The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 49

BEST AVAILABLE fVPages D1-D16 Scoreboard Entertainment Comics OD THE OTTAWA CITIZEN TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 9, 1988 -rr Eail OCf Mcllaa Ballard needs another puppet xy Hot off the press: Baseball Illustrated, Major League Baseball Yearbook '88 and Baseball Forecast have a lot in common nTP 15) A L3 i la tude is also tolerated. Baseball Forecast '88 tells of long home runs by the Blue Jays' Fred McGriff, "several of them seemingly into Lake Ontario." In Toronto, Lake Ontario, as luck would have it, is behind home plate. Finally, because it is early in the season, no one worries about an element of personnel overlap in All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual. Norman MacLean, editor of Major League Baseball Yearbook '88 and, incidentally, author of that magazine's "Stormin' With Norman" column, also turns up as author of the "AL Scouting Reports" in Baseball Forecast "88, edited by Stephen Ciacciarelli, who also edits Baseball Illustrated '88, which is published from the same New York address.

Norman MacLean says the Blue Jays will win the American League East. Eliot Cohen, who previews the National League East for both Major League Baseball Yearbook '88 and Baseball Forecast '88, picks the Expos 4th. Dan Schlossberg, who picks the Expos third and the Blue Jays second for Baseball Illustrated, also writes for Major League Baseball Yearbook '88, although the two publications are at separate addresses. The customer doesn't mind this, and doesn't mind the fact the two publications with the same editor, publisher and art director have different predictions for the '88 season. The customer puts up with this because the Street and Smith's isn't out yet and because of All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annuals command of the baseball vernacular, the first sighting of it this year.

Rating the Blue Jays' Jimy Williams 17th among baseball managers, Major League Baseball Yearbook '88 says: "On paper he's had the horses for the past two seasons." For only $3.25 you get this. Plus all the stats. By Charles Gordon Citien staff writer very year about this time it appears on the newsstand All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual. It is a harbinger, not so much of spring, but of spring training. On the cover is George Bell.

Inside are detailed scouting reports on all the teams. For each, 1988 could be the year. At the back are the complete 1987 statistics. This year the National League ones don't appear to have come off a manual typewriter. All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual does not actually exist, as such.

It is the sum total of a number of magazines that have names like that. They share other attributes: They are cheaply, produced. Bits of wood cling to the paper. They are produced early. Rarely does All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual contain news of trades made even in December.

"He'll sign with St. Louis," says Major League Baseball '88 of Jack Clark, who signed several weeks ago with the New York Yankees. But a certain type of baseball addict races to the newsstand upon hearing the news that All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual is available. Who is this person, the purchaser of All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual? The purchaser is someone with an awareness of the slow march of preseason baseball time. The purchaser knows its deadlines like the back of his hand or, yes, her hand.

When All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual appears, it is: Two weeks before the appearance of the more learned baseball previews Street and Smith's, The Sporting News. General manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs is like being a foster parent to a starving kid overseas: sounds nice and impressive, but all you really get is a piece of paper. It's good that Harold Ballard finally gave Gerry McNamara the Lifetime Achievement Award; this loser should have been bounced years ago. What's bad is the next question: what pandering puppet will Orangehead hire to replace Ma-cKnownothing? Everyone knows the guy who should have been fired first and foremost is the meddling Ballard himself. He's the one ultimately responsible for the Leafs' mess by hiring mostly butt-kissing sycophants, unencumbered by talent.

The sad part is that he's always able to find these nerds. Or, people who think they can be their own men under Ballard, only to wind up submerging their pride and principles for the long-dead honor of the title: GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It happened to Jim Gregory and it happened to Punch Imlach, the latter not normally prone to kow-towing. McNamara had the least self-respect of them all. Ballard publicly heaped on him every abuse known to man.

He once said McNamara could be forgiven his incompetence, he was brain damaged. That was in reference to an automobile accident when McNamara told a subsequent court hearing he'd suffered brain damage. Another time Ballard said: "Gerry's not too bright, but he tries hard." Anyone with an ounce of esteem would have told Ballard to stick it, I quit. Not McNamara. I've never been a quitter, McNamara bragged.

That's like dying of emphysema and saying no way I'm giving up cigarettes, I've never been a quitter. McNamara, the foster parent of nothing, wouldn't quit because he knew nobody else in hockey would give him the title he had with the Make Believes. The next sucker? John Brophy's nuts enough. Borje Salming, the Swedish Rhapsody? Maybe not; OHIP Salming's already said no to Ballard's coaching hints, recognizing, as he does, his level of incompetence is at ice level. King Clancy's dead, which diminishes his chances a bit.

Irving Berlin's almost 100, but he should keep his phone off the hook. Brian Mulroney shows he has the right stuff in his minuets with Southside Ronnie, but he has other distractions these days. Gabby Hayes is dead, but I'd lock the cemetery gates anyway. No, I think I know the odds-on-favorite: that self-proclaimed savior of lost causes, John Robertson of the Toronto Star. Misses the point Had to laugh at the letter in the paper from Denis Harvey, supreme master of CBC English television.

Mr. Harvey waxed stung because I devoted a column labelling his underlings boobs because they wouldn't allow a flash of boob on the CBC hockey series, He Shoots, He Scores. Mr. Harvey questioned whether the Citizen really believed my commenting on the CBC idiocy should have taken up a whole column. Mr.

Harvey seems to feel that columnists' viewpoints should be reigned in, squeezed, even snuffed. Mr. Harvey should know better. Mr. Harvey should know that enlightened hei-rarchies don't apply point-of-view censorship.

Mr. Harvey once did know, I think. In 1969, Mr. Harvey was editor of the Canadian Magazine. Mr.

