El Paso Times from El Paso, Texas • 13

El Paso Times flit I Sunday. April 12. 1992 IU Baseball is a family affair for El Paso's Guerrero brothers "Sometimes, baseball can be very lonely and it gets hard. But with my brother there, I can pick him up and he can pick me up." Mike Guerrero, El Paso Diablos 1111 jSswwb By Steve Ramirez El- Paso Times 'i The goal of Mike and Sandy Guerrero is simple. They want to become the first infield brother combination from the Dominican Republic to play in the majors.

But before they get" that chance, they'll sharpen their skills this season with the El Paso Diablos. To say the Guerreros are excited to be playing on the same team would be an understatement. Start with the word "estatic" to describe it and go from there. "This is the greatest thing to happen to me in baseball," Mike Guerrero said. "In my family, it's pretty tight.

There's five brothers and we've never fought. This is just great. Soon, (our) family will all be here together. It's very, very nice." The Guerreros wouldn't be the first brothers from the Domini- ball. But it's hard when there's nobody there to share them with.

Sometimes, baseball can be very lonely and it gets hard. But with my brother there, I can pick him up and he can pick me up." But also a part of minor league baseball are promotions. While neither Guerrero has yet to sample the life of a major leaguer, both are more than willing to help the other get there as soon as possible. Playing together seems like Utopia for the Guerreros, but neither plans to hold the other back from achieving the ultimate goal. "Sure, it'd be tough to see one of us go and the other to stay," Mike Guerrero said.

"But, I'd be happy, very happy, for him." Sandy said each can help the other. "I know him and he know's me better than anyone," Sandy said. "Experience is a big thing and I think I've got some of that. But Mike can help me, too, because I'm not perfect." Mike Guerrero, 19 months and two days younger, said he could help his brother by lending moral support. Sandy hit .282 last year for the Denver Zephyrs, Milwaukee Brewers' Class AAA affiliate.

However, Sandy had surgery on both shoulders after the season ended. "He felt down after the surgeries," Mike said. "I can understand not many have recovered from something like that. "You might have some up and down times. That's part of base can Republic to play in the majors.

The Alou brothers Jose, Felipe and Matty were the first. Jose and Felipe also played part of their minor league careers in El Paso with the Sun Kings in the early 1960s. The Guerrero's quickly pointed out the Alous' accomplishments. But just as quick, Sandy and Mike said they wanted to be the first infield shortstop and second base combination to play at the big-league level. Both live in Santo Domingo during the off season.

Sandy Guerero recoginzes the significance of getting to play with brother Mike this season. "Not many players get to play with their brother," Sandy said. "I feel lucky." lu. iriii.itn i.rJ Victor Calzada El Paso Times Mike Guerrero left, is 19 months and two days younger than his brother Sandy, who is 27 years old. The two have been in the Milwaukee Brewers' organization for a combined 14 years, but the brothers have never played on the same team before.

wmmmim 1 7 ysss mm 1 Hard Ball Cafe 1 1 Entrance ''j'' j( Press Box seats VXjAu-' r' ttT -v nl i OF NOTE: CONCERTS Los Lobos: Tuesday, May 5. 5 p.m. gametime, concert to follow. Tickets: $12 box seats, $9 general admission. Huey Lewis and The News: Sunday, May 24.

4 p.m. gametime, concert to follow. Tickets: $23 box seats, $18 general admission. Four Tops: Thursday, June 18. 5:30 p.m.

gametime, concert to follow. Tickets: $15 box seats, $10 general admission. Restless Heart: Sunday, July 5. 5 p.m. gametime, concert to follow.

$14 box seats, $10 general admission. Santana (under negotiation): Thursday, Aug. 20. 5:30 p.m. gametime, concert to follow.

$17 box seats, $13 general admission. SEASON TICKETS Box seats are discounted until May 1 Buy one, two or three for $225 each. Buy four for $750. Game-by game: Box seats $5.25, reserved $4.25, general admission $3.75. Ticket books: 18 general admission tickets (and game except concerts) $45.

You can get 46 general admission tickets (any game except concerts) for $100. Sky boxes: sold out. PARKING $1 .50 per car. KEY PROMOTIONS Wednesdays (beginning May 27): 6:30 p.m. gametime, with fireworks to follow.

Philly Fanatic will appear twice: June 12 and Aug. 14. The usual array of events: Give away six used cars in one evening, umbrella night, Diablos painter's cap night, sunglasses night, stadium cushions, batting gloves, fnsbees, sports squirt bottles. Opening night: Special opening day insulated mug. NO CHICKEN THIS YEAR! Diablos fall to Wichita Times staff reports WICHITA, Kan.

