The Bismarck Tribune from Bismarck, North Dakota • 39

Baseball SlMitt, JULY 27, 2003 CD Former Dome official says he "fl 1 neiDea iwms -i 1 I -ft A v. AP Blasts of air may given Minnesota batters an extra edge MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Sometimes a home run sails so sweetly past the outfkid, the ball seems to have the wind behind it. At the Metrodome, maybe it did. Dick Ericson, the former superintendent of the Metrodome, told the Star Tribune that he tried to manipulate the trajectory of baseballs by turning on more electric fans behind home plate and adjusting the air conditioning in late innings of close games. A current Metrodome employee confirmed that he saw Ericson manipulate the fans and that Ericson talked about doing it.

Ericson, who worked at the Metrodome from the time the Twins moved there in 1982 until he retired in 1995, told the newspaper. "If they (the Twins) were down two runs and you're still hoping for them to have the advantage, you'd want to be blowing all the air out and up as much as you can." He added, "1 don't feel guilty. It's vour home-field advan Eddie Murray, above, and Gary Carter, right, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame today. different, imilar lyet so Murray, Carter enter Hall of Fame together MIf they (the Twins) were down two runs arid you re still hoping for them to have the advantage, )Wd want to be blowing all the about and up as much as you can Dick Ericson former Metrodome superintendent sense, I dont know if it holds a lot of water." Bill Lester, executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operates the Metrodome, said Ericson was "a wonderful employee, a wonderful elderly man," but he called his claim "a bunch of hooey." Steve MakL director of facilities and engineering at the Metrodome, said that while it is possible to turn on mechanical fans in the area between first and third base behind home plate, he has never seen any operator attempt to manipulate the air currents. In the Metrodome the only major league stadium with an inflatable roof air pressure to keep the roof inflated is generated from fans that blow air through a special corridor and over the field.

The fans are controlled through the dome's operations center. Virgil Ophus, who worked under Ericson and is still employed at the Dome, said he recalls being in the operations center and watching Ericson come in and turn on various fans in hopes of affecting the game. "He'd start the fans and he thought it'd help," Ophus said. "He did it when he felt like doing it" Ivan Marusic, a professor of fluid dynamics with expertise in aerodynamics at the University of Minnesota, was intrigued by the idea of whether the air currents could affect the path of a baseball after the Star Tribune told him about the allegations. In January, he offered a special class on the effect of air currents on the trajectory of baseballs inside an indoor stadium.

His students built an air cannon with enough power to launch baseballs into the upper deck. One morning in April, Marusic assembled his class on the Metrodome turf and set up the air cannon to the right of home plate. Students in the operations center monitored the fan controls being run by the Dome field crew. Marusic periodically asked that operators turn various fans onoroff. After firing 83 baseballs at a 50-degree angle, Marusic analyzed the results and concluded that the balls went, on average, about 3 feet farther when the fans behind home plate were blowing.

He also tested the opposite scenario and discovered that balls landed about 3 feet shorter when the outfield runs, and 68 RBIs in 144 games. He became the Expos' full-time catcher in 1977 and developed into one of the game's best defensive backstops. In that first full season behind the plate, Carter led NL catchers in putouts, assists, total chances, and double plays. "All I ever wanted to do was play," said Carter, who had nine knee operations during his 19-year career. "I never feared embarrassing myself.

If I am remembered, I hope it's most for giving it all I had and playing hard every day." In 1981, Carter made his first All-Star start behind the plate and hit two home runs to win fame MVP honors. He led the xpos to their first and only playoff berth. Despite winning his second All-Star MVP award, attaining career highs in hits (175) and batting average and leading the league with 106 RBIs in 1984, Carter was traded to the New York Mets after the season. With the Mets in 1985, Carter hit a career-high 32 home runs, drove in 100 runs, and batted .281 while handling a talented young pitching staff that included Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez. The next year, Carter drove in 105 runs and led the Mets to their stunning World Series victory over the Boston Red Sox, driving in II runs in the postseason.

Although Carter hit 324 homers, his two-out single in the bottom of the 10th of Game 6 may have been the most important hit of his career. With the Mets trailing 5-3 and after the scoreboard in left briefly flashed "Congratulations, Red Sox" Carter lined a 2-1 pitch from Calvin Schiraldi to left to begin the dramatic three-run rally that gave the Mets their improbable victory and forced a Game 7, which they won. We won over the city," said Carter, now a roving catching instructor for the Mets. "There were 2.5 million people at the parade going crazy. It was awesome." After single-season stints in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Carter returned to the Expos for one final campaign before retiring.