Harvey offered me a job. The money was lousy, I turned it down. But, I remember something Mr. Harvey said: "You'll have much more creative freedom in magazines than newspapers." Amazing what happens to grey matter when grey matter goes to the CBC. Finally, Mr.

Harvey wonders how long I'd last if my column displayed a picture of a naked woman. Mr. Harvey misses the point. Mr. Harvey's show was not displaying a totally naked woman.

It was displaying a fleeting glimpse of a naked breast. The writers and directors felt the innocent breast, glimpsed fleetingly, was true to the story line. The key words are fleeting and television. Television is moving pictures. My column is not.

My column is words. I have not yet figured out how to display a breast, fleetingly, in my column. But, if I was editor of a photo magazine and putting together a layout on He Shoots, He Scores, I wouldn't hesitate to run a shot of the glimpsed breast. Vanity Fair that genteel and sophisticated tome for the American upper crust, recently ran a picture of photographer Helmut Newton's wife at the dining table. Mrs.

Newton was exposing two complete and fine looking breasts. So, Mr. Harvey's analogy is flawed. Mr. Harvey's analogy should have been: how long would Mr.

McRae last if he wrote briefly in his column about a naked breast If it enhanced the truth of my story, I would. And I'd last In fact, I wrote a whole column on breasts. I'm still lasting. Annual previews Three weeks until the pitchers and catchers arrive in Florida and Arizona. Four weeks before spring training actually starts.

Five weeks until the first exhibition game. Two months before the appearance in local book stores of the 1988 Bill James Baseball Abstract. The purchaser needs advance information. More likely he is involved in some game of his own a simulated baseball league, a rotisserie league. He has to know now! what San Diego will be doing at second base this year.

He is a natural customer for All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual. If he has been a customer before he will not mind the fact that all the magazines are written by the same three people. He will be aware that George Bell is only a regional cover boy, put there to lure the local yokels; that Mark McGwire is on the national cover. offer quick fix A little inaccuracy will not bother him. His enjoyment of the article comparing Eric Davis of the Reds and Darryl Strawberry of the Mets.

will not be lessened by the picture of Davis making a leaping catch and wearing his glove on what is usually his throwing hand. That happens this year in Major League Baseball Yearbook '88. The same publication, rating the Expos' Buck Rodgers as the eighth best in baseball said Rodgers was "imaginative enough to consider moving slugging shortstop Hubie Brooks to left field." Left field is where Tim Raines plays. Right field is where Brooks is allegedly going. Baseball fans, their ears trained by radio play-by-play announcers, appreciate a certain flexibility in the use of language, which All-Star Major League Baseball Preview Annual provides each February, as in Major League Baseball Yearbook Ws description of the Cincinnati Reds as "the perennial runnerups." A degree of geographical inexacti Savage favored to win provincial curling crown By Bob Ferguson Citizen staff writer crown, the first major national title won by an Ottawa rink.

He again qualified for the provincial mixed this year. This week, he's teamed with John Margeson, Hugh Millikin and Steve Doty. Like Bachand, they are not only sentimental favorites, but legitimate contenders. Organizers from the host Navy Curling Club, also point to the role history could play in this event. The only other time the provincial men's championship was held in this area was in 1972 at the Earl Armstrong Arena.

Eldon Coombe, Keith Forgues, Jim Patrick and Barry Provost of the Ottawa Curling Club prevailed that time in a multiple playoff to become the first Ottawa area rink in Brier history. Of course, none of the other six candidates for the trip to the March 6-13 Chicoutimi Brier, feel they are here to fill the draw. Each believes a championship is attainable. The six are: Ted Brown, Kingston; Brian DeRooy, Chatham; Brian Suddard, Oshawa; Ron Rowley and Wayne Middaugh, Brampton and Peter Mellor, Allenford. Competitors get a break with only two draws daily at 1:30 and 7 p.m.

Saturday's ninth round has a 9 a.m. start with the afternoon and evening cleared for tiebreakers and semifinals. If there are two or more tiebreakers the semifinal will be played Sunday at 9 a.m. with the championship final starting at 2 p.m. Excluding the opening round, where the traditional coin-toss will determine last rock advantage, possession of last rock in the first end has been pre-deter-mined for each game.

Tickets rciy be purchased at the Nepean Sportsplex prior to each draw. arc Predicting a winner in this year's provincial men's curling championships, which began today at the Ne-pean Sportsplex Arena, is no easy feat. Sure, it might be safe to select the defending world champions from Penetanguishene. But Russ Howard, Glenn Howard, Tim Belcourt and Kent Carstairs haven't had a competitive warmup, having been granted direct access to the provincials as reigning Canadian champions. No lesser authority than Curl Canada general manager Earle Morris, the lone Canadian to represent three provinces in Brier competition, favors Toronto Avonlea's Paul Savage.

Like Howard, Savage has been to the Brier well frequently. In 1983 he delivered third stone for Ed Werenich when they won the Brier and world titles. This year, Werenich is playing third with regular Neil Harrison at lead and newcomer Graeme McCarrell replacing John Kawaja at second. Where would this put hometown hopefuls Rick Ba-chand and Dave Van Dine of the Rideau Curling Club? Bachand, Rich Moffatt, Dune Jamieson and Dave Collyer earned their berth via the Orillia Ontario Curling Association Challenge Round a 26-rink double-knockout grind which many consider the perfect tuneup for the rigors of Tankard warfare. Twice in the past three years, the Challenge Round winner has gone on to represent Ontario in the Brier.

Howard did it last year and Morris did it in 1985. Bachand hopes this is part of a trend. Vantine too, is no granger to top-flight competition. In 1986, he guided his rink to the national mixed Citizen photo Van Dine watches Bachand call shots.