The El Paso Diablos baseball team, fresh off an eight-run performance in Friday's season-opening victory, had cold bats in losing to Wichita, 1-0, Saturday night. Both Texas League teams are 1-1. W7ith game-time temperatures in the mid-50s and a brisk north wind blowing in, the Diablos could muster only three hits off Wrangler starter Lance Painter. The only serious scoring threat came in the seventh inning, when catcher Craig Faulkner reached second base with two outs, but failed to score when Wichita cen-terfielder Darrell Sherman chased down a ball hit to right-center by the Diablos' Bo Dodson. Faulkner was the only Diablo baserunner to reach second base.

Wichita scored the winning run with two outs in the third, when J.E. No-land homered off losing pitcher Dave Martinez. Martinez allowed eight hits, walked two and struck out five in six innings. Dave Fitzgerald and Brandy Vann finished up for the Diablos. Painter allowed just three hits and struck out five in six innings to win his Texas League debut.

Scott Frederickson and Brian Wood ptiched hit-less ball over the final three innings for Wichita. Game 3 of the five-game series will be played at 1:15 MDT today. Right-handed Steve Sparks will pitch for the Diablos against right-hander Tim Worrell, the brother of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Todd Worrell. Diablos again will jhave lots of promotions By Bill Knight Paso Times Cohen Center, like Dudley Field before it, offers unique leiitertainment, much more than usual hot dogs, peanuts and ICrackerjacks.

As usual, team owner Jim jPaul has much, much more to El Paso fans, i There is a chance to win a 'million dollars, there is the Inight they will raffle off six used a chance to win a swimming pool, not to mention the usual barrage of souvenirs caps, stadium cushions, wrist jwatches, Little League bats, sunglasses, batting gloves, umbrellas, visors, mugs, cups, bottles, painters caps and and on and on and on. 1 There will be concerts, fireworks shows, laser light shows. Probably the most fascinating Attraction this season, though, is the Million Dollar Nights or three of them, to be exact: April 2A, July 2, Aug. 29. "Everyone who walks in the will put their name in the box," said Paul, the creative owner.

"We'll draw one person's name out ieach inning from the fourth "Ithrough the eighth. If the Dia-iblos hit a grand slam -home run iwhen the fan's name is drawn, he wins $1 million." Another interesting night will be "Can You Dig It" night on July 31. The first 500 women through the gates will be given a t'ent stake. Prior to the game, a black box with car keys will be buried somewhere under the infield dirt. After the game, the 500 women will be allowed to start digging.

Whoever digs up the keys wins a car. The Diablos, who are currently playing in Wichita, open their home season Wednesday. On Friday, the Diablos will give Diablo tickets are available at Dillard's I Community I outlets, which includes the uniard outlet ai hon tsnss. the UTEP ticket office and A i rz inLasCruces. in Las Cruces.

the Pan American Center For Information call 755-2000. 2 John Pyle El Paso Times a full meal. Ticket prices are up 25 cents over last year $5.25 for box seats, $4.25 for reserve seats, $3.75 for general admission. Paul said there was a reason. "This is strictly a major league tax," he said.

"The quarter goes directly to the major leagues. That's the only reason for the increase." away a concrete swimming pool. Paul has sampled with post-game concerts in the past. This year, he plans to make it a monthly happening. Los Lobos will perform May 5, Huey Lewis and the News May 24, the Four Tops June 18, Restless Heart July 5 and is currently negotiating with Santana for Aug.

20. "We'll have the Philly Fanatic (the Philadelphia Phillie team mascot) in twice," Paul said. "We're having some champion frisbee dogs in for 20 minute shows. This year, for the first time in some time, we'll have regulation size Little League Louisville Slugger bats." Paul expects another item to be popular. He has New York Yankee jerseys to give away to the first 5,000 fans throught the turnstiles one evening adults and children.

He has Boston Red Sox jerseys for the kids on another evening. And there is the Hard Ball Cafe, the restaurant down the left field line where patrons can eat ftp (SB GREtfS Defense plays well in UTEP scrimmage By Don Henry El Paso Times The UTEP football team's defense is still learning a new scheme, but that didn't keep the unit from performing well This is certainly not going to do anything to enhance the university and will result in a de- crease of support from the community. Betty Adams El Paso Times does a poor job covering UTEP track team Editor: I am writing this letter as the president of the El Paso Track and Field Association (an organization of 110 volunteer members from this community who support and officiate the UTEP track meets). "We have deep concern over your paper's coverage or should I say lack thereof of UTEP track. A few weeks ago while the UTEP basketball team was playing in the WAC tournament, the UTEP track team (men and women) were participating in the NCAA Indoor National Championships.

The track team finished in fifth place in the nation a tremendous achievement a finish that would make any of the programs at UTEP jealous. While I realize that UTEP basketball is a highly followed sport in El Paso and therefore you need to report its performance in a major way, the achievement of the athletes and coaches at UTEP for finishing fifth in the NCAA deserves a better place than buried in the your back pages, and also deserves better coverage. John R. Wedel El Paso Cheer Knight, boo Williams Editor: I would like to commend the El Paso Times for the excellent coverage you have given the Miner's basketball team this season. Bill Knight's March 12 article on David Van Dyke "The Miners' Big Chill," was outstanding.

