Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 23

DETROIT FREE PRESS Saturday, March 1, '75 1-C Bullets' Fireoower A Sends is tons Reelin 106-95 Aurelio's Talent Going to Waste? Ag cllli9 Aurelio Rodriguez Special to thi Fret Press LANDOVER, Md. Start all over on that Pistons' reconstruction project. There was a major setback Friday night. Just when they were trying to convince themselves and the rest of the NBA that they were otu of their worst slump of the season and rebuilding for the playoffs, the Pistons ran into the Washington Bullets. And the Bullets, indifferent to the Pistons' plight, sent them reeling again, 106-95, before a crowd of 11,121 fans at the Capital Centre.

The loss was the Pistons' eighth in the last nine games, inconveniently spoiling the afterglow of the 20-point win over Milwaukee that had broken their seven-game losing streak. The defeat also was Detroit's 12th in the last 14 games. The best thing to be said afterward was that the Pistons at least retained their three-game lead over Milwaukee in the battle for the Midwest Division's third place and what will probably be the final playoff berth in the Western Conference. The Bucks were beaten, 107-106, in Boston. And also on the plus side LAK ELAND How do you get mad at Aurelio Rodriguez? How does anybody get mad at him? It is impossible.

Jim Campbell gave it great try on the opening day of spring training. Aurelio was supposed to be in camp with the other regulars, but as usual, he was absent. "You're damned right I'm mad about it," Campbell said as leaned over the wire fence and watched the other players going through opening-day drills. "I'm tired of him always being late. He's going to hear about it when he gets here." Well, you know how it is with Aurelio.

It is very tough getting out of Mexico. Passports. Visa problems. And those mountains, they are very high. Mexican airplanes have a difficult time flying that high.

And Mexico, she is very far from Lakeland. "I'm still going to tell him," said Campbell, with a very serious look on his face. Aurelio showed up the next day and walked out of the clubhouse with that happy smile on his face as if all the world was filled with sunshine and flowers. Campbell took one look at him, started to splutter out something and then grabbed Aurelio and wrestled him around in a big bear hug. Sorry, nobody gets mad at Aurelio I JU0 iSimMi ft Evel Knievel, Check These Mean Curves! MM AP Photo Not even Aurelio Rodriguez himself.

Oh, he says he gets mad. He says he keeps it inside. He says his wife knows when he's mad. That's on the nights he comes home and sits in front of the TV set and doesn't say anything. If he'd only throw a bat.

Or maybe a hel-met. Or kick over a stool. Or maybe even hide in the shower for an extra five minutes. Anything to show he cared. But it's always the same.

If he goes 0-for-4, he smiles. If he goes 0-for-8, he smiles. If he goes 0-for-12, he smiles. The Problem? His Bat If Aurelio Rodriguez were trapped in the penthouse of the Towering Inferno, he'd probably ask somebody for a light for his cigar. "Campbell fined you fifty bucks, eh?" a reporter kidded Rodriguez when he stepped on the field for the first time.

"Hundred," smiled Aurelio, going along with the gag. Campbell didn't fine him a penny, and everyone knew it. All of this bothers the Tigers, because they see a great talent going to waste. No questioning Aurelio's fielding. He is as good a third baseman as there is in baseball.

Rick Ferrell was sitting there watching Friday's workout and saying that Rodriguez had the finest arm of any third baseman he had ever seen play this game. He covers 50 years of baseball. Dr. Clarence Livingood, the Tigers' team physician, was saying that Rodriguez was one of the most perfectly adjusted people he had ever met. "He is a completely happy person," Dr.

Livingood said. Campbell was asked about Aurelio's temperament, if he felt that his placid behavior affected his play. "I don't know," said Campbell. "Maybe that's why he's such a good fielder because he's so loose out there. But I really don't know.

I'm no psychiatrist." The problem is Aurelio's bat. When the Tigers obtained him from the Washington Senators in the celebrated Denny McLain steal, he was a young hitter of great promise. In 1970, he hit 19 home runs, batted in 83 runs and batted .249. It was not unreasonable to assume that with a little more experience and the sort of instruction the Tigers could give Please turn to Page 2C, Column 1 although it didn't show in the final score the Pistons managed to show at least a bit of spunk against the NBA's win-ningest team, instead of submitting meekly to defeat as they had in a game against the Bullets in Detroit exactly one week earlier. The Pistons led early in the game and, after dropping back, 24-20, after the first quarter, they pulled to within one point of the Bullets, 45-44, at the half.

But whatever good offensive work was being done by Bob Lanier, Howard Porter and Dave Bing for the Pistons was wasted when they failed to figure out a way to control Elvin Hayes. The Big went sizzling for 19 points in the first half, including eight of Washington's last 10 points before the intermission. But that was nothing compared to what he was going to show the Pistons in the second half. With Hayes leading the way, the Bullets inched their way to a 59-52 lead in the first five minutes of the second half and then delivered the finishing blow a 10-point surge that went unanswered by Detroit. Hayes started it with two baskets, guard Phil Chenier came in with four points in a row and Hayes wrapped it up with another basket, putting Washington firmly in charge, 69-54.