He still holds the major league career record for most putouts at catcher (11,785) and most chances accepted at catcher Weaver said. "I had a veteran (May) who had performed well for us. He was a good first baseman and great guy to have on the team. Maybe people got the wrong impression of Eddie right off the bat." He certainly made a big impression with his bat, hitting .283 with 27 homers and 88 RBIs the sort of numbers "Steady Eddie" would produce with amazing regularity throughout his career and being named AL Rookie of the Year. "When 1 came up, everyone was tryingto say I was a home run hitter? Murray said.

"I didn't want to be labeled that I wanted to be a hitter." The switch-hitting Murray quickly became one of the most feared clutch hitters of his generation. He hit 504 homers, including 19 grand slams, second in majorleague history to Lou Gehrig's 23. He also drove in at least 75 runs for a major league-record 20 consecutive seasons. Those who knew Murray best adored him. When Cal Ripken broke Gehrig's consecutive games played record in 1995, Murray was one of four people he specifically thanked, saving it was his teammate's professionalism that made him believe that he should be in the lineup every day.

"He was a fantastic teammate," said Ken Singleton, who played on the Orioles with Murray from 1977-84. "That's why quite of a few of his former teammates are going to be there on Sunday. He was just a guy you could rely on, and not just on the field." Murray played in three World Series in his 21 seasons, winning the title in 1983 as the first baseman and cleanup hitter for the Orioles However, the affection from fans and the media that Murray had earned deteriorated after a misunderstanding with team owner Edward Bennett Williams. In 1986, Murray had a hamstring injury and Williams accused him of dogging it, even though for his career, Murray tage. Every stadium has got one." The Twins won World Scries in 1987 and 1991.

In one memorable game Game Six of the 1991 series against Atlanta Hall-of-Famer Kirby Puckett drove a game-winning, eleventh-inning home run over the left field walL Ericson said the fans were blowing out when Puckett knocked the ball out of the park. Still, he said he believes the Twins won their games on their own ability, and he also believes Puckett hit his famous homer hard enough to knock it out without an extra push from the ventilation system. Ericson said manipulating the air flow was his idea and that he was never asked to do it by Twins officials or by the sports commission. Nor did Twins or Metrodome officials ever ask him whether he manipulated air flow, he said. Speculation about favorable air currents in the Metrodome was widespread among opposing players and coaches and became a source of media conjecture, deepening the mystique of the Metrodome.

Bobbv Valentine and his players had begun to suspect that someone was manipulating the ventilation system in the Metrodome in 1987. Valentine, then managing the Texas Rangers manager, said his suspicions initially came from his nlavers. who told him that in the late innings they often felt a breeze against their faces when they were on the field, as though the air was blowing toward the outfield. But when they took their turn at the plate, the Rangers felt the breeze against their faces, as though the currents were blowing inward to keep balls from leaving the park. Whether Ericson and his electric fans truly affected the outcome of Twins games is debatable; independent tests conducted this year by a University of Minnesota professor were inconclusive.

Twins and Metrodome officials said they had no knowledge of Ericson or anyone else attempting to manipulate the air currents, and they have doubts it ever happened. "It's kind of romantic to speculate about it," said Matt Hoy, Twins vice president of operations. "But in a practical played in 90 percent of his teams' games. "To me, it was senseless," Singleton said. "He's a guy who had played every single day.

To intimate he was jalung it was ridiculous. Terrible. It probably hurt him." It did. "I'm sorry he did what he did," said Murray, who with I lank Aaron and Willie Mays are the only players in history to amass both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. "1 always said the most important thing to me was that my teammates knew I was there every day and knew what I was about.

And that was questioned. That's the way it goes." Murray's eventual return to the lineup coincided with the start of a slump by the Orioles, who went on to post just one winning season in six. As a star. Murray became the prime target Feeling betrayed by a community to which he had given so much, including millions of dollars to improve Baltimore's inner city, Murray stopped talking to the media and requested a trade. The Orioles dealt him to Los Angeles in December 1988, and for the next several years, he quietly put up decent numbers with the Dodgers, Mets and Cleveland Indians.

He rejoined the Orioles at midseason in 1996. When he retired in 1997, Murray had played more games at first base than anyone else in history, and only Mickey Mantle had hit more home runs as a switch-hitter (536). While Murray was mauling American League pitchers, Carter was doing the same in the National League and developing into one of the finest catchers in major league history. Although Carter was a star quarterback in high school in the Los Angeles suburb of Fullerton ana signed a letter of intent to play football at UCLA, he chose baseball after being selected by the Montreal Expos in the 1972 free-agent draft. Carter, nicknamed "Kid" for his youthful exuberance, worked his way up the Expos' minor-league ladder, plaving catcher, outfield, first and third base, and made the big club for good in 1975.

