Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 52

fti Fort Lauderdale IVew and Sun-Sentinel. Sunday. Janunrv 19 'WIS re 13? uniirir UV 1 L- IV What is left when the race track closes? Plenty of discarded bets and a sloopers looking for a pickup. Resignation that the wheel of fortune has stopped spinning' in this locale. And all that's depicted here on Tropical-at-Calder'i closing the other day.

The winter racing scene has shifted to Hia-leah until March. i Trudy Johnson casts fate to the wind. (fei "i II. 1 I i i i I I I i. -vid' One last: stoop for somebody's mistake.

Staff Photos By Henry Fichner The shrill call to post an anticlimax mt At closing time, nothing but cold reality there are no chances left. It Isn't Even Leo Posada: The FSL Yankees' New Spokesman By RAY BOETEL i Staff Writer Don't be surprised to see a bicycle parked in the players' parking lot at Fort Lauderdale Stadium this sum- mer during Yankees' baseball games, Chances are, it will belong to Leo Posada, the newly named manager of the local Class A Florida State League team. Cycling has always been Posada's first love, even before he started swinging a bat in his native Havana, Cuba. While other kids in his neighborhood, like former major league pitcher Mike Fornieles, were out playing baseball, 4 Leo and his father could be seen riding around town in the i wee hours of the morning, Leo on his bike and his father on a motorcyle. Leo got to be so good at cycling that he started racing.

He represented Cuba in the 1950 Pan-Amercian Games in Argentina, and at 14, won a -silver medal. He was the youngest athlete from the country to win a medal. He still runs a bike shop in Miami. Posada is a great believer in training, whether it is for cycling or baseball and he plans to carry this over to managing the local Yankees this summer. "To manage in professional baseball, you have to be a fundamentalist," said Posada, "but you have to win as well as develop.

"You can't develop a player with a spirit of losing. He must have that winning attitude. I believe in extra work and putting in' a lot of extra time. That is the only way you can do a job like this." Managing in the Florida State League is nothing new to Posada. He- spent a portion of the 1968' season managing the Cocoa Astros and then all of 1969 at Cocoa.

Posada broke into organized baseball back in 1954 with Corpus Christi, a Milwaukee Braves' team, in the Big State "I signed very 'I had a good arnv could run and I had some power, but back in those days it took much longer to get to the major leagues than it does' now. Posada was with the Houston Astros' organization as a manager or scout since 1968, For the last two years hef managed Cedar Rapids -in -the Midwest League. Last his team finished in third place. 7 When several of the Astros' front office staff moved over to the New York Yankees last summer in their reshuffling, Posada also moved, joining Tal Smith, the new Yankees' vice president and Pat Gillick, the farm director. "I am happy to be with the Yankees and Fort Lauderdale," Posada said.

"I am looking forward to a very successful season here and I think our fans will see an exciting club again this year." The local Yankees won their divisional title last year under manager Pete Ward. Ward has been moved up to manage the Yankees' Class AA team in West Haven this 'year. The Fort Lauderdale Yankees will open a 136-game FSL schedule April 16 at West Palm Beach against the Expos. t-1. He' A One-Man Bucky Makes A Big Dent Baseball Museum By STEVE WULF Staff Writer This may not sound right, in fact, it sounds like the lead-in to a nightclub joke By BOB PADECKY Staff Writer A year ago, when he was a rookie with the Chicago White Sox, Bucky Dent knew his name wasn't a household word in baseball.

But he was even less to the New York Yankees. The Yankees had not seen or heard of Dent and now that seems ah. --Carey' Diab used to be in ladies under-. wear. i i That is until his sons took over for him.

Still doesn't sound right, 'does it? Let's put it another way. Carey Diab owns a lingerie factory in Montreal, but now that he's semi-retired he's free to pursue his other love i'i "no, no, it's coming out all wrong. Let's start all dver. Inside of Carey Diab's underwear factory in Montreal is a museum dedicated to, of all things, base- -ball, pat's Diab's other baseball. Diab is so into baseball that, he calls himself either Canada's Mr.