By the end of the third quarter, the Bullets were up, 79-62, and there was nothing Detroit could do in the final 12 minutes to keep them from their 20th straight win at home and their 27th in 30 home games this season. The loss was the Pistons' 10th straight on the road, just one short of the club record. Hayes led Washington with 35 points and Chenier finished with 27, including 19 in the second half. Lanier had 20 points and Bing 18 for the Pistons. Detroir will try to start over again Saturday night in a game at Cobo Arena against the Chicago Bulls, with a game coming up Sunday night in Kansas City.

For the record, it is not true, and I deny it, absolutely. There is no way she could tempt me, sway me, entice or inveigle me, whatever. I am feet-on-the-ground and smart that way, always have been. Still, she is gorgeous. If she had suggested, just a little bit, you know, that I come join her on her Honda, maybe I would liave thought about it a bit.

Rena Brower looks at you with those earnest blue eyes flashing out between cascading blond waves and she smiles. She smiles and talks of 100 miles an hour on a motorcycle, of wheelies and laying rubber and leaping over long strings of cars. I try to tell her that one of these days she might bust her pretty head, but she does not hear. She is very big in the Cyclerama Show which is making much noise at the State Fairgrounds. She leaps over cars on her Honda, a la Evel Knievel.

She Was a Hairdresser What concerns Rena at the moment is that they have given her merely 250 feet to rev her bike to 70 miles an hour and leap 10 cars although that is not the big problem. Stopping is the real worry. "I have been walking around all week," she says, "squeezing these hand-muscle builders because they left me with only 100 feet of ramp to land and stop." The threat is that if Rena has not learned to squeeze hard enough on the hand brakes, she will splatter herself against the walls of the Fairgrounds Coliseum. Well, I am tempted to say it is no real threat at all, that people in such carnival Willie Horton does some carpentry work on his favorite batting-practice bat after it split in drills. Tigers 9 Key: Tom Veryzer BY JIM HAWKINS Free Press Sports Writer LAKELAND From the moment they made him their No.

1 draft pick in June of 1971, the Tigers have expected great things from Tom Veryzer. Even while relegated to the minor leagues, he was always regarded as something of a fair-haired boy. He was the heir-apparent to Eddie Brinkman's job at shortstop, and everyone within the organization accepted that fact. Even while Al Kaline and Norm Cash and Jim Northrup were still around, Veryzer was always the symbol of the new era that was inevitably to come. Well, that era has arrived and whether it's initially labeled a success or a failure will depend, to a large degree, on how well Veryzer, the prodigy, lives up to all his advance billing.

A YOUNG MAN OF NOTORIOUSLY few words, he sat in the -rv I '1 iff" Tom Veryzer acts well know the limits or satety, mat shade of the Tiger dugout Fri- thpv rlrv nnr uamhle life's breath recklesslv. day, mopping the sweat off his Still, one never can be sure, can one, about the wisdom, if hot the sanity, of stunt A i4 face with a towel, and delivered what, for him, was an oration. "I don't feel any extra pressure on me; I really don't," he said softly. "I don't see why I should feel any pressure. I'm just happy to come to spring training, knowing I have a jcb." A comparable speech on the floor of the United States Sen-Please turn to Page 2C, Col.

5 Rena has been into this sort of thing for little more than a year. She is 25, and a whole collection of other numbers that intrigue. She was a hairdresser in Scottsdale, buzzing around town on her bike, zooming off into the desert on joy rides occasionally. It was on one such ride that she came across John Brower practicing bike stunts in the sand. rpr TT 1 1 Rena Brower I rH Donegal9 coordinates a 1 1 JJ-J neat double-knit with T1TT prp some colorful prints, for I I a combination that's JULVkyX clean-lined for keeps, y-y Donegal is famous for it's IJj crisp, clean tailoring.

And Derby Favorite Flamingo Pick Free Press Wire Services Foolish Pleasure, the hottest thing in horse racing since 1973 Triple Crown winner, Secretariat, will put his perfect record on the line Saturday in the $131,600 Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah Park. Racing fans across the nation will watch on television to see whether Foolish Pleasure can carry his speed beyond a mile in his first major test on the road to the 1975 Kentucky Derby. In Detroit, the 47th running 1 I iu Keep 11 uiaiway, uu leyai ''AJ chose some miracle fibres: in a double-knit leisure suit, I fiL and In the comPementin9 Al 1 fflSt shirts. The suit has a shirt T'TP'T TTT1 i I I Jacket at $38- matchin9 I rISI Wr tz. v2L slacks from $23 10 $26' The lJUlkJUlVLi shirts come in several ways: nT TTrrin jr" 4 Jr a fancy print jersey long" Wl II I VU? JA sleeve at $18, and a solid kjUHO HrakrA 1 color short-sleeve at $19.

i Note: not available ft rfUj II 1 I at WoodwardMontcalm I Cl 1 I i and WoodwardState. Brower is a motorcycle daredevil and sometime musician who had fashioned a stunt show to enthrall the bike buffs. "I asked if I could try one of his jumps," says Rena, "and he dared me. It was a cinch." Before long, Rena became Mrs. Brower and part of the show.

