Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 25

DETROIT FREE PRESS Friday, Mar. 4, 77 M) omen omey ooms: MM mil This Locker Isn 1900 Anymore BY TOM HENDERSON Free Press Sports Writer The Rangers' rookie was ecstatic. He'd been struggling lately, but tonight he'd played well in his team's win and had i li, Spending a Day With My Red Sox even scored a goal. Beaming in the locker room like a little kid on his birthday, he grabbed the sports writer from behind in a boisterous hug. "Did you see me out there tonight? Didja? You gonna put me in the paper?" he asked kiddingly before letting go.

The rookie, a 20-year-old Canadian, was naked. The writer was an attractive 25-year-old woman. "He was so happy, he just wanted to share it with someone," Laurie Mifflin of the New York Daily News explained later. The antecdote is a perfect example to her of how she and Robin Herman, female scribe for the New York Times, have been" accepted even in the locker room by the New York Rangers' players. But she stresses instantly that what questions and leers she must constantly face! there's nothing sexual about women and nude hockey players in the same room.

"THAT'S (SOMETHING) I WISH you would stress when the guys have just played 60 minutes of hard hockey, they're exhausted, they're drenched in sweat. If they've lost, they're incredibly depressed; if they've won, they're just happy they won, that's all they're thinking about. Okay, that's their side. "Second of all Robin and I both work for morning newspapers, which means we've got deadlines hitting us every couple of hours through the night The time pressure we're operating under, there's just absolutely no way it could be a sexual situation in any way, shape or form. "I've had friends of mine say" she puts a leering tone into her voice 'Who have you seen naked? Who looks good? What's it We really don't notice.

Neither Robin nor I could probably tell you who we've seen naked and who we haven't." I jll Kobin Herman interviews Hanger Don Murdoch, who dressed up for I he camera year they accepted women; both were interested in sports (Herman as sports editor of the college paper, Mifflin as a field hockey player and life-long athlete); both profited from the wave of women's liberation that was opening up new careers when they were ready to enter the job market. Please turn to Page 9D, Column 1 So there. Puritans, relax. How did it come to pass that two women reporters would be interviewing naked male'athletes? They "rode the crest of a breaking wave," explains Herman, who is also 25. In addition to being the same age, the two women (Herman at Princeton, Mifflin at Yale) went to Ivy League colleges the first ito ere i WINTER HAVEN If I had my choice of assignments, I would cover the Montreal Canadiens in the winter and the Boston Red Sox in the summer, and heaven could wait.

What a life that would be all of those exciting nights in the Forum watching the Canadiens streaking to one victory after another and then all of those wild days in Fenway Park watching the ball bounce around like a giant pinball machine. I've loved these teams for years and envied the men in my business who have had a chance to write about them on a regular basis. Some guys get turned on by fast cars. Or maybe it's a sailboat or careening down the side of a mountain on their skies. All that some need is a well-placed backhander just inside the chalk line or a 15-foot putt for a buck.

I could be happy if the rest of my days were spent in the press boxes in the Forum and in Fenway Park and I can just hear the guys in the office snickering as they read this private little dream of mine. So it may sound a little silly coming from a 48-year-old guy but it is something I've always wanted to do and what's wrong with a little Just once, wouldn't you like to come with me and watch Yvan Cournoyer flash in front of the net and turn the light on with a quick snap of his wrists or watch Carl Yastrzemski loft a high one toward the wall in left-center a white dot against the blue Boston sky and see it scrape the wall on the way for a double. So it was with the usual feeling of excitement that I drove over here to the camp of the Red Sox to take a look at one of my "dream teams." And just the sight of those creamy white uniforms with the blood-red lettering on them got the old juices going again. The Red Sox are a magnificent looking team. Maybe they don't play so good sometimes, and they sure seem to frustrate a lot of people in Boston, but they always look good in their uniforms.

You've been hearing the same things I have about the Red Sox ever since their fold-up last summer how the team was wrecked beause Fred Lynn, Carlton Fisk and Rick Burleson were all holding out and they seemed more interested in theircontracts than the state of their ball club. All three eventually signed last summer, but by then it was loo late. The Yankees were long gone. The Red Sox lost those 10 games in a row in May and the magic of 1 975 was gone, never to be recaptured in 1976. Neivest Tiger Feels 'Like a Rookie' house in San Francisco for his wife and seven children, flew all night to reach Florida Thursday morning.

