The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 60

60 Boston tverung Ulote tOAWidLy, 3- 1972 SporTViewBy JACK CRAIG Earle's falling fortunes lead him to Philadelphia 13 BETTER TENNIS by Sfan Smith U.S. OPEN CHAMPION autograph requests cannot be exchanged at the supermarket. The bounce-back factor is another reality of broadcasting, however, and the bold move now by Earle could possibly lead to a future even brighter than the best of his past. A supposed child prodigy sat through it all in short pants and when finally asked to analyze acted as if he would have preferred milk and cookies. To chess lovers, of course, it may have been the equivalent of Super Bowl VII.

If so, they will be asked to put their wallet where their hearts are for WGBH-TV noted in promos during the show that unless $3500 can be raised, the Bostonsta-tion will not be able to carry the remaining (possibly 21) matches during the next seven weeks after this Sunday. Meanwhile, the second match will be on Ch. 2 tomorrow at 1 p.m. but if you're a stranger to the game, don't plan your lunch hour around tuning in. The single tinge of excitement occurred at the outset when a phone hookup with the match in Iceland reported that Fischer had not shown at the appointed hour.

But a subsequent phone bulletin revealed he was present and shortly we discovered, as in some other of life's games, anticipation had been the best part of it all. When the program ended at 4 p.m. the winner had not even been decided. Only redeeming feature was the casual production approach out of the WNET-TV studio in New York, where the one woman present, Chris Chase, was not above often suggesting that the main expert was blocking view of the chess board on camera. RETURN OF SERVE -SEVERAL POINTERS taxt to tw KTvt the service return is the shot hit most often in tennis.

However, how many times have you ever sprtifiolly practiced your service return? Probably not -rmny! Next time you practice, make sure you drill on this important shot. To return serves, bend your knees comfortably with your feet about shoulder's width apart. Keep your weight on the balls of your feet so that you are able to move quickly in any direction. Keep the head of your racquet well out in front of you pointing to the server. Many people feel that it is more comfortable to hold the racquet in the backhand position but this can cause prootemc on a fast serve to the forehand.

The Fischer-Spassky chess coverage on Ch. 2 yesterday afternoon cannot be reviewed without a confession by the critic that he knows nothing about the game. That apology expressed, the simulated play-by-play may stand as a milestone for TV dullness ior the remainder of this century. M. R.

MONTGOMERY It is typical of the uncertainties in his profession that Don Earie, less than two years ago the most familiar TV sports tace in town, is leaving these parts permanently because of lack of work. 'There seems to be a block in Boston and so the only thing to do is go where you feel welcome," he said sadly, but not "bitterly. That locale is Philadelphia, where Earle worked as TV play-by-play announcer last season for the Flyers. He now has been offered fulltime work with the NHL club, concentrating on play-byplay for the upcoming season's 35 telecasts and as color analyst for Gene Hart on the remainder of he schedule on radio. "The rest of the time I will handle speaking engagements and other public relations work for the Flyers," said Earle.

The PR job has significance because the new WHA entry in that city is a direct challenge to the NHL club. Earle was a candidate for the Red Sox job as backup man to Ned Martin on WHDH radio, which could have led into radio play-by-play for the WHA Whalers next season if they go to WHDH, as rumored. In fact, if Earle had obtained the baseball job his availability could have been decisive in the Whalers seeking out WHDH. But the tumblers never fell into place for Earle after he was dismissed by Ch. 38 at the conclusion of the 1970-71 season.

Although for awhile earlier this year he had a radio talk show in Worcester to supplement his part time work in Phila-' delphia. The last 15 months have been difficult for Earle, who had catapulted into IJocal fame from an obscure radio job on WKOX in Framingham to become Bruins TV announcer just at a time when the hockey dynasty and public mania was forming. He thus was a big part of it. Ironically, Earle faced 'considerable criticism while in that spotlight, but his popularity has never been more clearcut than on occasional speaking engagements since leaving the Bruins. But ovations and Fishing the 'other9 Merrimack River shifting tide currents, we drifted the flats from the Sportsmen's Club to Woodbridge Island, crossing them at various angles, sidling along the old dike, searching for the combination of current and depth that the bass were using.

It was a good night to save money on bait. Except for one eel that garotted himself on the monofilament, the baits remained lively and untouched. The river was full of herring, and they rippled and splashed and leaped in' that heartsinkingly careless way that meant that no bass were chasing them. And then, over CB radio, we heard that Dusty was seeing bass on the Salisbury drift. It was nearly half-tide on the ebb, time to leave the flats, cross the river, and the old stone dike and drift eels right up in the marsh grass.

The high flats are not much of a place to fish during the day, at least after the Fourth of July. Surely a water skier, seeing a boat on the calm and shallow water, will try to join you, and that is that for the fishing, because the flats are not secure places for big bass. The flats, then, are one kind of Merrimack River. The fishermen run slowly, and usually without lights, worrying a little more about spooking the bass than upsetting the Coast Guard. Other fishermen are visible, silhouettes against the 1 1 i hts and house lights, and they briefly flick their running lights on to show you where they are.

