The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 39

The Courier-Journal, Wednesday morning, June 3, 1981 spo KTS Softball's true 'heavyweights': pro or amateur? i jim iwwm. jw-wy igf 't ywT" Kentucky Bourbons slugger Bill Gatti is "a 100-percent athlete who can do the job," according to John Korinek, president of the United Professional Slo-Pitch League. Korinek said he admires Gatti because he can play both defense and offense. They murmur of merger, haggle over home runs "Before the year is over I'd say they'll be down to six or seven teams," Korinek said. "One thing I can say for our operation is that we've been here five years.

We don't pick our tournaments. We travel, play a regular-season schedule, run a professional operation and pay the price." The amateur league's Promethean home-run output is a sensitive topic. "Their game is not the game we want to market," Korinek said. "Games that end 48-46 or 42-40 don't make a marketable item. We're marketing a ballgame; they're marketing ballplayers.

They think the .768 batting average and the 42 home runs are fabulous. People fall asleep after the 35th home run in a game. "There are a lot of quality people in there, and I'd love to see them come with us. I've got nothing against them. But Bill Gatti (of the Kentucky Bourbons) would hit 290 homers in a season with a 275-foot fence.

That's why I admire Billy, because he can play defense as well as offense. He's a 100-percent athlete who can do the job. That's what I like about our game." Remarks about 275-foot fences or "rabbit" balls don't sit well with Earnest. "We haven't played a 275-foot fence since we started that was three or four years ago, mostly down South," he said. "We play at least 300 except for Montom-gery which is 290.

And we use a Dudley red-stitch ball. That's restricted flight. They use the Dudley white-stitch, which is livelier. "Look at our tournament at Bishop David (the Bourbons' field) last summer. One of those teams probably hit more home runs that weekend than the Bourbons did all summer.

All your home-run hitters, except probably for Bill Gatti, are in our league. Benny Holt, who was a sensational home-run hitter in that league, is with us now, and he's just another hitter. We've got 20 players who used to be in the pros." One of them is Don Rardin Jr. of Lexington. Once a crowd favorite as a third baseman with the Bourbons, Rardin was a standout last summer in the short-lived North American pro league, which split from the UPSL after an owners' feud.

So far, Rardin doesn't like the NSPC, al By MIKE SULLIVAN Courlor-Journal SUM Writer Baseball superstar Fernando Valenzuela didn't thumb his nose at the Los Angeles Dodgers because he had a commitment to play for the world amateur champion Al's Carpet City-Giant Dry Cleaning team of So-nora, Mexico. But many of the best softball players have demonstrated a sustained lack of interest in their sport's only professional slo-pitch league. Others have excelled for a time at the pro level, then packed their bags and regained their amateur standing. And failure to round up a majority of first-rank players, or at least a healthy share of them, may turn the United Professional Softball League into an idea whose time is going, instead of an idea whose time has come. The most convenient barometer for measuring the progress, or lack of it, of the five-year-old UPSL is the National Slo-Pitch Conference, a circuit of traveling amateur teams with headquarters in Seymour, Ind.

In some ways the NSPC seems to be experiencing a more drastic membership decline than its pro counterpart, and its finances would be enough to put a small country into bankruptcy. On the other hand, the amateur league claims to have cornered the market on great long-ball hitters. When it buzzes into a town like a horde of muscular, paunchy locusts for one of its summer-long string of tournaments, the NSPC causes seats to fill with paying customers. That fact is not lost on the pro Kentucky Bourbons, who thought their crowd of 700 at a May 17 home date was bad until they drew 100 fans Sunday afternoon. And the nine-team NSPC is only the tip of the amateur iceberg, an uppercrust of between 50 and 100 world-class teams that see nothing special about the pro league.

"You've got two different breeds of people," said Jerome Earnest of Seymour, assistant executive director of the NSPC. "We're very amateur-conscious. That ASA (American Softball Association) world title is so prestigious that these players want to keep their amateur standing." The best example Earnest could offer is what he called the Triple Crown. It consists of the four-year-old NSPC's own championship, decided among its members in an annual world series; the ASA title; and the USSSA (United States Slo-Pitch Softball Association) title. In 1979, Nelson's Painting Service of Oklahoma City won the Triple Crown, then i vWa Vs if if NS li, .1 irnKMiitiiMhriii I'nifciiiiMi though his distaste for the additional trav-i Staff Flit Photo summer, including one at Louisville's Bishop David Field June 12-14.

The UPSL, by contrast, employs a home-and-home pennant race, division playoffs and two-team world series modeled on pro baseball. NSPC team sponsors put stars on the company payroll without violating amateur rules and, in effect, outbid the UPSL. Milwaukee Schlitz owner John Korinek, the UPSL president, is anything but dazzled by the NSPC, even though one of his best players, all-pro Phil Higgins, recently defected to the NSPC's G. B. Wilcher team.

folded. In 1980, Campbell's Carpets of Concord, won the Triple Crown, then folded. "They spent so much money recruiting their players that they broke up after they got what they wanted," Earnest said. "Only one Nelson's player was from Oklahoma, and only one Campbell's player among the top 13 was from California." That high-octane blend of effort and sponsor's money continues to sew attrition in the ranks of the Seymour super-conference. It went from 22 teams in 1979 to 16 last summer to nine this year.

