Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 45

Have talent need seasoning: U-M basketball coach Bill Frieder has what is generally regarded the finest class of freshman recruits in the nation. But he says they may not be all that good yet. Story on Page 3D. Friday, Nov. 5, 1382 5 -6660 Call with sport newt: 222-6660 PREP COLUMN 5 COMICS 10,11 WEATHER 11 the scoreboard The complete sports rundown, Page 4D.

Late scores, 222-6720. a kMUHi DETROIT FREE PRESS Tigers sisn all 4 potential free agents mm MP Estimated contract terms for the Tigers who signed 1 i Downey Mi I A i a 'I is By BRIAN BRAGG Free Press Sports Writer After a day of intense, long-distance bargaining Thursday, the Tigers came to terms with their potential free agents. Outfielders Larry Herndon and Chet Lemon and infielder Enos Cabell and designated hitter Mike Ivie have agreed to sign contracts and pass up the free agent market. Herndon and Lemon agreed to multi-year packages; Cabell and Ivie signed for one year. Thursday was the final day for eligible major leaguers to file for next week's re-entry draft.

While contract terms were reached with Herndon and Ivie earlier, Lemon and Cabell agreed to sign Thursday afternoon. Their names were submitted for inclusion in the draft, but agent Tom Reich withdrew them after agreements were reached. REICH, WHO also represents Herndon, was at Cabell's home in southern California for the final day of negotiations, and he hammered out agreements for Lemon and Cabell during a series of phone calls to Tiger vice-president Bill Lajoie in Detroit and general manager Jim Campbell in St. Petersburg, Fla. No terms were announced for any of the contracts, but it is believed Herndon signed for five years for approximately Enos Cabell: One year, $300,000 Larry Herndon: Five years, $500,000 a year Chet Lemon: Five years, $450,000 a year Mike Ivie: One year, $240,000 (mostly by Houston) $500,000 a year.

Lemon's new pact is for five years at an estimated $450,000 a season; the best guess on Cabell's '83 contract is most of Ivie's $240,000 salary will be paid by the Houston Atros under a previous guarantee. Neither Herndon nor Cabell could be reached for comment. Lemon, contacted at his suburban Chicago home, said his new deal was worked out in mid-afternoon Thursday. "I'm very happy that I didn't have to go through the wars of free agency and the other things that go along with it," he said. "To 6e a part of the Detroit Tigers ball club is what I've wanted all along." Herndon, who marked his 29th birthday Wednesday, and Lemon, 27, were the key figures in this fall's bargaining for the Tigers.

See TIGERS SIGN, Page 7D A list of those players who have filed for free agency Is on today's Scoreboard, Page 4D. Six takes, but he's not tired out yet The chalkboard shows Take Six as Kelly Tripucka prepares his best huckster smile during the shooting of a commercial Thursday in West Bloomf ield. At the end of his spiel for a local tire outlet, Tripucka dunks the ball in a column of tires. The commercial will be seen soon on local television. Free Press Photo bv MARY SCHROEDER ft 7 eVmrtflOfl Of 1 JiJi if i i ri' Cheap Contest jury still out, but reader testimonies are in I'm up to my eyeballs in letters again.

The kid from Birmingham who thinks I'm a jerk wrote me back and said I've become a bigger jerk. The woman from Big Rapids wants to know why I'd want to make fun of fabulous Ferris State College. The student from Eastern Michigan asked if I'd consider changing my address to western Michigan. But then there's that big pile of mail from the beautiful people, mostly you grannies, who liked my "If I Had a Son" fantasy. If I did have a son, I'd share him with you.

Finally, there's a Ren Cen-sized stack of entries from a truly stupid promotional stunt, Downey's Cheap Contest, which ran about a month ago. With secretarial help, I should be finished judging them by, oh, February. (Or next week, maybe.) But if I have to read one more herpes joke, I'm going to trash the entire contest. Meanwhile, love me tender: DUEFESON, Franklin Thanks for picking the Milwaukee Brewers in six. I immediately made a on St.

Louis and won 20 bucks. Who do you like in the Hearns-Benitez fight? A. STOFFER, Lincoln Park You write, write, -write about the Milwaukee Brewers, but zilch about that other team in the World Series. Wasn't there anything to write about them the manager, a player, anything? JULIE WENDELSEHN, Redford Since I'm a Tiger lover (not I love baseball. But there's only one reason I'm sorry the season is over.

You are the best baseball writer I have ever seen. Maybe that doesn't say much for my taste, whaddaya think? Rack up another Moose lover CATHERINE POLACZYK, St. Clair Shores We really enjoyed your column, especially the segment on Mdttse Haas. It was very fawnny. Columns of that elk are? very entertaining and informative.

