The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 14

M-. I THE COURIER-JOURNAL LOUISVILLE, KY. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1987 SPORTS i 0 It's home, sweet dome as Twins batter Cards, send Series to Game 7 Hrbek atones for blunders by crushing a grand slam I. Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS It was blast of a homecoming for the Minnesota Twins and a blast from the past for the St Louis Cardinals. Kent Hrbek's grand slam highlighted a 15-hit barrage as the Twins came in from the cold of St.

Louis and pounded the Cardinals 11-5 yesterday, forcing the World Series to tonight's seventh game (8:25 p.m. EST, ABC-32). The Twins, dead on five runs and 18 hits while being swept three straight at SL Louis, came alive at the Metrodome, where they scored 18 runs on 21 hits while winning the first two games. "I have no idea what it is," Twins manager Tom Kelly said. "If I knew what it was, I'd take it on the road." Minnesota, with the best home record Joe Magrane Frank Viola WORLD SERIES AT A GLANCE Series tied 3-3 TONIGHTS GAME St Louis (Magrane 9-7) at Minnesota (Viola 17-10), 8:25 EST.

in baseball at 61-25 Including a 5-0 mark in postseason games will start ace Frank Viola in Game 7 tonight The Cardinals, the top road team in the majors, will start rookie left-hander Joe Magrane, who started Game 1. "The ballpark didn't beat us today," Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said. "We had a 5-2 lead. We couldn't keep the ball in the ballpark. That was the problem." John Tudor and the Cardinals took a three-run lead into the bottom of the fifth before Don Baylor's two-run homer made It 5-5.

The Twins went ahead later in the inning, and Hrbek bit his slam in the sixth. "I wish I could've run around the bases twice instead of once," said Hrbek, who had gone 3 for 20 in the American League playoffs and was just 4 for 20 in the Series before connecting. That completed the comeback, and brought back the demons that haunted the Cardinals two years ago. In 1985, St Louis lost Game 6 of the World Series on umpire Don Denkinger's bad call In the ninth inning at Kansas City. Then Tudor was shelled in losing the seventh game 11-0.

Now, the Cardinals need to win where they have been crushed three times. Not an easy task. "We haven't played here that much," Herzog said. "But I'm sure there are other clubs who feel that way." The Cardinals have taken a 3-2 Series lead seven times in their history, and only won Game 6 once. Four times they have gone on to win the seventh game.

St Louis is the best Game 7 team in Series history. The Cardinals are 7-2 in seventh games, more victories than any other club. They beat New York in 1926 See TWINS PAGE 2, col. 1, this section I-I1 J' ASSOCIATED PRESS for the Minnesota Twins' Kent Hrbek put the Twins up 10-5 over St. Louis.

Kentucky rules for 59 minutes, then Georgia takes ill RICK BOZICH SPORTS COLUMNIST MINNEAPOLIS Inside the men's, room in the upper deck at the Metro-dome, they were tying together a string of Homer Hankies and fitting them for Kent Hrbek's beefy neck. It was the fourth inning. It was St Louis 5, Minnesota 2. It was 18 outs and a dream's end for the Twins. In the men's room, the angry natives gave the hankies a firm yank.

The first yank was Hrbek's failing to run bard on the second-inning fly ball that Willie McGee dropped in deep right-center field. Instead of racing to third, Hrbek puffed into second. Big Dummy. Big Chubby Dummy. The second yank was for sleepwalking off second and getting picked off by John Tudor.

Would somebody please tell that knucklehead this is Game 6 of the World Series? And the third and final yank was for Hrbek's assorted crimes of flying out with two on in the third, driving in two runs in five Series games and generally performing like his concentration had already shifted to the St Paul winter bowling league. "How could he be so stupid," said one disgusted fan. Fifty disgusted fans nod- See HRBEK PAGE 2, col. 3, this section 17 14 victory and second-string quarterback Wayne Johnson. The Bulldogs also were helped in the third quarter by an illegal-motion penalty against Kentucky that nullified a 69-yard pass to Jlmmie O'Neal that carried to the Georgia two-yard line.

"We had our opportunities and just didn't take advantage of them," said whose team also failed to get any points out of two second-half possessions that began at the Georgia 43- and 42-yard lines. After starting quarterback James Jackson' managed to guide the Bulldogs to only three points in the first half, Georgia coach Vince Dooley replaced him wlh Johnson. Although he threw two interceptions, Johnson was more effective. He scored on an option play from 13 yards out in the third quarter and directed Georgia to 235, yards of second-half offense. "We've put an emphasis on being fourth-quarter team," Johnson said.

"We kept saying to ourselves, 'The game is going to That confidence was Justified, since Georgia had already rebounded from two 14-0 deficits earlier this season. Both Virginia and Vanderbilt had shared Kentucky's position this season ahead by two touch-, downs over the favored Bulldogs. But all three faltered. "I think it's because we keep getting bet- ter at deciding when to go ahead," Georgia coach Vince Dooley joked. "Today, we took the lead with one minute left and I hope I can teach them to take it with five seconds." Dooley, who underwent minor surgery on Tuesday to clear arteries to his heart, got a quick chance to gauge the strength of his See KENTUCKY PAGE 6, col.

