Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 27

i i rn i III SCOREBOARD 2 HIGH SCHOOLS 6 CLASSIFIED 7-18 ni THE CLARION-LEDGER JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1990 wors ravs The JaxMets pitcher goes 6 1 3 innings in 5-1 victory. By Joe Powell Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Young's streak Date Innings Hits BB SO April 12 6 0 2 7 April 19 7 4 1 5 April 24 613 6 1 7 Totals 1913 10 4 19 He got four or five grounders on change-ups." Young, who moved up two levels to Jackson from Class A Columbia (S.C.) of the South Atlantic League, walked one batter and struck out seven. "The kid can throw his fastball 87 mph and top out at 90," Apodaca said. "But the big thing is he believes he can do it, and he listens to what you tell him. He's taken to it like a duck takes to water." Working quickly on a warm afternoon, Young took a 4-0 lead into the seventh inning.

Travelers catcher Ed Fulton led off with a single. After Mike Ross lined out to right field, Brian Jordan singled and Greg Carmona walked. "The sun had me beat. I was exhausted," Young said. Hurdle brought in Steve LaRose, who got out of the jam when third baseman Crucito Lara turned pinch-hitter Paul Thoutsis' liner into a double play.

It was one of several fine plays by the Mets' defense. After Arkansas scored in the eighth on Joey Fernandez' sacrifice fly, Terry Bross came in with runners on first and second and two out. Ross popped to third base to end the threat. Bross pitched the ninth for his second save. Young, who was a starting safety on the University of Houston football team, was 9-6 at Columbia.

"I just made up my mind it's time to start getting to the majors," he said. The Travelers, who didn't get a hit off him in six innings on April 12, may wish he were already there. "With a guy like that, you can't look for any pitch. You have to work the count and hope for a fastball," Travelers center fielder Rick Christian said. The Mets hit a pair of homers off TraveU ers starter Isaac Alleyne, 0-1, in the second inning.

First baseman Howard Freilinghit a liner off the light tower in right field. Lara's homer was a wind-aided fly to left field. Freiling singled home another run in the Mets' two-run fifth and improved his average to .423. Right fielder Terry McDaniel extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a seventh-inning single. Jackson pitcher Anthony Young had in the words of manager Clint Hurdle his "worst start of the season" Tuesday in the Mets' 5-1 victory over Arkansas at Smith-Wills Stadium.

With 613 innings of six-hit pitching, the 24-year-old right-hander stretched his scoreless inning streak to 19 13 and improved his record to 3-0. -The Mets, who moved into first place by a half game over Shreveport in the Texas League East, won the rubber game of the five-game series. They begin a five-game series at Tulsa tonight. Mets pitching coach Bob Apodoca agreed with Hurdle. "Yeah, it was his worst start as far as stuff, but it was a very solid effort," he said.

"He made some outstanding adjustments. A BILLY I WATKINS Columnist The Clarion-Ledger i Brewer opposes move The Rebel coach says I i he doesn't want to open with Arkansas for TV. By Mike Knobler Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer fr. 1 p. mmmm.

1 Major experience helps Hurdle in the minors George Kissell, a minor-league instructor who has served the St. Louis Cardinals for 51 years, stood in the sunshine and green grass Tuesday at Smith-Wills Stadium and thought back to a day 13 years ago. "It was in Omaha," said Kissell, a pleasant, stocky man dressed in Cardinal red and white and thick, goggle-like sunglasses. "First time I saw him, he was a 19-year-old center fielder. Best four-plus player I've ever seen." That's baseball talk, meaning he could run, throw, hit, hit for power and then some.

"I mean, he was like Mantle and Mays. The guy could do everything." Kissell was talking about Clint Hurdle, now 32 and manager of the Jackson Mets. "It was sad, really," Kissell said, standing in right field and knocking stray batting practice balls back to the infield with a fungo bat. "He had such great talent then before his career was over, he was a third-string catcher, just trying to hang on." Clint Hurdle never lived up to expectations. All his talent and tools dissolved into a .259 batting average over 10 big-league seasons.