I BANKS, Detroit I wish to congratulate you for your tribute to manager Frank Robinson of the San francisco Giants. Your story highlighted Mr. Robinson's struggles, sacrifices, failures and successes in; baseball's management system. The management area hi any field of endeavor is dominated by the white man. Therefore, any accomplishment by a black is noteworthy.

The ink cost very little, but the thought was priceless. yiM HARTLEY, Birmingham I'm disgusted with Jot and your writing. Why do you always include Something about New York in your columns? Jim Gantner says he doesn't like New York, well, who jcares? Why didn't you ask him about some other city or if he likes Italian food. You give New York a pretty bad reputation to the people of Detroit who have never been there. Leave New York alone.

KEITH WOJCIAK, Southfield My friends and I are still trying to figure out how Darrell Porter won the MVP award at the World Series. Did you vote for him? The guys I know would have gone for Bruce Sutter. Myself, I preferred Joaquin Andujar. TJEORGE MARTIN, Detroit Who is this St. Louis Cardinal pitcher, Walking Underwear? Please advise.

HERB BLAIR, Muskegon I don't know if anyone realizes it yet, but if the rest of the season is cancelled, ttan the Lions finished first in their division. I wonder if they'll go to the Super Bowl. LARRY EGAN, Livonia What's the solution for LIbn fans? Follow the Wolverines? Come on now, yOu're getting the heavy bread to supply the answers. As tor me, I wish I had a satellite dish to follow world-claSs soccer from Brazil. NFL strike ploy: Passive passers 4 SUSAN KAY ECKERT, Detroit It seems to me that the striking football players could have made the, owners give them what they want while still playing football only it would be a different type of football.

If the players (and it must include all the players for this: to work) were to play a less brutal game, almost to the point of lackadaisical, insuring none of their fellow players were to receive injuries, the fans would get quite upset and not come to games. The owners wouldn't make as much money but the players would still get paid. The time for this little idea has already passed, but it's something to think of for the future. MICHAEL K. FLOCH, Royal Oak I'm reading less and less of the sports pages because I'm tiring of all the bitching.

It all seems to stem from money and self-indulgence. These sports people are sure taking themselves seriously. These were supposed to be games to combat the stuff of everyday life. WARDSLEY PEARSON, Detroit In regard to your remark that you sometimes hate writing about sports, I suggest you try pumping gas or welding Buicks. JAMES LUCE, Bay City Don't stop writing.

You brought some sanity into this insanely rabid reader's1 head. HELEN P. McCONNALL, Orchard Lake If you want to stop writing about sports, go ahead. I think the world could probably stand it. PATTY COX, Detroit I have enjoyed reading your articles.

Some of tlftm make me laugh. Unbeaten and untried Pistons face 7 6ers By CHARLIE VINCENT Free Press Sports Writer The Detroit Pistons can say goodby to the Clevelands and Chicagos of the National Basketball Association for awhile. Unbeaten in their first four games of the season, the Pistons move on to a tougher portion of their schedule beginning tonight when they host the Philadelphia 76ers at 8:05 p.m. in the Silverdome. A crowd of more than 20,000 is expected to watch two of the NBA's undefeated teams meet.

The game marks the beginning of a two-week stretel) during which Detroit will play the 76ers twice and Atlanta, Washington, Indiana and New York once. IN THEIR FIRST four outings, coach Scotty Robertson's club has beaten Atlanta and Chicago at home by eight points apiece and have won over Indiana by three and Cleveland by eight on the road. Going into Thursday night's games, those four clubs had a combined record of "It'll he 20 or 30 games into the season before we begin to get solid help from our rookies and find out how good we really are," Robertson said Thursday, immediately remov-( ing the "big game" label from tonight's meeting. "This is just a game to us," he insists. "We've got a lot of games to play and we're certainly not at our peak yet.

We know we're not consistently going to be on a level with Boston and Los Angeles and Milwaukee and Philadelphia. don't really pay that much attention to that sort of thing anymore." The Pistons lost three of five games to the 76ers last winter but got one of their most emotional victories of the season against them on March 25 with a last-minute, 100-98 victory in the Silverdome. After tonight's game, Detroit goes on the road for games at Atlanta Saturday and Washington next Tuesday before returning home against Indiana Wednesday. PISTON NOTES: Ricky Pierce, the lone remaining Piston without any playing time this season, will remain on the bench, Robertson says, until he loses some weight. The Piston coach asked his rookie guard to drop five pounds last week.

