Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 40

IOC The Detroit News Sunday, March 21, 1999 Baseball Commentary dates Broun deserves snot In state MS of Famtf JOE rail endorsement contracts. "He kept the program going and was also a hands-on guy," I lor-ton said. "He'd go into the juvenile homes with me, and even worked with some of the gangs around the city. He was another Babe Ruth." Another Babe Ruth? "Yeah," Horton said. "He talked to one troubled kid and made him promise he'd straighten out if Cecil hit a home run that night, and that's just what he did he put a ball into the left-field seats.

The thing is, he always wanted this stuff to be kept quiet." Maybe one day, Fielder also will be a candidate for the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. He'll get my vote. it easily because I think he is worthy of consideration. Remember where he came from a life behind prison walls and what he made of himself. His story is a good one, very real, very inspiring, worthy of attention.

Cecil Fielder might be gone, but he is not forgotten. Not everyone understood the big guy or got along with him. He could be a tough one to get close to. He liked his privacy. It should be known now that when Willie Horton worked for the Police Athletic League in Detroit, Cecil Fielder gave him more than $200,000 for the program, including one of his lodging the great athletes of this century, how can you compare Gordie Howe's 32 years as a hockey player to Nadia Comaneci's one day as a gymnast? 'You can't.

But, in fairness, you must. Comaneci had only that one afternoon in the Montreal Forurn during the 1976 Olympics to show off her skills, and that's how she must be judged. She turned in a perfect 10 and so her moment was one of absolute brilliance, just as Howe's 32 years as hockey's Finest player were. Tricky stuff, but the only right way to do it. This brings us to Gates Brown and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

I don't know how Reynolds. He was as great a broadcaster as this state has known, but he was largely forgotten by the voters. That was no one's fault; just how it was. Someone, such as an ancient sports writer, had to come forward and remind the voters of Reynolds' contributions to sports in our state. The Michigan Sports Hall of Fame has a "Legend's Committee," so I am appealing to them to consider The Gater a good man, an earnest man and a man who has never received the kind of credit he deserved for such a distinguished career in our town.

He has never been one to promote himself, so I guess I'm doing it for him, and I am doing to do it when it counted when the games were on the line. And he delivered like no one else in his league. He got 107 pinch hits and 16 pinch-hit home runs, both American League records. He is most proudest of his 74 pinch-hit RBI. "No one will ever know how many games he affected because the other managers knew he was in the dugout and would arrange their strategy to keep him off the field," former Tigers pitcher Earl Wilson said.

And this, too, is the problem. Many of the voters don't know much about Gates Brown. Not all saw him play. He is viewed as another guy on the 1968 champions yes, a guy who came through when it counted but not a major star. Yet, they put in Mickey Stanley with a .248 career batting average.

Stanley was a fine outfielder and wowed the world by switching from center field to shortstop for the 1968 World Series. Brown had as much of an impact on that team as Stanley did more, in some respects. I le was considered a bench hitter and this Ls eminently unfair. He played 13 years and they would not have kept him around that long unless he was an important member of the team. But how do we get him elected, except through columns like this one.

It was this way with Bob Notebook Tigers: Notebook Starting rotation is looking better Blue Jays end sticky situation Steve Perez The Detroit News "If I don't get another hit this spring, I still think I'm ready to play," says Tigers outfielder Gabe Kapler. By Lynn Henning The Detroit News LAKELAND, Fla. The batting lineup is better, dramatically so. The bullpen appears ship-shape. The team defense is better.

Which, for the Tigers, has put the focus on one highly suspicious area two weeks before Detroit breaks spring camp: Starting pitching. Saturday, the Tigers got another small indicator that things have improved there, as well, thanks to Willie Blair and Bryce Florie, who had strong five-inning outings as the Tigers split a pair of split-squad games, losing 5-1 to the Houston Astros at Marchant Stadium, then beating the Twins, 5-1, at Ft. Myers. Florie allowed a run and four hits against the Twins. Blair was touched for a run and three hits against the Astros.

