he's played more Softball than he has baseball in the last few years. But there is that immense talent that entices coaches and scouts everywhere, no matter what the sport. "You can tell he hasn't played in a long time," said Charlie Smith, an Austin scout for the Atlanta Braves. "But he's definitely a gifted athlete.

He's awful quick for a guy who's 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds. He has to really focus on baseball if he really wants to try to make a career out of it He'sgottodoalotanddoitquick." Little's not sure he's got the talent or the time in which to make the switch. Phil Bradley went from Missouri quarterback to Seattle outfielder, but he played college ball. Turner Gill made the transition from Nebraska quarterback to minor-league shortstop for Cleveland, but he, too played college ball. Little only observed college baseball during his playing days and not very much of that because it pained him to watch.

He mused about trying out for the team, he says now, but football coach Fred Akers always had a new wrinkle or new formation to learn during spring training. So he only watched. "I wanted to play, but being a quarterback, having to devote so much time to he said. "With the position I played, I just don't think he would be too liberal with me." Akers said he never remembers the subject coming up. But he does recall Little's considerable instinctive skills on the football field and would not bet against his making it in baseball.

"Donnie was one of the best all-around athletes I've ever been around," Akers said of Little, UT's first black quarterback. "I guess you would have to term him a barrier-breaker. For his position, he proved a lot of people He will have to do so again. Few enter baseball in their mid-20s and become successful, especially those who haven't picked up a wooden bat in eight years. Both Smith and Hilbert Maldonado, who coaches Little on the Austin Collegiates and holds special workouts for him, project Little as an outfielder even though he was a shortstop-pitcher in high school who hit better than .400 his senior year and threw two no-hitters.

A week ago, Little came to Downs Park straight from his Spanish class, was inserted into the lineup in center field in a game against the San Marcos Rebels and, with no warmup, almost effortlessly ran down a ball hit in the gap. "It was a super, fantastic catch," Maldonado said. "I don't think anybody else could have made that play." He has many of the tools. Although a severe knee injury that tors both ligaments in 1982 curtailed his football career, he shows little effects from it. He's a fluid runner with a strong arm and a weightlifter's upper torso, but he needs tons of work at the plate.

His stance an exaggerated closed stance aimed at the third baseman, limits the power of the left-handed hitter. "I was a little bit surprised he made as much contact as he did," Smith said. "I personally would like to get him in a batting cage three times a week an hour at a time. The shame is he didn't play baseball when he was at Texas. He just has to swing and swing and swing and swing." A general notion exists in baseball that before one can really tell about a prospect, a player has to have had 1,800 at-bats.

The equivalent of five seasons. Time is not on See LITTLE, Page 2B Donnie Little is hoping baseball career takes off.