Daily News from New York, New York • 106

--o MIKE LUPICA Yesterday's Hero m-jHE CROWD FILED down the steps from the jt In subway platform over 161st Street, and then out 11 from under the huge Winston cigaret sign and into the hard, brilliant sunshine. They carried all that was special about the day with them. It was October, on a Yankee Stadium afternoon, and there was a big baseball game to be played. No one has ever 3 GREAT TIRE BUYS! been able to ruin any of that. On Ruppert Place the Morrs Knolls Marching Band, smiling and awfully young in green-and-white 35 63 03 a OS 3 3 2: Deluxe Champion uniforms, began to move with precision into a gate behind leftfield.

On ihe field, the Yankees went through a leisurely batting drill as disco music bounced around the empty Stadium. It was only 1:30, but already everything seemed right about the day. cord All but one thing. Catfish Hunter was out in cen- Site 8laclwH- F.tT. B78-13 I $22.00 $1.82 C78-14 23.00 201 D78-14 24.00 209 E78-14 26.00 2.23 F78-14 28.00 2.37 G78-14 29.00 2.53 H78-14 31.00 2.73 G78-15 30.00 2 59 H78-15 32.00 2.79 L78-15 I 34.00 3.09 Firestone quality and dependability at really low prices! Strong smooth riding tire with road-gripping tread.

terfield alone, spitting tobacco and lazily chasing fly balls. He was not getting ready to pitch this big game for the Yankees. In most of the other Octobers of the 70s, this had been Catfish's day, because he was the man to pitch big games. Yesterday it wasn'i. That did not seem right.

"I'm hurt," he had said quietly before going out to shag balls. "That's all. This time I'm just hurt." What used to be a strong, gallant right arm is tired and sore. He suffers from a urinary tract disorder called seminal vesiculitis. Added up, they mean that you do not ask Catfish Hunter these days when he will pitch in a game again.

You ask him when he might throw again. "I gotta see the doc again in the morning," he said. "When I can throw again is up to him." The doctor will look at another urine sample, just as he has almost daily for the last two weeks. The internal problem is one thing. Then you ask Hunter about his right arm.

"The last time I threw was 10 days ago in Toron- Size A78-13 Black wall Plus S1.72 E.T. and old lire. size 5-rib design. All prices plus lax and old lire. WHITEWALL ADD $2 TO $3T 9 Deluxe Champion Sup-R-Bett whitewalls B78-14 C78-14 V- 1 E78-14 Plus $1.88 to $2 26 F.E.T.

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who started a game that used to have Catfish Hunter's initials on it. Gullett lasted two innings. From 1971 to 1977, when his regular-season record was 118-64. Hunter pitched in 17 playoff and World Series games. One year ago from yesterday, he was beating the Royals in the first game of the '76 American League championship series.

In Oakland and New York, for managers named Billy Martin and Dick Williams and Alvin Dark, it was never necessary to think about another pitcher when there was an October game to be won. Just Winning More than anyone else, he was the special man for these special baseball days. Think back over postseason baseball in the 70s and always there is Catfish, calm and implacable on the pitching mound, a cheed stuffed with tobacco, the eyes sleepy and the mustache drooping, beating someone. Never flashy. Never loud.

Just winning. But last year and this, all the innings and heavy pressure of the grand years began to harm the arm. The record was 9-9 this season, with a 4.71 ERA, and there were 29 home runs-in only 143 innings. And yet even with those numbers and the questionable arm, you felt that Hunter would somehow be ready for yesterday. Even Royals manager Whitey Herzog thought that way.

He was sitting in a road bar one night in August, already thinking about the playoffs and the first game if it was in the Stadium, and Herzog said, "I think it'll be Catfish." The arm, though, never got better. Now there Is seminal vesiculitis. Catfish Hunter may not pitch any games this October. After outfield practice yesterday, he stood in the runway and talked about that prospect. "Maybe God intended for it to be this way, maybe I can look at it that way," he said.

"Maybe He didn't want me to pitch too much this time so my arm can get better. "Do I miss the limelight today? Hell, no. I never liked that part of it all that much anyway. I was never the kind of guy that needed press. I'm just a country boy, a farmer." A farmer whose best season was always October.

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