The Tigers' only serious offense at either place Saturday came courtesy of Juan Encar-nacion, who slammed a two-run homer off Twins starter Eric Milton. Tigers Manager Larry Par-rish made the 177-mile trip to Ft. Myers and received as consolation a victory as well as a sharp, 62-pitch effort by Florie. "He threw the ball well, much better than early oa" said Parrish, who is looking at the right-handed Florie as a fifth starter. Blair, who has also taken some knocks in the early going, had a fair share of hard-hit balls hauled in by the Tigers' outfield, but came closer to resembling the man who was a big winner for the Tigers two seasons ago.

"It eases your mind to have a game like this," said Blair, who walked one batter and struck out two. "I'm usually a slow starter, so I wasn't going to panic." Another Parrish Lance handled the managerial duties at Lakeland Saturday and watched the Tigers bats go cold for one of the few times all week. "You can't be perfect every the voting goes how many votes he gets or if he is getting any at all The problem is, he was never a big star a regular who put up big numbers in his career. And yet, what he did, like Nadia Comaneci, was very special. He was the premier pinch-hitter in the history of the American League the No.

1 man aiming off the bench and delivering in one of the most critical roles in the game of baseball. In other words, he was asked day, even though it ruined my managerial debut," Parrish said. "I kept waiting for that big inning, and it never happened." Parrish maintained his third-base coaching duties Saturday and was second-guessing himself for waving Bobby Higgin-son around third on Dean Palmer's first-inning single, which scored Brian Hunter for the Tigers' run against Houston. "I waved Higgy when I shouldn't have," Parrish said. "It just goes to show I'm human, although I know a lot of guys think otherwise.

That's why I'm here, too, this spring to work out the kinks." Robinson Checo suffered a few kinks, himself, as he was socked for three Astros runs on a couple of hits and two walks in only i'j innings of relief. C.J. Nitkowski and Todd Jones also pitched at Lakeland. Felipe Lira, Sean Runyan and Brian Looncy cleaned up against the Twins. Season-ticket record The Tigers announced Saturday that season ticket sales for 1999 have, for the first time in club history, exceeded 10,000.

The old record of 9,913 was set in 1989. Dave Glazier, the Tigers' vice-president of business operations, agreed that fans want a last look at Tiger Stadium as it heads into its final season of operation, as well as security for season tickets when Corn-erica Park opens in 2000. Customers can, at this time, only reserve Comerica Park season tickets by buying 1999 season seats. Glazier also believes interest in the Tigers has surged for obvious reasons: the team is getting better. "We spent some money and added to that core of talent we already had," Glazier said.

Leave a message for Lynn Henning at (33) 222-2472. on Saturday to head to Los Angeles, where he will undergo an magnetic resonance imaging on his right elbow. Garciaparra will be examined by two doctors on Monday. Angels right-hander Jason Dickson has a torn labium in his pitching shoulder and might be sidelined for the entire season. The Angels also learned they will be without catcher Matt Walbeck, a former Tiger, for at least a month.

Walbeck has a fractured right hand and will wear a removable splint but won't be able to catch or hit during that time. Mark McGwire hit two bases-empty home runs to tie Sammy Sosa for the spring training lead with seven, helping the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Montreal Expos, 7-4, Saturday. Orioles right-hander Scott Kamieniecki (Michigan) skipped his scheduled start Saturday because of a strained left hamstring. Fraser's Pat Hentgen of the Blue Jays will start for Triple-A Syracuse on Monday to line him up for his opening-day start against Minnesota on April 6.

Detroit News wire services. KAPLER Continued from Page iC who won awards as a Shakespearean actor, who turned to weight-lifting when he liked what it did for his "insecurity," who decided abruptly at age 19 that he needed to grow up, who signed with the Tigers as a distant 57th-round selection, who got married to his soulmate, Lisa Jansen, four months ago and who now rooks forward to fatherhood in October. And who sees not a single good reason why he shouldn't make the club this spring. Kapler, who has been one of the Tigers' hotter stories in Florida, was batting .389 going into Saturday's game. Brian Hunter, though, is the experienced horse in center field and the likely starter.