As a rookie, Carter was named to his first All-Star team and finished the season with a .270 batting average, 17 home Padres for more than 30 years and is considered to be the next in Una As with player inductions, politics and controversy surround the Frick Award, which is named for a former baseball commissioner. The 2003 winner was picked by a seven-member panel of announcers that included Bob Costas, Curt Gowdy, Ernie Harwell, Joe Morgan, in Scully and Garagiola and author Curt Smith. In the past, the committee was smaller and there was speculation that some voters might haw rejected Uecker candidacy because he was a former -player (Garagiola is the only other former player to win the Frick Award) and because of is participation in television, commercials and movies. Smith, an author who has written several books on baseball announcers, considers Uecker's broad appeal to be a strength. By JOHN KEKIS Associated Press CO0PERST0WN, N.Y.

-Outwardly, they couldn't have been more different: Eddie Murray, the silent slugger, and Gary Carter, the and smiling "Kid." Yet their lives have been almost mirror images: Both were born in the Los Angeles area, just two years apart; both were drafted in the third round; both played for the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers; and both played on one world champion. And today, both will enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. "This is pretty awesome," said Murray, only the 38th play-. er elected in his first year of eli-gibility. "This is the main place to be.

I can't wait." Carter's election in January came on his sixth try. T. "My emotions are running sky-high," he said. "It completes my lite, my career. Joining them on the podium in Cooperstown will be Milwau-kee Brewers announcer Bob Decker, who will be honored the Ford Frick Award for 7 excellence in broadcasting, and Ohio sports writer Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News, who won the J.G.

Taylor Spink Award. Born in 1956, Murray grew Z. up in a family of 12 children. At Locke High School, he starred with fellow Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith and progressed quickly through the minors after the Orioles drafted him in 1973. After a torrid spring training in 1977, Murray was ready for 0 the next level, and Orioles man- ager Earl Weaver knew it.

I'. "He burned up the Winter League in Puerto Rico, and all the scouts down there kept telling me he was some kind of player," Weaver said. "At the last cut, they said they were sending him down, and I said, 'You can't. You'll break his So Weaver made Murray the desipated hitter and a willing sub for veteran first baseman Lee May. It was a sensitive time.

"It was a bad situation," Uecker gets By DREW OLSON Knight Ridder Newspapers COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. During his days as a stand-up comedian and frequent guest on "The Tonight Show," Bob Uecker did a routine about the disappointment he felt at being passed over for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. "Sitting around all those years," the Milwaukee Brewers announcer said, "with your wife and kids, waiting for the phone, it finally got to the point where I had to say, "Hey, I dont need it. I can bronze mv own glove and hang it on a nail in my garage and build a little grotto out Uecker, a lifetime .200 hitter who never hit a triple or stole a base, didn't make it to baseball grand hall as a player. He will, however, share the stage with Hall of Famers on today when he receives the Ford Frick Award, which is presented annually for major contribu- his front-row seat at Cooperstown fans were turned on, blowing air inward, and the home plate fans were turned off.

But Marusic got very different results when he ran the experiment again in May. This time he fired 64 balls at angles of 36, 42 and 50 degrees. Marusic counseled caution about concluding whether air blown out of the ducts could aff ect the ball's trajectory. "I'm saying it's possible," he said. "I am not saving it's Sioux-Per Swine Tour "Bob is a terrific play-by-play man, but his niche extends beyond baseball," Smith said.

"There are very few voices in baseball that have trespassed beyond the game itself. He's one of them." Get Bob Uecker will be honored at the Hall of Fame for his broadcasting skills. tions to baseball broadcasting. "There's no greater honor when baseball is the sport you broadcast said Houston Astros announcer Milo Hamilton, who won the award in 1992. "You never know what war will be your year.

The year got it, I thought it was going to te Bob Murphv. That's now much I know. You don't know from year to year who they are considering. I haven't been right yet I thought this year it might be Jerry Coleman." Coleman, a former New York Yankees star who was a decorated fighter pilot in World War II and the Korean War, has been the voice of the San Diego in the swing iih UND coaches and a round of golf at the beautiful Hawktrce Golf Club in Bismarck. Monday, August 4 Registration and lunch begin at 1 1 :30 a.m., ith tee time at 1 :00 p.m.

Social, dinner and program start at 6:30 p.m. REGISTER NOW by calling (800) 543-8764 or go online at www.undalumni and click on ReunionsEvents. AH proceeds support UND Alhletks. Alumni Sponsored Association.