Instead, Pierce added two. Milwaukee coach Don Nelson isn't happy with all the talk that his trade of Quinn Buckner has left the Bucks without a point guard. "All this talk about us not having a point guard is something else," he says. "We'll go back to the way it used to be when there were only good guards and bad guards." Guard Don Buse, a starter with the Indiana Pacers last season, says he's not about to end his free-agent status for what the financially-strapped club is offering him. Accustomed to an annual salary well up into six figures, Buse, who is working out on his own while the NBA season goes on without him, said in Indianapolis earlier this week: "They've offered me $90,000 and I'm not about to play for that." But we will some nights and maybe Friday will be one of those." The 76ers, with the $12-million man, Moses Malone at center, come to town hampered by the absence of guard Clint Richardson, out two to three weeks with a bruised right kidney.

The club has toyed with the notion of picking up someone for that period of time but so far has made no move to do so, though veterans like Mike Newlin, Lowes Moore, Reggie Carter, Chris Ford and Carl Nicks are currently among the unemployed. Instead, coach Billy Cunningham has resorted to using forward Julius (Dr. J) Erving and rookie Mitchell Anderson at guard when Andrew Toney, Maurice Cheeks or Franklin Edwards need a rest. "We're looking for a 10-or-12 minute player maybe," Cunningham said earlier this week. "The question is: Can Mitchell do that? Or can we make some adjustments in our rotation where Doc is the fourth guard?" IF CUNNINGHAM moves Mitchell or Erving (both 6-foot-7) to the backcourt the Pistons may find themselves handicapped defensively.

Robertson, though, isn't going to worry about that until tipoff time. "Isiah (Thomas) sizewise is going to be at a disadvantage with a lot of guards, but they have to play him, too. Chicago started two big guards (6-7 Reggie Theus and 6-6 Tracy Jackson) against us Wednesday and I told Isiah and John (Long) just to go out there and see if Theus and Jackson could play them instead of the other way around. I Mengelfs off4he-cdr'ruUgets on the air ijP sports on tne air sometimes in favor of Red Wings hockey games, sometimes when the Pistons were on TV. THE NEW NETWORK is a good idea, in theory, because now you can hear every Piston game on radio on the west side of Detroit, in Muskegon and even up in the Soo.

But if you live near me, less than 10 miles east of the City-County Building, you probably can't hear the Pistons on radio. Even though Mount Clemens station WWHK (1430-AM) carries them for Macomb county, the signal is hard to pick up once you hit Eight Mile Road (or Vernier) back in Wayne County. Despite such gaps in the Pistons' radio zone coverage, Detroit fans of the NBA get a pretty good dose of the pro winter game this season, both locally and nationally, over free TV (Channel 50), subscription TV (ON-TV) and cable TV (ESPN, USA, plus the superstations). They can even see some games on CBS (channel 2 in Detroit), including a special telecast Sunday of the Seattle-Milwaukee game. In addition, a reasonable blackout policy regarding cable TV makes out-of-town pro games available when Pistons are nowhere to be seen.

He're a rundown: See SPORTS ON THE AIRPage 7D Halloween night, when the Pistons were defeating the Indiana Pacers on radio and TV, the wildly costumed San Diego Chicken sneaked up behind announcer George Blaha and rubbed his head, on camera, at halftime. It seemed to startle Blaha, who carried on nonetheless. That's a heck of a distraction for a man who must do a "simulcast" announcing a game into both radio and TV mikes at the same time. Because I was watching Channel 50 (WKBD-TV), however, I missed one of the more entertaining moments of the radio half of the broadcast. This one also occurred at halftime.

Blaha and his color commentator, John Mengelt, were waiting for a TV commercial to end. They didn't know their radio mike (Dearborn's WNIC, 1310-AM) was on. They were planning a post-game interview with Piston forward Kelly Tripucka, the star of the game, who had been the subject of an article that day in the Detroit News. MENGELT SEEMED to feel that the article had misrepre-i sented Tripucka. Accidenta'Jy, Mengelt said so over the adding that he was going the article in the post- game interview so he could embarrass the reporter and "rub his nose in it." Mengelt said later in the week he was very sorry the remark got out over the air.

"But I'm not sorry I said it," Mengelt added. "I have a right to my private opinion But I'll tell you, doing a simulcast is a monster." Mengelt's simulcast opinions, Intended for broadcast or not, can be heard most easily by west siders who can pick up Piston broadcasts over WNIC, the flagship station of the new Piston network. The team formed the network this year after leaving powerful WJR (760-AM) because that stion bumped too many Piston games off the air last year.