These are the type of articles that fans want to read. These articles indicate that the sports-writer has talked to the players and gotten to know them at least a little, portraying the personal side of the players, as well as post game, giving us statistics about a game that is already a part of history. On the other hand, Lee Williams is an embarrassment to the Times. His article in the March 22 edition, "Today, Kansas may overmatch Miners," was the most negative and obnoxious article he has written to date. The Miners are used to playing to a half-empty SEC, having to "beat the referees" with their incredibly bad calls and now apparently have to defeat local sports-writer Lee Williams as well.

I'm thankful the Times circulation doesn't include Dayton, Ohio the Miners might have read their pre-game obituary in his column. You don't need Lee Williams. Cancel his contract and give Bill Knight, Christine Granados and Gordon Dickson a raise. Linda Holman 1 Paso merely "rubber stamp" the issue of a Utah WAC tournament for the next four years. Let others around the conference enjoy the privileges of hosting the WAC tournament, and viewing some great basketball teams.

Robert A. Diaz El Paso Aggie officials did poor job with NCAA ticket distribution Editor: On March 23, I arrived at the NMSU Pan Am Center to begin my vigil for an NCAA ticket to the Aggie game in Albuquerque. During the nine hours I spent in front of the Pan Am accompanied with Aggie students, I found them to be very well behaved, courteous, helpful and friendly. The Pan Am officials in charge of the operation did an excellent job of trying to be totally fair and worked hard to see that all were treated fairly. It is very unfortunate that other NMSU "officials" were not as up front with the Aggie fans as the UTEP officials seem to have been.

Had the announcement been made at the very be-gining that they were only going to sell 300 or less tickets to the public, then everyone could have gauged whether or not it was worth their while to spend 24 hours waiting to buy tickets! However, rather than do that, the Pan Am office informed everyone that the tickets would be sold on a first come, first serve basis. Don't put WAC Tournament in Salt Lake City Editor: This letter is in response to the article that appeared in the El Paso Times, Friday, March 13, titled "ADs want tournament in Salt Lake City." I do not fault the writer Don Henry for he is merely reporting the actions of UTEP's infamous athletic director, Mr. Brad Hovious. He states the WAC athletic directors are "agressively negotiating" to make Salt Lake's Delta Center a "permanent neutral site" for the WAC basketball tournament. The article states the AD cannot merely vote to please Don Has-kins all the time.

I don't think Hovious' vote against this "permanent" site would merely please Haskins, but that of the entire league outside Utah. What is wrong with the site of the tournament being at the campus of the regular season winner? We were told that logistics made it almost impossible to do this on short notice. Why not Las Vegas? Las Vegas is more centrally located than Salt Lake City and has a few more attractions to offer while the games are not going on. If finances are is the issue, UTEP could prosper more financially by renting out Hovious' office and giving him some cubby hole to work out of, but I don't think this will ever happen. Come on Hovious, stand up for UTEP athletics and do not starting guard spot.

Lee also has been impressed by John Haqq, a slotback from Santa Monica (Calif.) Junior College. Lee used both Mike Perez and Shawn Gray at quarterback. Lee said Gray needs more work on his passing. Defensive tackle Ricky Massey came out of the scrimmage with a hand injury. Two fingers on Massey 's left hand were smashed between two helmets and the injury will be x-rayed Monday, trainer David Binder said.

UTEP had one more player out Saturday than during the week. Lee has outside linebacker Pookie Floyd spending his weekday afternoons in study hall rather than in spring training to improve his grades. Lee grinned as he added, "but on Saturdays since there are no classes, we let him work out." Floyd was a 6tarter last year and recorded seven sacks. This week, the Miners will work out in pads Tuesday and Wednesday, work in shorts on Friday, then stage another scrimmage next Saturday. in a Saturday morning scrimmage session.

The Miners, coming off a 4-7-1 season in David Lee's third year as head coach, reached the halfway point of spring football workouts with the scrimmage. "We played good defense," Lee said. "The guys are still learning Coach (Mike) Tolle-son's system, but they're coming along." Tolleson replaced Charlie Bailey as defensive coordina- tor, bringing in a scheme he worked with at Stanford University. Bailey is now the defensive coordinator for the Orlando Thunder in the World League. 1 "Offensively, we gotta work 1 more on pass protection," Lee said.

"Our offense was out of sync part of the time. We moved the ball early in the scrimmage, but overall, we weren't as crisp as we were on Tuesday and Wednesday." UTEP is working several junior college players into the offensive and defensive teams, with one transfer, Chad Newton, battling for a 4.