That's only one more team than the UPSL, which had dwindled to six in 1980. "I think the main reason for it is that the top teams load up with the best players, and that scares away some others," Earnest said. "People don't want to get beat 35-5. Plus, the entry fee is pretty steep, even though we do share in a travel fund every week. It takes $7,500 for new members.

An amateur team can go to two or three tournaments for that." The NSPC will stage 17 tournaments this eling has led him to resist several entreaties to rejoin the Bourbons. "I'd like to see 'em (the NSPC) play at Milwaukee, where the fences are 340," Rardin said. "Here I am playing this type See SOFTBALL'S PAGE 3, col. 1, this section Borg moves closer to 6th French title Sivede advances in French 'rj'-pl ffi TT I Bjorn Borg of Sweden got himself into an ackward position in his game against Hungarian Balasz Taroczy in the quarterfinal round of the French Open yesterday at Roland Garros Stadium. Borg won 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.

that dropped just inside the baseline. "That's the first time in my life I have ever lobbed a service return," Borg said. "In tennis, anything can happen once." Pecci ignored the textbooks and used grass-court tactics on the slow surface, often playing the serve-and-volley game successfully. "Against Noah, you have to get to the net first," Pecci said. At one set apiece, Noah built a lead of 4-1 in the third and was within a point of a service break and a 5-1 lead.

But the tide turned. Pecci, serving with increasing power, won five games in a row for a 2-1 lead in sets. For the youngest player in the tournament, 14-year-old Kathy Rin-aldi of the United States, dreams came to an end yesterday. Hana Mandlikova, the rising 19-year-old Czech star, attacked her from the first point and won 6-1, 6-3 for a place in the semifinals. Chris Evert Lloyd, defending champion and top seed, continued her winning run, beating Virginia Ruzici of Romania 6-4, 6-4.

She has now beaten her rival in all 19 of their meetings. American Andrea Jaeger, 15, dropped the first set to Mima Jauso-vec of Yugoslavia, the 1977 champion, but came back to win 4-6, 6-2, Auociatod Proti PARIS Bjorn Borg and Victor Pecci, old rivals on the slow clay courts of Roland Garros Stadium, scored impressive victories in the French Open tennis tournament yesterday and will meet in the semifinals. Borg, measuring his top-spin ground shots with relentless accuracy, defeated Hungary's Balasz Tar-oczy 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. Pecci, the lanky Paraguayan, boldly went forward to the net to eliminate the last remaining French hope, Yannick Noah, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. The two American challengers for the title, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, had the day off.

Connors plays Jose-Luis Clerc of Argentina, and McEnroe faces Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia today. Borg admitted it was his hardest match so far in the tournament. But he has reached the semifinals without dropping a set in his quest to win the title for a record sixth time. Borg played his usual, classic, clay-court game, driving from the back of the court and pounding for his opponent's baseline. He hit one bizarre winner and set tennis connoisseurs buzzing.

In the third set, Taroczy, desperate to stem the tide, served and danced to the net and Borg returned a cunning lob ASSOCIATED PRESS Real Giant of a fourth inning paves way to 15-7 rout of Reds Dodgers' Valenzuela shakes off mini-slump with ninth victory Auociatod Prou SAN FRANCISCO Jerry Martin hit a grand slam homer in a nine-run fourth inning which gave San Francisco an 11-0 lead and the Giants outscored the Cincinnati Reds 15-7 last night. Ron Oester had a bases-loaded blast for the Reds in the fifth inning, when Cincinnati scored five runs off Giants starter Ed Whit-son (2-5). Whilson lasted only five innings and reliever Al Holland' completed the game for his fourth save. Dave Collins, who extended his hitting streak to 11 games with two hits, singled home a run in the sixth and the Reds added an unearned run in the seventh. Joe Morgan opened San Francisco's scoring with a two-run homer in the third off Mike La-Coss (2-6).

It was Morgan's third homer of the year and his fifth in two seasons against the Reds, his former team. In the fourth, the Giants scored Auociatod Prou LOS ANGELES Fernando Valenzuela is back on the winning track after a rocky 2y2 weeks not that two losses and a no-decision after eight straight victories bothered the Los Angeles Dodgers rookie pitcher. "He's always the same," utility infielder Pepe Frias said after Valenzuela mesmerized the Atlanta Braves 5-2 Monday night to run his record to 9-2. "Fernando doesn't change. Nothing bothers him." all nine runs after two were out, with the first six runs charged to LaCoss.

Martin hit the grand slam off reliever Doug Bair. The Giants got five hits in the fourth and were issued three walks. Martin had a single early in the inning, and Enos Cabell contributed a two-run single. The Giants added four runs in the sixth, including two on a double by Johnnie LeMaster off See NINE-RUN PAGE 3, col. 3, this section Valenzuela's fast start this season, in which he racked up five shutouts and six complete games, captured the fancy of the media, if not the whole baseball world, and the 20-year-old from Sonora, Mexico, has been besieged by reporters at every stop on the Dodgers' schedule.

"There was one time, in New York, when he asked me what I'd do about all this," said Frias, one Of Valenzuela's buddies on the club. "I told him you have to act the same, be yourself. Act like nothing is happening." Valenzuela kept his composure. He limited the visiting Braves to a pair of hits through six innings and, although he gave up seven hits and two runs, he struck out 11 and walked away with his ninth victory, tops in the major leagues. "I wasn't concerned at all," he said of his dry spell.

"I always See VALENZUELA PAGE 2, col. 4, this section.