Baseball or Canada's Number One Baseball Fan. His friends call him Mr. Baseball for short. Diab is how living in Tamarac five months out of the year, and he says he's -made sort of a Fort Lauderdale extension for his museum. surd they had not heard of the There were rumors of a trade between the Sox and the Yankees and the Yanks were supposedly interested in the young shortstop.

But New York players laughed at the propos- -al. "Bucky who?" they saidv Today, they know, i Dent played his first full season for the White Sox in 1974 and played better than most of the shortstops in the American League. He hit a very respectable .275, fielded his position wtih certainty and elan. Bucky Who? became Bucky Dent when Dent wound up second behind Texas' Mike Hargrove in the AL voting for Rookie of the Year. Hargrove received 16 votes for hitting .320 as a designated hitter while Dent received just three for playing every day and hitting near .300 all season.

"I think there is something wrong with the voting," said Dent. "Mike is a good hitter and he had a good year. But they only voted for a half of a Dlaver. He never fielded a hall and I Diab doesn't collect just things'The collects ballplayers. He counts among his good friends the late Roberto Clemente, Cincinnati manager Sparky Anderson, and Met outfielder Rusty Staub.

Diab, knew Clemente and Anderson as old Montreal Royals. Clemente was the property of the Dodgers back in the early 1950s. "They tried to hide him in Montreal. Walter Alston was the manager and he told Roberto to go for the long ball all the time." The Pirates -saw through the Dodgers' scheme, and Clemente went on to stardom the Hall of Fame with Pittsburgh. Staub lived with Diab for six month4 when he first came to the Expos from the Houston Astros.

Diab visits children's hospitals with his souvenirs and picture slides. His museum is a city landmark. There's even a Diab Street in Montreal. Diab has three giant scrapbooks filled with old clippings from the Sporting News and old programs and tickets. He's made a special Carey Diab scrapbook to hold his own clippings.

Though Diab's soul is devoted to the game, he never played baseball as a youne- ster.c "I played very little as a child. I tried" hard, but I wasn't good enough. My sons tried, too, but they never made it" His most prized are his World Series bats, inscribed with old 3igna-' tures of the last three World Champion teams. He also has All-Star Game balls and a ball with both Babe Ruth's and Hank be-, ayi '4b llDfevii' think the award should take into consideration the total player. "As far as I'm concerned, I thought I was the top rookie in the American League, considering the total said Dent, 23.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with my year and everything that happened to me. But I just thought the balloting sliould have been a little closer." Dent is currently working as an instructor with the Fort Lauderdale Baseball School at Pompano Beach's Municipal Stadium. He'll stay there until the Sox open their spring train- -ing camp in Sarasota at the end of February. The White Sox will not be the same this year. They will have a shortstop who people will remember but Dent has no- body to throw it to at first base.

Dick Allen, who has alwavs nreferred hnrsps tn iwmlp line Most of what he calls his "immobilia," his bats, balls, caps, pictures, and other trinkets, are still in frozen Mon- treal. Diab is keeping a few choice morsels warm in Tamarac, though, There are about 4,000 items in his collection, which is valued upwards of $20,000. His mania started back in the '30s until it grew into what is considered the single largest mass. of baseball mementos assembled outside of Cooperstown. "I'm only, glad that my happiness has brought happiness to other said Diab, who looks something like your gruff uncle.

But beneath his surly exterior is a Lebanese pussycat. never get tired of basebalL Iqgmy-' (office, baseball is spoken 12 months out of the year." decided to leave first base and baseball. I would just like to say that I think it's a shame that a guy with all that talent couldn't have gotten straightened out." Dent is one who tries to stride the middle-of-the-road. "But I have returned my contract to Chicago," said Dent. wasn't what I thought I shoulld he paid for 197S after the year I had in 1974.

1 personally don't see that much of a prob- lem negotiating. I'm sure I won't be a holdout." Aaron's signature on it. Diab says he's got the smarts to manage, but not the moral fiber. "I wouldn't be strict enough. I'd be too nice." 1 i Carey Diab's heart is as big as a base-' ball.

It probably is a baseball. A lifetime collection stares at Mr. Baseball, Carey Diab..