Using the southwest breezes and the NEWBURYPORT If the Merrimack River is two different places, one by day and the other by night, and it is, then it is also a different river at the top of the tide and the bottom. It was just such a changeable place earlier this week when I met Joe Kushlan at 8:30 to begin a night of fishing. Joe always manages to schedule his vacation around what should be the finest fishing nights of the summer, the big, midnight running high tides of early July, when the heavy southern stripers make their appearance in the river, summering amid the plentiful herring and mackerel. Sunday night was just about perfect, with high tide at 11:30, so that we could go prospecting for bass up across the Joppa Flats, fearing not at all for the propeller or the hull, when we could slip over fish the second night-time Merrimack the river on the outgoing tide. Leigh montville Schmertz gets a hobby, Celtics given a new life At times in their six -owner recent history, the Celts have hit astonishingly low levels.

They have missed payments to hotels and airline companies. They have had to scrape for paychecks. The front office even has worried that the owners might decide to peddle a John Havlicek or a Jo Jo White or a draft choke to finance some other get-rich-quick possibility. It has been a situation so wild that Jeff Cohen, the assistant general manager, has scheduled a press conference to introduce the owners of the team in every year since 1965. (In the one year there wasn't a new owner, the conference was scheduled anyway so the old owners could answer rumors and announce they were not going to move the team from Boston.) Auerbach has been strangled by a small bankroll, strangled as recently as two weeks ago when he couldn't match the ABA Carolina Cougars in a bidding contest for second draft choice Dennis Wuycik.

The whole operation has suffered. Promotions have been limited to things like the usual coupon for the usual discount on a new pair of Thorn McAn low-cuts. "But now we're ready to go," Auerbach said yesterday. "Now we're ready to make some noise on He looked over at Schmertz the possible saviour, the man who might even bring the Celtics out 'of the Garden and into a bright new arena and was 'Overcome with emotion again. "How about this watch?" Arnold Auerbach- said, rolling up his sleeve in the Essex Marriott's Hansel and Gretel version of The Garden.

"You've got to get one. It's an NBA watch. An Omega. "Give me some money. I'll get you one." "I'll take it," Robert Schmertz said after, some thought.

"Only one thing I want a 1973 watch.1 want a 1973 NBA championship watch." Tom Yawkey couldn't have said it any Related story, Page 64 RED AUERBACH ROBERT SCHMERTZ NEW YORK The decor was what you could call early Hansel and Gretel. Plaster imitation tree trunks covered each and every column in the room. A white picket fence and little plastic imitation tulips were hung from the walls. Only the usual hotel tables and the usual National Basketball Assn. faces and only the name on the door 'gave an indication of what had happened.

Salvation had ICome to the Boston Celtics yesterday afternoon in an appropriate place. Robert Schmertz had been accepted as an NBA 'fivwier in a function room at the Essex House Marriott Hotel called how about this "The Garden." The other owners, perhaps seeking salvation from less-bucolic Garden on Causeway had handled his application in a slam-bang 15 minutes. The vote been 15-2 and, for the first time in eight years and a million embarassments, the Celts finally were back to man heading the whole show. i Even general manager Arnold Auerbach was hit by the emotion of the moment. i 1 How many tee shirts do you want?" he asked Schmerta over a plate of London broil that presumably had been cooked in some gingerbread house out back.

"What sizes? Small? Medium? Anything you want. "NOW, you can have all the tee shirts you want." Tee shirts? Sweat socks? Sure. How about a Celtics strap? Fat city suddenly had been found. The acceptance of Schmertz finally had put money 'fiack into the bank book. One man finally had stepped rrward, plunked down his $5.1 million and was taking over everything.

He said he wanted to be an owner because he wanted to have a hobby. He wasn't from a conglomerate, Astros to host Pliila. Saturday The Boston Astros, who have a 2-2-1 record in American Soccer League play, will host the Philadelphia Spartans at Boston University's Nickerson Field Saturday at 7:30 p.m. looking for a nice little vehicle to be drained for investments in quick-food franchises and possible titanium fields. This man said he wanted to own a basketball team.

Period. Like owning a Shutz Bearcat for Sunday afternoon drives. He wanted a toy and obviously had money to buy it. The future, after a rocky past, looked promising. "Yeh, you're not kidding," Auerbach said.

"Now we can open up, now can got going. It's really a good feeling. "For the last two years we've been in limbo. And the year before that it was worse. How much worse? It got bad, It got real bad.

"There've been a lot of times in the last few years I've been ready to quit. I've felt down, real down. The only thing that's kept me here are all the years and all the emotion tied up in this thing. "If it weren't for the players, if it weren't for the people involved and if it weren't for the memories, I would have gotten out a long time ago." 03H (fill Ifcl steel band radials ft Prestige Swimming Pools grip, safer handling. to conventional tires.

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