Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 9

1-D DETROIT FREE PRESS Tuosdav. Aua. 10. '76 oils Had Their Softball Fun Now It's Guys' Turn in FP Tourney Opening Round Class A Games Here is the schedule for the opening round of the men's Class A softball play in the Free Press Tournament of Champions: IN THE WOMEN'S wrapup Sunday, the Real Estate One team made off with its fourth tournament title of the season with a 9-3 victory over the Ann Arbor Pacers. LaPlata's Raiders, the team which eliminated another pre-tourna-ment favorite, Little Caesars, took third place in Class A.

Warren Bank and the Golden 20's had to get their respective Class and Class trophies the hard way losing early in the tournament and then battling back out of the losers bracket. Warren Bank had to beat Fettes Manufacturing of Warren, 11-8 and 7-2, in the two-game championship final of Class with Chelsea Flower Shop taking third place. The Golden 20's team, which had lost to Big Bills'-Ellis All-Stars early in the Class competition, rallied in the Sunday afternoon finals to beat the Dearborn youngsters twice, 5-3 and 5-1, thereby taking their division trophy. At the right is the schedule for the opening round of the men's Class A play. Saturday and most of the day Sunday.

Men's titles will be awarded in Class and C. And, with the first two rounds of Class and completed over the past weekend, that means that only the top teams (16 in the winners' bracket and 16 still alive in the losers' bracket) are left in each of those two divisions. Class appears particularily strong with the likes of Lakeshore House, East Warren Lanes, J-K Sales, the CoHo Bar and Buddy's Pizza still in the thick of things. The top men's division Class A will get started with four games on Friday night. It will be Cardinal Mooney vs.

St. Sebastian at 7:05 p.m., Mayfair Auto against Marsilio's Light 'N Up at 8:10 p.m., Fred Hall Chevrolet vs. Dutchy's Bar at 9:15 p.m. and Pizza Bob's of Ann Arbor against J's Lounge at 10:20 p.m. The championship games in the men's divisions are scheduled for late Sunday afternoon.

There is no admission fee for spectators at Softball City for the tournament. BY CURT SYLVESTER Fret Press Sports Writer Three champions Real Estate One, Warren Bank of St. Clair Shores and Golden 20's have been crowned, but the fun is really just beginning in the Free Press slowpitch softball Tournament of Champions. The first weekend of the 150-team tournament belonged, for the most part, to the women's teams and it was quite a show they put on for the fans at Softball City. The Real Estate One Stingers, the defending USSSA world champions, took the Class A women's title; the girls of Warren Bank came out of the losers' bracket to win the Class title; and it was the Golden 20's women who walked away from the first weekend's competition with the Class title.

SO NOW THE tournament attention turns to the men's competition, which will be held Friday evening, all day Friday Cardinal Mooney vs. St. Sebastian, 7:05 p.m., Diamond 10; Mayfair Auto vs. Marsilio's Light 'N Up, 8:10 p.m., Diamond 10; Fred Hall Chevrolet vs. Dutchy's Bar, 9:15 p.m., Diamond 10; Pizza Bob's vs.

J's Loung, 10:20 p.m., Diamond 10. Saturday Splink's vs. Kozy Lounge, 11 a.m., Diamond Stags vs. Dan's Sub, 11 a.m., Diamond Cottage Inn vs. Clemente's, 11 a.m., Diamond Ecorse Market vs.

Ashley Funder, 11 a.m., Diamond 10. Football Arrows: That 'Other' Pro Team In City of Pontiac The Bird's Success Hasn't Hit Mr. Fid. It's pretty quiet in the sports department. Not much is happening.

Even the news wires are silent. No games, no trades, nobody threatening to sue anybody. A quiet, peaceful Monday afternoon When who should walk through the door but Paul Fidrych, the father of Mark Fidrych the Pappa Bird himself. Well, now. How often does a cplumn drop into your lap? Not very often.