2, this section top: Gruden, of 31-10 streak in their Cardinal Stadium season finale before a crowd of 18,743. However, it could have been a costly vic- tory. Senior fullback Rodney UofL's top receiver and second-leading rusher, left the game on the Cards' first series with a sprained right knee. Then junior halfback Deon Booker rein-jured his oft-sprained left ankle and departed early in the fourth quarter. By then, he had carried 18 times for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

-7 "It's very sore," Booker said. "A guy See ROOMIES PAGE 11, col. 1, this section NFL TODAY'S GAMES ON TV Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m., NBC Chicago Bears at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1 p.m., CBS Seattle Seahawks at Angeles Raiders, 4 p.m., NBC It was a celebration trip around the bases after his fifth-inning grand-slam home run By SCOTT FOWLER Staff Writer ATHENS, Ga. In one fiery motion, University of Kentucky defensive guard John Shannon ripped his helmet off and slammed it into the ground at the 10-yard line yesterday afternoon at Sanford Stadium. The helmet bounced merrily along into the end zone, just as Georgia tailback Lars Tate had done only minutes earlier to give the Bulldogs a thrilling 17-14 football homecoming victory over Kentucky before 81,911 fans.

Tate scored on a sweep from six yards out with 1:08 left in the game, staining a heroic Wildcats defensive performance with the stamp of defeat. Until then, the Wildcats had held Georgia to 10 points, produced four turnovers and risen up to stop Georgia tailback Rodney Hampton on a fourth-and-one at their own seven with 6:25 left in the game. But after that goal-line stand, UK's offense which produced just three first downs and 33 total yards in the second half ran three plays and punted. Georgia got the ball back with 4:26 left and stormed 49 yards in eight plays, seven of them runs. Bulldogs defensive back Rusty Beasley then intercepted Glenn Fohr's first pass following Tate's score, ensuring that Georgia would beat UK for the 10th consecutive time.

"This is a tough, tough loss for us," UK Kentucky's Mark Higgs was under a heavy load of Georgia defenders as he bulldogged some extra yardage during the first half yesterday. Georgia won 17-14. ASSOCIATED PRESS sum ww1 unu ni jiuiji mwim gm -1 vat ---t-- We did everything we were supposed to do, and we still lost. Coach said make big plays; we made big plays. What are we supposed to do? We came down here and whipped up on the No.

12 team in the country and still UK center Brad Myers coach Jerry Claiborne said afterward. "It's been a long time since a loss hurt that bad. I'm very proud of our football team, thoup They played hard and laid it on the line ie whole game." Indeed, Kentucky jumped to a 14-0 lead in the game's first 11 minutes and clung to it by virtue of the superb defensive effort, strong special teams play and an offense that came up with a number of big plays in the first half. The loss left UK (4-3 overall, 1-2 in the SEC) wondering what it had to do to win. "We did everything we were supposed to do, and we still lost" center Brad Myers said.

"Coach said make big plays; we made big plays. What are we supposed to do? We came down here and whipped up on the No. 12 team in the country and still lost." Georgia (6-2, 3-1) came back in the second half behind its own stalwart defense Roomies at the Hamilton lead By RUSS BROWN Staff Writer For a couple of friendly roommates, University of Louisville quarterback Jay Gruden and split end Joey Hamilton had acted like total strangers on the football field this year. But yesterday Gruden and Hamilton finally struck up a passing acquaintance and helped carry of to a 31-10 victory over Akron for a successful homecoming. Hamilton nearly equaled his receiving yardage for the entire season as the Cardinals (3-4-1) snapped a three-game losing IU relies on blocked punt, divine help to stun Michigan COLLEGE SCOREBOARD No.

10 Notre Dame 26 Southern Cal 15 Page 5 North Carolina State 30 No. 7 Clemson 28 Page 5 No. 13 Tennessee 29 Georgia Tech 15 Page 6 Illinois 14 No. 14 Michigan State 14 Page 8 Eastern 14 Youngstown State 7 Page 9 Georgetown 34 Cumberland 24 Page 9 In the second half, Indiana had a stiff wind to its back. But when the teams switched ends for the final period, the wind shifted 180 degrees, even increased, as Michigan vainly tried to rally for its 16th straight win over the Hoosiers.

The Hoosiers, 6-1 and 4-0 in the league, virtually assured themselves of climbing above their No. 15 national ranking. Coupled with a 31-10 victory over Ohio State two weeks ago, Indiana beat both the Buckeyes and Wolverines for the first time ever. See IU PAGE 8, col. 1, this section By STAN SUTTON Staff Writer BLOOMINGTON, Ind.

Rain began falling early yesterday on Memorial Stadium as Indiana University's football team prepared to test its destiny against Michigan. By late afternoon, the skies remained open. But along with the showers came a heavy sprinkling of Stardust as IU stunned Michigan 14-10 and moved into sole position of first place in the Big Ten Conference. The poem that goes "Ain't God good to Indiana" never seemed more apropos. INSIDE Scorecard College football.

Pro football Outdoors 5-12 15 16 17 Bowling. Harness racing 18 Alonzo Highsmith Terra Incognita signs with Oilers wins Alcibiades See Page 14 yj See Page 20 19-21 Thoroughbred racing.