"Our act is not like Evel Knievel," says Rena. "We shoot for accuracy, a target landing after a leap over 10 cars." In Boston two weeks ago, Rena says, she hit the bullseye five-for-five, while John Brower was three-for-five. "I think he's getting a little nervous about me beating him," she says. Rena knows Evel Knievel, the king of the bike jumpers, but it is confusing when she talks of him. He is alternately a very nice guy, a fraud, a liar and a lousy bike rider.

She says it so nicely, Evel cannot mind. "I have to laugh," she says, "when he goes on the Johnny Carson show and swears he does not drink. All the while, that cane he carries is loaded." She figures Evel's ballyhooed shot over the Snake River Canyon last summer was a deliberate failure. Evel, if you remember, fell into the river, rather than soar across the quarter-mile chasm of the Snake River. "I didn't even bother to watch it because I knew exactly what he was going to do," says Rena.

"His parachutes were open long before he left the takeoff ramp. He never intended to complete the jump. It was a cinch. "What he wanted was to come back later for another try. But everybody figured they had been ripped off once, so there's no market for him now." Big Fear: Wheel Drops Off For her own, Rena insists she is constantly afraid.

On every jump, she is scared, and inside, she does flip-flops, "just like your first elevator ride, you know?" "I have this fear I will go off the takeoff ramp and the front wheel will drop off," she says. "Anything that happens can be a disaster. "So what I do is check the hike and the ramps all the time, to make sure they are right. The short landings, like the one we have here, really scare me." That short landing area gave her trouble Friday night. She crashed right through the front doors of the coliseum and demolished her bike.

But she was still healthy enough to walk to an automobile for a quick trip to a nearby hospital for a routine check. Only once has she been hurt. It was on a short landing ramp. "I sailed over the ramp," she says, "and landed on the flat. I really sprained my back, so bad that I couldn't jump for a while and had to go back to my hairdressing business." Why does she persist? She is not all that sure, except that she had never been out of Arizona until she began flying about on her bike, and there is John Brower, her new life, and, well, it beats hairdressing.

"I can make more on one jump," she confesses, "than in a whole year of hairdressing." That sort of incentive has led many to do far more foolish things than riding a motorcycle. It might even encourage others to be more daring. Next summer, I figure, I might even try one of those sitdown of the Flamingo Stakes will be carried on Channel 7 at 5 p.m. Going into the 1-mile race with a string of eight victories, Foolish Pleasure will face nine other three-year-olds, all with Derby ambitions. After winning all seven of his starts as a two-year-old in 1974, the budding Secretariat launched his 1975 campaign with a four-length romp in a three-horse exhibition race barely three weeks ago.

If he wins Saturday, he can pick up $86,190 for John Greer, his millionaire banker owner from Knoxville. The colt already has earned more than $285,000. Trainer Leroy Jolley will have jockey Jacinto Vasquez in the saddle as usual as his colt runs around two turns for the first time in his life. Of his nine rivals, the most feared are L'Enjoleur and Ascetic L'Enjoleur, owned by Montreal financier Jean-Louis Levesque, was named Canada's 1974 Horse of the Year for winning eight of 15 starts and $285,000. And Ascetic recently won the Everglades Stakes at the same distance as the Flamingo.

Other likely starters are Pease turn to Page 6C, Col. 8 Doubles Under Way The giant 32d annual Free Press Mixed Doubles bowling tournament will get underway at Troy's Thunderbird Lanes Saturday afternoon. A field of nearly 8,000 men and women bowlers is expected to take part in the competition before its 10-weekend run concludes in early May. At stake are top prizes of $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 plus hundreds of other cash awards. A FULL 100 percent handicap system is being used in the tournament, making it unique among major bowling tournaments.

Eligible are all sanctioned men and women bowlers. Entry forms are available at most bowling establishments in Michigan. Preliminary entries may be made by clipping and mailing the form on Page 2C. Squad reservations may be made by contacting tournament secretary Buck Walby at Thunder-bird Lanes, JU 8-3400. Coupon on 2C i- life if fli I Si Hi i I -I iv STORES OPEN SUNDAY 12-5 P.M.

EXCEPT WOODWARDSTATE, WOODWARDMONTCALM, GRAND RIVERGREENFIELD, MACKMOROSS AND BIRMINGHAM. STORES OPEN SATURDAY EVENING EXCEPT WOODWARDSTATE TIL 5:45 AND BIRMINGHAM OPEN TIL 5:30..