BY JIM HAWKINS Free Press Sports Writer LAKELAND Promptly at 9:15 Thursday morning, two days late, Tito Fuentes strode into the clubhouse, followed closely by his chauffeur, carrying his duffel bag. The Tigers' second base solution had arrived. "The limousines at the Tampa airport are on strike," he explained, signaling his valet to set the bag down. "This man drove me over here." The neatly-attired, middle-aged man nodded and pulled up a stool for himself as Fuentes sat down and began to get undressed. "The Tigers sent me, $10 to take the limousine, but with the limousines on strike, this man said he would bring me over for $20," Fuentes explained.

"I called the Tigers and they said okay, they'll pay." Before Fuentes set foot in Marchant Stadium for the first time, the Tigers owed him another 10 bucks. But if he solves their problem at second base for the next year or two, he'll be worth that, plus every penny of the $90,000 they're paying him. Fuentes, who was given permissio to report a couple of days late in order to hunt for a new Slubby Dead at 57 LAKELAND Former Tigers pitcher and coach Stubby Overmir'e died Thursday afternoon in a Lakeland hospital as result of a stroke he suffered New Year's Eve. The 57-year-old Overmire pitched for the Tigers from 1943 until 1950, reaching his peak in 1947 when he was 11-5. He pitched the third game of the 1945 World Series, losing to the Chicago Cubs on Claude Pas-seau's one hitter, 3-0.

He later pitched for the St. Louis Browns and New York Yankees before returning to the Tigers' organization as a player-coach at Little Rock in 1954. He rejoined the Tigers in June. 1963 as a coach on Charlie Dressen's staff, and remained through 1966. More recently, Overmire, a native of Grand Rapids who was out of Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University), served as a minor league manager and scout for the Tigers.

HE ARRIVED JUST in time for the annual team picture, although he would have preferred to have reported to the hotel and gone directly to bed. "I feel very strange," admitted the 33-year-old Fuentes. "I feel like I'm starting my career all over. I'm in a new town and a new league. It feels like my first day in the major leagues.

I feel like a rookie: very nervous, very excited." On the first day of his new career, after 11 seasons in the National League, Fuentes did very little other than play pepper and catch with his new teammates. "I haven't picked up a ball since Oct. 3," he explained. "But it never takes me long to get in shape." Fuentes spent much of the day studying the names on the backs of the Tigers doubleknit uniforms most of them names he had never heard before. Please turn to Page 2D, Column 3 18 lilt Vfoii i (iz? lie Ainl Here Tito Fuentes he likes second But this is 1977 a new season and a new chance for my team I'd been reading all the stories out of Boston over the winter about the way Yastremski was saying that they all should have learned a lesson last season and things will be much different this year.

"Wait'll spring training," Yastrzemski kept saying, "you'll see a new attitude in our team." As 1 wandered out on the field at Chain O'Lakes Park, where a couple of dozen players in those white-and-red uniforms were playing pepper practice, I bumped into one of the Boston writers and said: "Hey, where's Yaz?" He said: "Where's Yaz? Are you kidding? He ain't here." "What do you mean he isn't here?" Kuhn OKs Finley's Lindblad Deal "He just came in, signed his contract and left," the writer said. "Big deal. He said he had to attend to some private How do you think that made the rest of these players feel?" I introduced myself to Don Zimmer, the paunchy little guy who will be managing the Red Sox this season, and felt my spirits sink a little lower when he told me of Yaz's great attitude. He never mentioned the fact his No. 1 player wasn't even around.

Zimmer talked about how good the kid at third base looked and, hey, George Scott ought to be good for 25 or 30 home runs and lOORBIsnow that he's back in Fenway and the guy in centerfield is a NEW YQRK (AP) Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn approved Charles O. Finley's $400,000 sale of pitcher Paul Lindblad from Oakland to the Texas Rangers Thursday. But Kuhn said he'll keep a sharp eye on future dealings by the feisty owner of the A's. Kuhn's decision was announced in a five-page release distributed by his office. The commissionerwas unavailable for comment.

At a three-hour hearing Wednesday in Dallas, Kuhn interviewed Finley, with whom he has had frequent clashes in the past over the sale of players. The sale of the lefthanded reliever was delayed by Kuhn pending the hearing. The commissioner said at the hearing and in hisdecision he feared Finley was "liquidating" his ball club. Yastrzemski Kuhn had been accused by MANHATTAN PUTS CIVILIAN STRIPES ON YOUR SHOULDER, WITH THE CRICKET SHIRT .300 hitter, and if Evans could give him .275 in right and Rice .275 in left well, you couldn't ask for anymore. I kept looking around the field for No.