His best year was 1980 with Kansas City when he hit .294 with 116 hits, 10 homers and 60 RBIs. But he is not bitter about what might have been. "I believe God prepares us for the future through our past," Hurdle said in his office prior to the Mets' Tuesday afternoon game with Arkansas. "Believe me, not a whole lot catches me by surprise in this game. Nothing the players might try, because I've tried it.

Nothing that happens on the field, because I've seen it. Not the fact that a player might be able to fall out of a boat and not hit water, because I've been there. "Yet I don't have to come across as the Shell 4 4t lv Tom RosterThe Clarion-Ledger John Hartley, park manager of the Grenada Reservoir, doesn't mind getting his feet wet or the rest of him to pull in a nice crappie. Ole Miss football coach Billy i Brewer apparently contradicted his athletic director Tuesday by coming out against rescheduling the Arkan- sas game for television. Rebel athletic director Warner i Alford said last week that he had I discussed the situation with Brewer 1 and that both favored moving game from Sept.

22 to Sept. 1. Cable station ESPN wants to show the game at 3 or 3:30 p.m. as the opener of a college football dou-bleheader. Arkansas coach Jack Crowe has been considering the move, which a College Football Association official said would bring each team, $275,000.

Whatever the date, the game will be played in Little Rock. "I have no wish to play it (Sept. 1), and I don't think Coach Crowe does," Brewer said. "It's not the right time for us to play it. There's some pluses and minuses, and they're not in favor for either team." Alford refused to comment Tuesday night on whether Brewer had changed Ole Miss' position.

Alford also refused to say what the Rebels' position is. "When it gets down to (Arkansas athletic director) Frank Broyles wants to move the ball game, then I'll tell you what we feel about it," Alford said. "I won't speculate on 'what Ole Miss is currently scheduled to open Sept. 8 in Oxford against Memphis State. Brewer said moving up the opener would move up the start of fall practice, and he doesn't want to do that.

He also said his team wouldn't be ready to open against the defending Southwest Conference champion. "We don't have a quarterback," Brewer said, referring to the lack of experience at that position. Top returnee Russ Shows played in only five games last season, and most of those appearances were in the short-yardage offense. Alford said last week that there were three advantages to playing the game Sept. 1 on ESPN: money, television exposure and a needed open date.

The Rebels are currently scheduled to play nine games before getting a week off. Rescheduling Arkansas for Sept. 1 would give the Rebels a break after three games and another after nine. Brewer said he prefers the current schedule, and he discounted the ef- feet of television exposure in a Sept. 1 game.

"How many weeks later would it still have an impact on he said. "How many weeks later will you still have exposure?" 1 LTU Thursday Lake Washington jiiljijj. i i.i A week on the water II Answer Man or a know-it-all. I can simply say, I'Hey, I've been through it. I know how you Journeyman studied the game Certainly, Hurdle experienced baseball at 6oth ends of the spectrum.

He was a bonus Baby whose mug was on the cover of Sports II-tustra ted before his 21st birthday. And he was a journeyman player, "the 24th, 25th player on Jthe roster nothing more than an extra guy," he said without shame. Who better to relate to minor-league star gazers than Clint Hurdle? He began preparing for a manager's career during his final four seasons in the majors. "With my appearances limited, I had an extraordinary amount of time to watch the games," Hurdle said. "I studied.

I saw wAy guys who were good were good. I saw their work ethics, their commitment." Hurdle learned under some of the best Da-vey Johnson, Whitey Herzog, the late Dick Howser, Mike Cubbage. He has tried to apply the best of all four. Hurdle has been there It has worked. In 1988 and 1989, his first two seasons as a manager, Hurdle's Class A Port St.

Lucie teams were 153-120. The '88 team won the Florida State League championship. He is strict, yet he is a player's manager. Asked if he has many team rules, he removed two pages worth from his office bulletin board. See WATKINS, 7C that it allows you to sneak up on them.

"You can slide your feet along the bottom and stay quiet. If you're in a boat with a paddle or a trolling motor, you can spook the fish." April is the time of year that Grenada crappie go shallow and send Hartley looking for his chest waders. "The peak spawning time here in usually around April 15, but this year we didn't seem to have had a peak," he said. "We had a lot of weather fronts that seemed to keep the spawn staggered. A few fish seem to move into the shallows at a time.