That scenario, although subject to change, says that Kapler, 23, will probably be returned to the minors for a few weeks or months of "seasoning." Kapler shook his head. "What's seasoning?" he said, with a kind of controlled irritation, as he sat outside the Tigers' clubhouse, don't understand that concept at all. Is there a better place to get experience than on the major-league level?" He paused. Sensitivities to teammates, the need to be a team player, can curb a guy's tongue even at age 23. Kapler sighed and said: "If they're telling me they feel more comfortable going with Brian Hunter up the middle, what can I say? Who can argue with that? "But if they're telling me they want to season me more, I don't understand If I don't get another hit this spring, I still think I'm ready to play.

"But if they decide otherwise, will I be very disappointed? Yes. WU1 1 hang my head? Hell, no. I'll go down and give 'cm my best." Kapler came to Fkirida as no mystery to the Tigers or to those who follow baseball. He was last year's Minor League Player of the Year. He set a minor-league record for RBI with 146.

He is a muscle-magazine cover boy, 6-feet-2, 208 pounds, a fabulously sculpted athlete who has enough speed and defensive skill to have earned this spring's switch to center, where the Tigers hoped he might put some heat on Hunter following Hunter's lukewarm 1998 season. Kapler has done more, though, than prod Hunter. He has convinced the Tigers that room must be made for him, if not coming out of spring training, then probably at some point in the 1999 season. For now, I Iunter is hitting and the Tigers are buying time. And sending Kapler to the minors barring a surprise deal for Hunter looks like a temporary solution.

"If you get a guy who you believe has a future, a guy with a high topside, you don't want him sitting the bench," Tigers Manager Larry Parrish said, shooting down notions that Kapler might go north as a part-time player. "We knew going into spring that he would be a longshot to make the club probably more of a longshot than he did." And yet the Tigers love the very brand of confidence and fire they've seen from Kapler. One of those who raves about him is Al Kaline, a Hall of Famer and Tigers spring-training coach whom Kapler always greets as "Mr. Kaline." "I have no question in my mind that he's gonna be a star he's gonna make himself a star," Kaline said, adding that Kapler's shift to center field has been amazingly smooth. "He has very good fundamentals," Kaline said.

"He's not TOM GAGE i Devil Rays as their No. 2 catcher. "I had to rededicate myself to baseball if I wanted to come back," he told the Dayton Daily News. Phil Nevin isn't happy. He shared catching duties on the Angels last year with Matt Walbeck.

They're both former Tigers. But this spring, Nevin has been seeing more time at first base and in the outfield; "I don't know what spot I'm competing for," he said. "It's disappointing. I feel I've cornea long way defensively." Glen Barker, who was a Rule 5 pick out the Tigers' system by the Astros, still might make the Houston team as a fifth outfielder. As expected, though, he has had a better spring with the glove than at the plate.

Around the horn What do you know, the Angels are moving in their fences in center and left by nine feet That can't be because Mo Vaughn signed with them as a free agent during the winter, can it? Vaughn is a left-handed batter who hits with power to left and center. "What we ought to do is move in our mound," said Rangers pitcher Tim Crabtree. The Angels will try to dethrone the Rangers as champions in the American League West If you know this answer, you know your baseball. Or you're related to one of the players involved. Which alleged major-league team might start Cristian Guzman a short, Jacque Jones instead of Tbrli Hunter in center, Corey Koslde at third and Doug Mientkiewicz at first? Not a team printing World Series tickets, but that's the only hint.

We've said this before, we'll say this again: Old lefties not only live forever, they pitch forever. But it's unlikely that the Diamondbacks will be signing 40-year-old Teddy Higuera after seeing him throw twice jn Arizona. Some other team might, but not Diamondbacks. Second baseman Carlos Baerga could be washed up at 30 after being released by the Cardinals. "He just wasn't in shape," General Manager Walt Jock-etty said.

"He was overweight." To which Baerga replied, "this has been my body all my life. I still make all the plays." Apparently not. At least the Red Sox broke the bad news early to anyone hoping to buy All-Star Game tickets. There won't be any available to the general public. None.