8. Yaz. The truth is, I was feeling pretty badly about my team as I prepared to leave and drive back to Lakeland. Then I bumped into a few more guys. Ken Harrelson, the inimitable Hawk, was standing outside the press how's Al Kaline tell him I said hello," Harrelson said brightly.

"I'll never forget that man as long as I live." I asked him what he meant. "I'll never forget what he did for me," said Harrelson. "Nobody knows it but I hit 'scared' for about eight years in the majors. I was afraid of the ball afraid it was going to hurt me. "Al noticed this one day when I was in the batting cage and he called me aside and said, 'Hey, don't let it worry you.

We all get scared up there. None of us wants to get "From that day on, things were better for me. If Al Kaline could be afraid of the ball, I could be, too. He helped me understand some things about myself." Pesky Still lias Fans That made me feel a little better, and then who should be standing there but an old favorite, Johnny Pesky, one of the Red Sox coaches. "Hey, man, how was it hitting ahead of Ted Williams?" The old question.

Pesky smiled and gave me the same answer he has been giving me for years: "Fast balls, belt high." We shook hands. Some fans sitting up in the stands were waving down to the field. "Hey, Pesky!" they were yelling. "Hey, John!" Pesky looked up at them and waved back. "Where were you when 1 was managing?" he said under his breath, and both of us laughed.

Finally, at the gate, there was this giant man standing there in a large.plantation hat. Joe Cronin, the old shortstop and GM of the Red Sox, and later president of the American League. It's always the same when you see Joe. You get a big greeting and a warm smile, This time it made me feel very good. He asked: "How's Charlie Gehringer?" "Fine." "Tell him I said hello.

I'll never forget the day in Detroit when he came up with two out and the bases loaded in the ninth inning. He hit a rocket out to rightfield and our rightfielder, Dusty Cooke, who we got from the Yankees, backed up against the fence and made one of those crazy Kaline catches. "The next day, H.G. Salsinger in the Detroit News wrote a story about it and the headline said: 'Charlie Fails Cronin was laughing uproariously. Okay, Boston.

give you one more chance this summer. Paul Lindblad Finley of lacking "the guts or authority to cancel the sale." Kuhn's decision was announced in a five-page release distributed by his office. Kuhn had delayed approval of the $400,000 sale of Lindblad pending the hearing. Finley, his attorney and Rangers Executive Vice President Eddie Robinson had predicted after the hearing that Kuhn would approve the sale. "This will constitute notice to the Oakland club and every other major league club that I am seriously concerned that there may be a plan, developing or developed, to substantially liquidate the established talent of the Oakland club, "I intend, to scrutinize with great care any player assignments of the Oakland club which involve substantial payments of cash to the Oakland and I will not hesitate to disapprove such assignment if I find that they are not in the best interests of baseball, and to take such other action either remedial or punitive as the circumstances may warrant," Kuhn's statement concluded.

THE COMMISSIONER said he was satisfied "on the basis of the evidence developed at the hearing that the sale of Lindblad's contract to Texas should not be disapproved." Kuhn cited sworn testimony by Finley denying any liquidation plan, the recent signings of the A's which have increased the number of pjayers under Please turn to Page 4D, Col. 1 Spruced up for spring: the sport shirt, sporting colorful stripes down the shoulders and sleeves. Manhattan, does it up in a well-behaved blend of polyester and cotton, in a beautiful assortment of solid shades, with two-toned stripes. Sizes S.M.LXL at $17. Chips Nip WSU Women, 65-62 ALLANDALE Wayne State's fourth-seeded women's basketball team felt the absence of Mary Carney here Thursday as the Tartar women staged a too-little, too-late rally and fell to Central Michigan, 65-62, in the large-school division of the AIAW basketball tournament.

The Chips' built a 10-point lead in the second half and held off the Wayne challenge as Cheryl Pence scored 17 points. In Carney's absence (she was ruled ineligible two days ago), WSU was led by Nancy Han-nenberg with 1 8 vints and Jean Hogan with 17. Ul.f'J-'iL HUGHES MATCBIjEjH. MOST HUGHES HATCHER STORES OPEN EVENINGS. MOST HUGHES HATCHER STORES OPEN SUNDAYS..