The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 37

V-J Qflfo IPfolaltk Inquirer Section Baseball 04 Golf Horse Racing NBA D3 NHL 02 Sports in Brief D3 I for not shooting enough, rats Rockets' Horry makes every shot count now, D3. Tuesday, June 13, 1995 ii Sixers' Lindros biggest challenge visitor gets VIP welcome Can center put stamp on playoffs? i i i 1 A '1 I --I II Jf 1 I I I ii Jerry Stackhouse spoke well of the team. But NBA labor woes could keep them apart. By Mike Jensen INQUIRER STAFF WRITER The 76ers and Jerry Stackhouse all but swooned over each other yesterday during the North Carolina star's pre-draft visit to Philadelphia. But a resumption of the NBA's labor troubles could throw a wrench into the Sixers' draft plans.

The league is operating without a collective-bargaining agreement, and owners are talking about locking out players as soon as the NBA Finals end. Such a move would keep the 76ers, who have the No. 3 selection, from trading up in the draft to get Stackhouse. Yesterday, Sixers coach and general manager John Lucas was rhapsodizing about Stackhouse's great basketball IQ. And Stackhouse, sitting beside Lucas at an afternoon news conference, said what a nice fit he thought he and the 76ers would make.

"There is a great upside to this team," said Stackhouse, 6-foot-5V2 and a kind of power-guard. But Sixers owner Harold Katz said yesterday that there was "a good chance" owners would lock out players right after the NBA Finals if a collective-bargaining agreement had not been reached, and that a lockout would make trades "very difficult." According to one high-level league source, talks between the players' union and the owners resumed last night in New York. According to NBA sources, a formal directive sent to every club states that there will be a draft June 28 but no other league activity no summer training camps, no trades, no contract extensions or free-agent signings. Stackhouse arrived in town Sunday evening to VIP treatment dinner at the Katz house Sunday and lunch at the Palm yesterday. He also underwent a battery of conditioning tests yesterday and worked out at St.

Joseph's. See SIXERS on D3 By Gary Miles INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Eric Lindros, the best player on his team and probably the best hockey player in the world, has yet to dominate the NHL playoffs. He has spent plenty of energy racing around the rink, protecting his teammates. But he hasn't leaped out of their shadow to make these playoffs his own. That must change tonight, coach Terry Murray said.

Tonight, the desperate Flyers play the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, at the Meadowlands Arena. The Flyers trail the Devils by three games to two in the best-of-seven series, and their season will be over if they lose. Lindros, the Flyers' captain and catalyst, has thrived on challenges all season. Tonight, he will run out of second chances. "He's got to really get himself going to a higher level" and just play hard, Murray said yesterday.

"That's all I want him to really focus on in this crucial game. Accept the challenge, which he has all year long." Yesterday, though, Lindros, as low-key as ever, didn't seem to have much fire in his belly. So far, he hasn't made much happen against the Devils. He had the overtime goal to win Game 3, at the Meadowlands, and a goal in Game 2. But the probable winner of the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player of the regular season has taken Just seven shots, and recorded just two goals and two assists, in the five games.

Of course, the Devils have done a terrific job of holding down the big center with their neutral-zone trap and smothering defense. Scott Stevens and his strong-arm partner, Ken Daneyko, have nearly perfected the art of knocking Lindros off-balance and out of position. Yesterday, Lindros wouldn't guarantee a victory, the way Mark Messier did last year for the New York Rangers. He smirked at suggestions that he might have to score a hat trick as Messier did in Game 6 last year to beat the Devils. He didn't even guarantee that he'd play better than he did in Sunday's lackluster 3-2 loss in Game 5.

"We could certainly use a hat trick or two from our side" was all Lindros would say. "That would be great. But just working hard, working through the whole game, will give us a chance to win." See FLYERS on D2 The Philadelphia Inquirer RON CORTES "It's a little bit different than what we've seen in the past," Eric Lindros said of the New Jersey defense. "It's something that you just have to work through." Lindros congratulated Kevin Dineen for a goal in Sunday's 3-2 setback in Game 5. Yes, Flyers face elimination, but The Devils were in this situation in last season's conference finals.

D2. Flyers' defensemen have hit a scoring dry spell, D2. Kelvin Martin an Eagle If you can't beat them, join them. And if you have beaten them, join them anyway. Bill Lyon Flyers vs.

Devils environment in which water flows upstream, the sun comes out at night, and dogs meow while cats bark. Consider: The home ice is a huge advantage, right? Yes-but in this series the home team is ohhhhh-for-five. The Flyers' remarkable run finally ends tonight, doesn't it? Yes-but they haven't lost on the Devils' ice, and the last time they appeared hopelessly behind they promptly executed a screeching U-bee. The Devils have all that it takes, don't they? Yes-but if they do lack something, it appears to be the knack for the put-away, the kill shot. They've had their boots on the See FACTOR on D2 The absolute best thing about sports is the yes-but factor.