The Sox will take care of their season-ticket holders first for the July 13 game, followed by those included under the heading of major-league baseball. Answer: All those who said "the you're right. Jacque Jones? Sammy Sosa said he's through bowing to the fans after hitting a home run. He did it twice last week, irritating the Diamondbacks' Todd Stot-tlemyre, who served them up. Just as well.

Sosa's teammate, pitcher Rod Beck, said "it's only spring training, but if that happened during the season, it would be 'neckball' time." What a messy firing it turned out to be of Blue Jays Manager Tim Johnson. His second chance didn't even get him through spring training. Johnson made trouble for himself last year when he lied about serving in Vietnam. But instead of firing him after the season, the Jays waited to see if the ruckus about the story would subside. They obviously decided it hadn't Johnson blamed the media for that.

He also blamed his coaching staff. And that's where the situation got its ugliest. "(Bleep) you guys," Johnson told the Toronto Star after driving home to Kansas. "I don't want anyone coming here looking for me. I blame The Star, Mel Queen, Sal Butera, Jimmy Lett.

They've done enough to get me out of there." Queen, Butera and Lett remain on the Blue Jays' coaching staff. There can't be a worse position for a manager than not to trust his own coaching staff. But Johnson didn't and the situation wasn't going to get better. There were other problems as well that involved verbal sniping with players. But Ash said "the most disturbing comments of last week to me came from (Tigers coach) Juan Samuel.

I le's respected by everyone." Samuel finished his playing career for the Blue Jays last season, but told the Toronto Sun that "most of the Jays' players wanted the season to be over as quickly as possible." The upshot of all this is embarrassment for Johnson, of course, but also for the Blue Jays, who have been tripping over problems all winter. Maybe Jim Fregosi, the new manager, can re-direct the focus to the field. He might be a strong enough personality for that. But something good better happen fast for this team or more heads will roll. Tiger bytes Johnson wasn't the only one blaming the media for his problems.

Former Tiger Jack Morris was as well. Morris picked up his impounded pickup truck in St. Paul early Thursday without paying for it. That's a misdemeanor offense for which Morris has been charged. But Morris thought he was portrayed incorrectly.

"(The media) made it sound as if I was O.J. Simpson running from the police," he said. The Colorado Rockies needed pitching more than they needed a new manager during the But the only free-agent pitcher they signed was Brian Bohanon. So do you think they might be somewhat concerned that Bohanon has a 14.73 earned-run average after four starts this spring? The Tigers' JeflfWeaver isnt the only pitcher out of last year's draft who made a good impression this spring So did Mark Mulder, a lefty from Michigan State whom the As made their first-round pick "He's mature beyond his years," Oakland Manager Art Howe said. "He's got a good feel for all his pitches and isn't afraid to use them." Joe Oliver had this to say about why he didn't make a go of it last year with the Tigers: "I ate my way out of Detroit." Twenty-five pounds lighter, Oliver is hoping to stick with the as graceful as Brian (Hunter) or as a (Kenny) Lofton, but he's an unbelievable kid as far as his work habits.

He's probably as hard a worker as I've ever seen." Kaline's words amuse those who knew Kapler not so many years ago. "He told me when he was in junior high school that he had already learned everything there was to know, and that he would just look up the rest," said Judy Kapler, director of a preschool in suburban Los Angeles and a woman who has found her son to be eternally fascinating. "He was always so very bright, always above his grade level in reading and in math," she said. "It's just he couldn't remember to bring anything home." The reason for his impulsiveness was diagnosed in Kapler's sophomore year of high school: He had attention deficit disorder. Paying attention, sitting still, focusing on a particular activity or discussion could be more than unbearable for him.

It was impossible. Kapler was on Ritalin for a year, which helped him focus, but one of the drug's side effects can be loss of appetite a killer for the growing kid who liked sports, who loved to eat, and who wanted desperately to get bigger. "It did help me to study a little bit," said Kapler, who bagged Ritalin, believing he could cope without it. Kapler said his parents his father, Michael, is a music teacher enabled him to feel enough stability and independence to drop Ritalin. When Kapler was a sophomore, he had to make a decision: athletics or drama.

