Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 15

fo) lQ) Stale Fair horae racing 2B AL, NL roundups 3B Italian team signs Ferry. 48 News torn NFL camps. 48 Great Falls Tribune Wednesday. August 2, 1989 Shoemaker set ers defeat for Fair races Braves I i ii IDAHO FALLS, Idaho Mike Wismer tripled in a run and later scored on an error as the Great Falls Dodgers scored twice in the 10th inning en route to a 5-3 victory over the Idaho Falls Braves Tuesday night in Pioneer League play. The win improved the Dodgers record to 29-8 this summer.

Great Falls, the defending Pioneer champions, owns a comfortable lead over the Helena Brewers in the loop's Northern Division. Mike Frame, the fourth Great Falls pitcher, picked up the mound victory with 2i3 innings of scoreless work. He is 1-1. Great Falls led by margins of 2-0 and 3-2 for much of the game, but Idaho Falls tied the score on both occasions. In the Dodgers' first inning, Anthony Collier doubled home the game's first run.

Great Falls scored again in the fourth. Wismer and Craig White walked to lead off the frame. Lee De Loach later drove in a run with an infield single. Dodgers starter Kiki Jones breezed until the fifth, when Idaho Falls strung together four hits including a solo homer by Ken Har-ring to score twice. See DODGERS, 2B midst of a celebrated Farewell Tour that began in Europe two months ago and will make stops in five continents before winding down next spring, make an appearance in Great Falls, Montana? No offense intended, of course, but State Fair just isn't the type of glamorous track one might expect to associate with the most celebrated jockey of all-time.

"I didn't really select Great Falls," Shoemaker says. "I think they selected me." Local racing fans should be happy about it. Here is an opportunity to watch the man at work, the one who longtime peer Johnny Longden calls "The greatest." It is a chance to see history. Eddie Arcaro, no small name himself in the business, says Shoemaker "must be considered one of the outstanding athletes in the history of sports. I doubt we'll ever see another race rider having his special combinatin of talent.

He has it all and has done it all." Shoemaker was a tiny ninth-grader in California a wrestling and boxing champion but too small for team sports when he was introduced to horses. He knew nothing of the animals, but, as he says, "it didn't take me long to learn." He won his first race in 1949. When the curtain closes on his spectacular career, set for Feb. 4 at Santa Anita, Shoemaker will have competed in six decades. He enjoys it still, which is why retirement has been forced to wait.

"I've been thinking about (retirement) for 15 years," he says. "But I never got around to it until now." Shoemaker's tour continues this weekend in Philadelphia. He admits that it has been a grind, but also a rewarding experience. Shoemaker knows little about the mounts he will board Wednesday night, just that he expects to be in the race. "Win, lose or draw," he says.

"I'm going to go out there and have fun and enjoy it." That should certainly go double for local horse racing fans. By SCOTT MANSCH Tribune Sports Writer This is all you need to know about the athletic prowess of legendary jockey Bill Shoemaker: Using borrowed, full-sized clubs and playing hurriedly because of time constraints, the 4-foot-ll, 98-pound Shoemaker fired a 43-47 90 Tuesday afternoon during a round of golf at Meadow Lark Country Club. "It could easily have been five shots better," said playing partner Al Bell. "He has a great swing; very, very, smooth." At spacious Meadow Lark, this is no small feat, no pun intended. But it shouldn't surprise anyone that Shoemaker, the winningest jockey in horse racing history, should do well in a somewhat foreign athletic arena.

After all, "The Shoe" has been called one of the best and most amazing athletes in American history. "I've just been very lucky. That's it," he says when asked about his incredible longevity. "Nothing special." Shoemaker, 57 with a birthday this month, is in Great Falls on business. Sort of.

He will ride two races Wednesday night at State Fair, thus giving Montanans a close-up view of the reknowned kingpin of thoroughbred racing. Undoubtedly, if horse racing is the "sport of kings," Shoemaker is its Arthur. In a career that has spanned 40 years, he has ridden more than 40,000 races winning nearly 22 percent of the time. Shoemaker's 8,800 winning rides have produced more than $121 million in earnings. Shoemaker has won more than 1,000 Stakes races.