As in, well, the Flyers certainly are cooked now, aren't they? Yes-but. Which is shorthand for: Yes, it certainly seems so. But In real life, the yes-but factor rarely applies. The conglomerates always swallow the helpless, the bloated always get more swollen, crime always seems to pay, and no one ever gets what he's really got coming to him. Ah, but in sports there is salvation.

There is redemption. There is yes-5u(. The inevitable isn't. And the unavoidable often is. In sports, very often the only certainty is When, where: Tonight at 7:30, at Meadowlands Arena.

TV, radio: ESPN, WIP-AM (610). uncertainty. Which brings us to the Flyers and the New Jersey Devils, two earnest, honest plug-alongs who have elevated the yes-but factor to a perverse and hugely entertaining new plateau. They have created a hopelessly warped Phils a testament to pretzel logic Kim Gallagher runs against time. Battling stomach cancer, she's in another kind of race Baseball is a crazy sport.

This team has defied expectations at the plate and on the mound. I j. if I jy 1 By S.A. Paolantonio INQUIRER STAFF WRITER The name Kelvin Martin will always be associated with one of the darkest days in Eagles history: Dec. 15, 1991.

A sellout crowd of 65,854 shook Veterans Stadium. The Eagles were leading the dreaded Dallas Cowboys, 10-8, late in the game. Martin then returned a fourth-quarter punt 85 yards for a heartbreaking touchdown. The Eagles lost, and missed the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. The Eagles hope this same Kelvin Martin still has some of that unexpected explosiveness.

Martin returned yesterday to the Vet to sign a one-year deal with Philadelphia estimated at $400,000. "We're excited to bring in a valuable and versatile player like Kelvin Martin," coach Ray Rhodes said of the gutsy 30-year-old wide receiver and return specialist. "He's been an accomplished wide receiver and return man in this league for a long time," Rhodes said. "We're confident he will show his big-play ability in Philadelphia." Rhodes' confidence was not shared around the league, however. After two seasons in Seattle, Martin was left exposed in the expansion draft in February.

The Jacksonville Jaguars took Martin, but decided that his $800,000 price was too high and cut him two weeks ago. Moreover, Martin does not fit the See EAGLES on D5 baseball. So naturally, here are the Phillies' pitchers with all their questions, all their departures, all their injuries leading every team in baseball in ERA (at 3.37). And not even the pitchers could have predicted that. "People keep saying, 'You'd better go get a general manager Lee Thomas said the other day.

"Well, maybe I need to go get a hitter." All right, he was mostly being facetious. But as the Phillies return to action tonight against the Astros at the Vet, the prospect of trying to figure this team out remains a tricky business especially after its fascinating, just-concluded, lose-five-in-a-row-then-win-four-in-a-row trek through the scenic state of California. See PHILLIES on D4 By Jayson Stark INQUIRER STAFF WRITER They are a living testament to just how hard baseball can be to explain. Suppose somebody had told you two months ago that the Phillies would be 12th in the league in runs scored right now. Or that Jeff Manto would have more than twice as many home runs as anybody on the roster.

Or that Jeff King would have more RDIs than Dave Hollins and Gregg Jefferies combined. If you had known all that then, where would you have expected this team to be right now? Not leading the National League East by four games. Not keeping pace with the Reds for the best record in the National League. Holding a record that looked kind of like the Ottawa Senators' is more like it. But this is a very crazy sport, this philosophical questions that sneak up on us at the worst of times.

She sits as still as a statue, but this spiritless state does not last. It cannot last. "Mommy, I want some toast," bellows a demanding 5-year-old who is all pigtails and chatter. Gallagher, 31, turns toward her daughter as if awakened from a trance. The life that momentarily left has returned.

Those zombie eyes are dancing again. "Look at her," Gallagher says of Jessica. "Look at those legs. She's going to be a runner." One day last year there was stomach pain, but so what? Gallagher, who set prep records at Upper Dublin High School in Fort Washington, had suffered as much as any elite See GALLAGHER on D6 By Elliott Almond LOS ANGELES TIMES LOS ANGELES Staring into space, she lets the question linger like twilight. She says nothing.

Her eyes do not blink, and she keeps staring until the silence becomes as unbearable as the pain from the disease that is eating away her insides. "Why?" she whispers, then shakes her head slowly to say she does not know the answer to one of life's cruelest riddles. She may be dying. Kim Gallagher, a lanky, plucky, two-time Olympic medalist in track and field's 800 meters, is suffering from stomach cancer, and as she sits in her wood-floored, stucco home in Los Angeles Miracle Mile district, she already is in another world white contemplating one of those Jit' mi Unit, Pitching coach Johnny Podres has been a big factor in the success of the Phils' staff, which has the best ERA in baseball. 1 i 1, ii.