He had won Los Angeles youth acting awards for his performances in Taming of the Shrew and Little House of Horrors. He chose baseball, which he loved, the one athletic outlet he would allow himself at a time when he avoided playing football which he also loved because "I remember feeling that it wasn't cool to be a jock." "I really had my head screwed on straight, huh?" Kapler said. "I think that's partially why I wanted to get into some trouble. I wanted a little thuggishness in my life, a little turmoil, some controversy. 1 probably figured it was cool to screw off and not act like a jock." It didn't stop Kapler from getting a full-ride athletic scholarship to Cal-State Fullerton in 1993, a stint that ended before it had much chance to get going.

"I went there and fully blew it," he said. "I didn't take baseball or my studies seriously. I didn't go to classes. I was into the party lifestyle. After two months they asked me to leave.

"That was a tough call to make to my dad." Kapler returned home, enrolled at nearby Moorpark Junior College and at that point "dedicated my life to working my butt off." The Tigers drafted him in June 1995 in the 57th round, a place so remote that a selection so distant has never made the club. His devotion to weight-lifting, though, was already in progress, a measure of how Kapler was beginning to develop as much externally as internally. "I don't think at that point in my life I was very confident or secure," Kapler said. "What I noticed is that by pumping iron I got strong right away, and although I was already lean and defined, my body got stronger. It gave me confidence to hear people say, 'Gee, you really look So good, in fact, that he was recruited by a modeling agent.

Kapler has since been on the cover of muscle magazines galore. One measure of his muscular structure and cosmetic appeal: Kapler's popularity as a cover boy has zero to do with his budding baseball career. Rather, among the weight-lifting crowd, Kapler looks the way guys dream of looking. He lifts for an hour or two almost every day, focusing on a different set of muscles chest, arms, shoulder, back, legs. And his attention to diet is at least as rigorous: fish, turkey, lean chicken, pasta, rice, vegetables, and no exceptions.

"He used to be really crazy about it nothing but chicken breasts with no oil," said Lisa, who met her husband when each was at Taft High School, in Woodland Hills, Calif. She says inflexibility over fod is about the only fault she can find in a man she, as well as his mother, revere for his sensitivity and loyalty. "I can't tell you how incredible he is," said Lisa, who hated baseball when she began dating Kapler and who isn't a great deal more excited by it now. "He is unbelievably loyal to his family, to me, to anyone he loves. And he is truthful." Judy Kapler admits there were times she wondered, but more times that she found her son and his mind to be irresistible, as on the day Gabe, still a youngster, told her he had but two career options: to be either a professional athlete or an actor.

"What a blow," she said, with a laugh, "to every Jewish mother's dream of job security." Judy and Lisa agree with Gabe that the attention deficit disorder is still a challenge, but one that a young man is beginning to control. "I'm still very fidgety, I can't sit still for long periods of time, I can't sit still for speeches," said Kapler, who promises to return to college, where he will study psychology. "But I went to a rookie seminar in January, and the reason I think I'm ready to go back to school is that I was able to sit through those long conferences." Baseball was the subject, of course. It kept him interested, kept him focused, something the Tigers know to be true as they contemplate what to do with a gifted, and committed, young prospect. Roundup Yankees' Strawberry hits first home run WINTER HAVEN, Fla.

Darryl Strawberry, attempting a comeback from colon cancer surgery, hit his first homer of the spring an enormous three-run shot Saturday in the New York Yankees' 10-9 loss to the Cleveland Indians. Wil Cordero, who earlier hit a three-run homer, doubled in two runs as the Indians rallied to win in the ninth against Jason Grimsley. With one out and runners at first and second, Strawberry sent a shot over the right-field scoreboard at Chain O' Lakes Park that went at least 450 feet and landed just behind some nearby condominiums. Strawberry, who underwent a chemotherapy treatment on Friday, wasn't originally expected to make the trip with the Yankees, but decided to go Saturday after he woke up feeling good. "I never surprise myself said Strawberry, whose postseason was cut short last year when he was diagnosed with cancer in October.

"I feel comfortable at the plate no matter how long it has been and how many days I've had off." Briefly Shortstop Nomar Garcia-parra left the Boston Red Sox.