There really hasn't been a peak when it seemed a lot of fish moved in at one time. "There have been times in other years when you could catch it right, when most of them moved in at one time, and catch a pair of crappie off every stickup." Grenada, a Corps of Engineers lake that can range in size from 40,000 acres at the recreational (summer) pool level to as many as 60,000 acres at flood stage, has When fishing for crappie, the angler likes to get into his objective. By Bobby Cleveland Clarion-Ledger Outdoors Editor GRENADA John Hartley doesn't need a boat when the crappie start spawning on Grenada Reservoir. He'd rather wade, and Tuesday, under beautiful blue skies, Hartley showed why he chooses that fishing method. In two hours, in a cove called Hurricane Branch, he put a whipping on three fishermen who stayed dry aboard their fishing boats.

Hartley 7, us 6. "Putting on the waders and getting out in the water with the fish is the way I like to catch crappie," said Hartley, a Grenada park ranger for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "For one thing, wading allows you to fish more places. You can get back into the willows where boats can't go, and Grenada crap-pie like to get real shallow to spawn.

The other advantage is rence and Perry Creek are the best on Skuna. "During the summer, most fishermen just move out to the outside edges of the coves (including those listed above) and drift fish in 10 and 12 feet of water," said Larry Parks, who operates Lakeway bait shop near the dam. "They also have a lot of success just trolling the open water in the main lake." Parks said the best summer areas are Choctaw and Carver Point on the Yalobusha side and Turkey on the Skuna side. Just because he can't wade and catch fish during the other times of the year, that doesn't mean Hartley puts his pole away See GRENADA, 3C 5 several spawning areas just right for wading. "We're at 215 (pool elevation) now, which is our normal summer level," Hartley said.

"That puts plenty of water on the banks where the button willows are." The crappie just follow the creeks and ditches into the coves and eventually around the willows for spawning. Grenada Reservoir is Y-shaped because it was formed around the confluence of the Yalobusha and Skuna Rivers. The dam is a few miles below the spot where the rivers meet. Hurricane Branch, Red Grass and North Graceport are the three best spawning areas on the Yalobusha side. Bryant, Tor- Tuesday sports by the numbers TV today The best: Cincinnati left the ranks of the undefeated recently, but he White Sox 4 Reds still own the hottest start in the major leagues.

Cincy plays Philadelphia at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN. Braves 1 Reds 3 Astros 3 Cubs 3 Cardinals 0 Giants 1 Ump charged with theft National League umpire Bob Engel has been charged with stealing 4,180 baseball cards from a retail store, authorities said. Engel, 56, was released on $5,000 bail from Kem County Jail Saturday and is scheduled to be arraigned May 2 on misdemeanor counts of commercial burglary and petty theft, police said Tuesday. A security officer at the store told police that Engel put seven boxes of Score baseball cards, valued at $143.98, into a brown paper bag he pulled from the waistband of his pants.

Inside Alcorn State quarterback Fred "Air" McNair of Mount Olive signs as a free agent with the Dallas Cowboys, according to the school. Officials said McNair signed three one-year pacts. 3C. Tracy Echols goes 3 for 4 with a home run and a triple to lead Mississippi State to an 8-5 victory over Mississippi College in Clinton. 6C.

Wingfield's hopes for a berth in the Class 4A state baseball playoffs are kept alive with a 1-0 victory over Madison-Rid-geland. 4C. BASEBALL Colleges Miss. State 8 Miss. College 5 USM 9 Alcorn State 1 William Carey 6-1 Delta State 3-2 Arkansas State-Ole Miss ppd.

rain American League Brewers 7 Royals 3 Yankees 6 Mariners 2 Athletics 7 Orioles 1 Red Sox 4 Angels 2 Blue Jays 4 Indians 3 Twins 16 Tigers 4 Rangers 5 National League Mets 2 Phillies 6 Expos 5 Padres 13... Dodgers 3 Pirates 4 HOCKEY Stanley Cup Playoffs DIVISION FINALS Blackhawks 3 Oilers 6 The rest: Just one. The only other televised live sports is a dual college track meet between Oregon and California at 11 p.m. on ESPN. Complete listings, 2C Blues 2 Kings 5 A.