He has ridden four Kentucky Derby winners, two Preakness Stakes champions, and five Belmont Stakes winners. And now, just four years after winning the Derby aboard longshot Ferdinand, and with no noticeable slippage of his accomplished skills, Shoemaker is hanging them up. "It wasn't a tough decision at all," he says. "I knew it was time." The obvious question, of course, is why as in why here? Why would Shoemaker, in the Working overtime GREAT FALLS (I) IDAHO FALLS (1) at eb bi 4 0 2 1 4 0 2 Goodwin cf Barker ss Collier If Deutsch lb O'Donnell 3b Wismer rf White dh Teelc DeLoach2b 4 0 10 1100 5 0 11 5 111 5 0 10 4 3 110 5 0 0 0 3 111 Slmjcf Burton rf Houston Sparrow lb Rlgsbvdh Olmeda ss Thomas 3b Harrlng 2b Pulllns cf Sweeney If Totals IN 100 5 0 0 0 5 0 10 4 0 0 0 4 0 10 4 0 10 3 3 11 2 110 0 0 0 0 14 3 I 100 2-5 14SI4 Totolt Great Fallt 10 Idaho Font E-Olmeda DP Great Falls 1. Idaho Falls 1.

LOB Great Falls Idaho Falls 7. 2B Collier, Sims. Goodwin, Thomas. 3B Wismer. HR Harrlng (3).

SB Goodwin, Sims. IP ER BB SO Great Falls Jones 4 7)217 Crane 0 0 112 Humber 21-3 2 0 0 0 Frame 1-1 1 2-3 0 0 0 1 Idaho Falls Lemon 4 3 2 2 4 Osmon 2 3 113 Parker 0-1 4 2 2 1 1 Crane pitched to 2 batters in the 7th. PB Houston 2. Balk Lemon, Parker. 3:05.

A 1,333. Tribune Photo by Wayne Arnsf the seventh and 10th at State Fair Wednesday Willie Shoemaker will ride in two races evening. STTFl The trade Viola hopes move to New York will mean even more success Vecsey George Vecsey is a nationally syndicated sports columnist. From heroes to ancient history NEW YORK Pompeii is history, embedded in lava. Joan of Arc is history, a woman with a sword.

Lyndon Johnson is history to a new generation. And in baseball, Mookie Wilson and Frank Viola are history in their former towns. They became history by taking off their Mets and Twins uniforms for the last time and moving on to new teams. What they did is unforgettable, but even to their 'former teammates they quickly become as distant as Montezuma or Marco Polo. "We have a game here at 1 o'clock," said Tom Kelly, the Minnesota manager, the morning after the Twins traded Viola, who had pitched them to their only world championship.

"That's in the past," said Jeff Reardon, the Twins' closer, about 1987. "One thing I discovered from playing in the All-Star Game is that all teams are a great bunch of guys," said Gary Gaetti, the Twins' field leader. The Mets, who had made a justifiable deal of five young pitchers for Viola, fully intended to take the field Tuesday night in St. Louis despite the trading of Mookie, who once took the most important time at bat in the history of the franchise. This is the way it should be, because baseball, even more than the rest of life, belongs to the young.

Nobody can be sure what Mookie Wilson will do for the Toronto Blue Jays except bring a dash of warmth and decency to their clubhouse. He can still run, but he has not hit all season. There was a time, however, way back in October 1986, my granddaddy used to talk about it, when Wilson came to bat against Bob Stanley of the Boston Red Sox. Many Mets' fans were convinced that Mookie would take three quick hacks and the season would be over. Instead, he eluded a wild pitch near his ankles, See VECSEY, 2B Jackson, who is currently on the disabled list, was the losingest pitcher in the AL over two seasons then became a 23-game winner with Cincinnati last season.

Ojeda, Viola's new teammate, and St. Louis' Tudor, each flourished after leaving Boston, and Martinez, formerly of Baltimore and now with Montreal, is the hottest pitcher in baseball with a 12-1 record. The last time Viola was in Busch Stadium was 1987 and the Twins were playing the Cardinals in the World Series. "Tom Lawless is going around in my head," said Viola, who gave up a three-run homer to Lawless in Game 4. "It's a big ballpark." Viola also lost Game 1 in St.

Louis, but the Twins went on to beat the Cards in Game 7 at the Metrodome and was named most valuable player. Viola said he was almost certain he would still be with the Twins on Tuesday, especially when nothing had happened and the trading deadline was just a half hour away. "But something told me something's still going on. I just had this gut feeling. That's when the manager called about the waiver in the trade clause or whatever and I figured something was close," he said.

As for Minnesota, he said there were no bad feelings. "A baseball career's too short to worry about that. It was a kind of tough year this year starting with the contract and then the trade talks the last couple of weeks, but I have a lot of fond memories of Minnesota," Viola said. Viola signed a three-year, $7.9 million contract in the first week of the season. He is the highest-paid player in baseball, along with NL Cy Young winner Orel Hershiser.

See VIOLA, 2B By PAUL LeBAR AP Sports Writer ST. LOUIS Mark Langston, Danny Jackson, Bob Ojeda, John Tudor, Dennis Martinez. There's a long list of pitchers who were even more successful once they went to the National League. Frank Viola wants to be one of them. Viola joined his new teammates on the New York Mets on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the Minnesota Twins traded him back to the team he grew up rooting for.

Changing leagues isn't a problem, he said; the only thing he wants to change are stats this season his and the Mets. "When I'm able to establish my three pitches fastball, curve and change if I have those three working, I pitch more to uniforms than personalities. If I have that working I don't see a big difference," he said. Viola, who will wear No. 26 and start against the Cardinals on Wednesday night, could be a huge difference for the Mets, a team on a seven-game losing streak and without ace Dwight Gooden, who is recovering from a torn muscle under his right armpit, i Gooden, who wears the No.

16 Viola did with the Twins, is not expected to return to the rotation until late August. The Twins sent Viola, the 1988 AL Cy Young Award winner, to the Mets one minute before Monday's midnight trading deadline. In exchange, the Mets gave the Twins pitchers Rick Aguilera, Tim Drummond, Kevin Tapani and David West, and a player to be named later. Langston is 9-3 since moving from Seattle to the Expos for three pitchers on May 25. The first-place Expos are 38-21 since acquiring the left-hander.

Frank Vioia Despite the weather, the move out west has been exciting ble for my 1975 George Brett mini-card. tally, I was reading Eliot Asinofs "Eight Men Out" Chad Roberts Roberts is a Tribune sports reporter. Tuesday was my one-month anniversary in the great state of Montana, and there are a few things about Montana which you natives don't bother to tell folks outside the borders. The first is the climate. Who would believe this? All day long it's the Sahara Desert.

From 7 p.m. on until early morning hours, it's the Amazon rain forest. Oh, and watch out for the lightning. When you mention the weather to somebody who has lived here for a while, you get the pat answer. 'It's never been like this or 'this is the hottest spell I can ever remember, or even, 'the humidity has never been this bad What's the deal, everybody in this state work for a chamber of commerce or something? You all just saw me coming.

This whole move out west has been exciting, if not a little hurried. Six weeks ago, sitting in my dungeon of an apartment in Cadillac, Michigan, it would have never occurred on August 1 1 would have lived in Great Falls, Montana for a month. during the trip, so the view of Comiskey added just a little bit of color to the book. Once you get through the Minnesota-North Dakota portion of the drive, you sort of get a feeling of relief and accomplishment crossing into Montana. Unfortunately, you still have 400 miles of driving left.

Instead of going via expressway from Glendive to Great Falls, I had the great idea to take 200, cruising through the backroads of Big Sky country. I found the ride interesting. My brother, more used to the Detroit suburbs, kept muttering out loud about how he got talked into driving through vast stages of not much. It's doubtful the old Geo will see the 200 route again. There didn't seem to be many Geo dealerships in Circle or Jordan.

Just thinking about breaking a fan belt or some other part out there was a little nerve-wracking. I've already realized the top benefit by moving to Montana. The Tigers didn't make my stomach hurt once all month. The trip was 1,850 miles. That didn't seem so bad, except the Weather Channel said it was going to be 100 degrees in North Dakota the day-and-a-half my brother and I would be cruising through the state.

Just the kind of ride you'd want to make in a three-cylinder car without air conditioning. There were several points of interest along the way I was looking forward to seeing. The first definitely was not Gary, Indiana. This town takes a lot of abuse from people in the midwest, but after driving through it again, it just reaffirms the feeling this town deserves everything it gets. Gary smells bad.

Real bad. Alex Karras grew up in Gary. He went to school at Iowa. Get the picture. Driving the length of Chicago and its suburbs, the size and number of people, cars, people in cars.

Just about 10 times as many people in that one compacted area as there are in this huge state. Amazing. The best thing about Chicago was driving by Comi-skey Park. A lot of history in that ballpark. Coinciden- with me.

After checking out the finanaces, it was painfully obvious there would be no U-Haul in my future. Whatever fit in my Geo, a car so large my brother affectionately refers to it as the "zit," was what was coming out west. After packing the car, the sad fact was I couldn't fit my baseball cards in. They are safely packed away in my grandfather's attic. I am holding grandpa responsi- jusi rominaie i uiuii i nave muui aiuu iu uim6.