Not very often at all. And so it was my pleasure to spend a full half hour with Paul Fidrych the Pappa Bird. Now he is gone on his way. It's still pretty quiet in the sports department. Nobody is running around the place.

Nobody is smoothing out the copy paper. Nobody is talking to the typewriters. It is still a quite, peaceful Monday afternoon. Imagine that. You wonder where young Mark gets it all all of his pep, all of his pizazz, all of this pomp and pageantry.

Well, it ain't from his old man. Mr. Fidrych isn't even called the Pappa Bird. He is Mr. Fid.

to everyone back home in Northboro, Mass. In fact, he's the sort of guy you could enjoy having a few beers with without worrying about him becoming overbearing about his son. He may be the best thing in young Mark Fid-rych's life. BEFORE THE START of the season, the Arrows got a letter from Rick Forzano, coach of the Lions, who told them "We have two pro teams in Pontiac. Let's hope both of us are winners." So far, the Arrows have carried their share of the load.

They won their first three games by scoring 88 points and shutting out the opposition. After Flint forfeited a game to them, the Arrows came back to defeat Cleveland, 33-0, last weekend. They play gaain Saturday at Wismer Stadium in Pontiac against the Lansing Capitals. The fact that the Lions moved into town has not discouraged the Arrows. It probably increases the chances of Lion scouts seeing their players.

One scout supposedly has watched a game, with a keen eye on Dan Matthews, the team's leading rusher who scored four touchdowns against Cleveland. Most players in this league there are several minor leagues around the country are in the game for the fun of it. THE ARROWS HAVE had some players go up to the National Football League and others come down from the NFL over the years. Karl Sweetan and Tom Myers, two former Lion quarterbacks, got some seasoning with the team. This year's Arrows team has few players with NFL dreams, however.

The roster is made up mostly of former collegians like Tom Slade, the ex-Michigan quarterback from Saginaw who attends dental school. Slade probably makes higher than the average salary because he's a quarterback. But he's taking a risk, too. His dean has warned him about hurting his hands. Please turn to Page 6D, Column 1 BY JIM BENAGH Free Press Sports Writer The wide receiver with good footwork is employed by Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Pontiac.

The quarterback with a good passing hand is a dental student in Ann Arbor. The offensive guard protects the public as well as quarterbacks as a patrolman in Westland. The members of the Pontiac Arrows professional football team live double lives. They have to. With their football salaries averaging from $100 to $115 a game, nobody is getting rich with his football check.

Minor league football teams live from day to day. THE ARROWS KNOW that very well. Their top rival in the six-team Midwest Football League the Flint Sabres folded after the current season started. The Arrows, who drew only 1,500 in their rainy first home game, had been counting on a good matchup with Flint at Pontiac Stadium. A fair estimate for that crowd would have been from 15,000 to 20,000 because they were the two best teams in the league as well as natural rivals.

When they miss a gate like that, players see their per-game salaries cut in half. The Arrows have survived for all but two years since they were formed in 1960 (they played a few of those years as the Firebirds). This season there is a new ownership group, headed by lumber broker Gary Lemmen, who has pumped enthusiasm as well as money into the organization. He's only 35 years old. The Arrows wear smart looking red-white-blue uniforms and issue their players only safe equipment.

The team has its own trainer, an assistant at Wayne State who wants to get some professional exposure. it If lfcs 'He's Always Been a Good Kid9 "I'm gonna stay around to see Mark pitch Wednesday night, but jeez it's getting expensive trying to follow him around the country," Mr. Fidrych laughed. "He could keep a guy broke." Mr. Fid.

is here with his wife, their two daughters, a cousin and his wife while another married sister is due in sometime next week. Mr. Fid. is an assistant principal back home in Northboro, and there's nothing in the family budget which allows him to go all the places young Mark does. He drove here the first two times but didn't get to see Mark Free Press Photo by IRA ROSENBERG Coach Turf Kauffman (right) and two of his stars, Tom Slade (No.

7) and Mark Braciszewski (No. 24), discuss Pontiac's "other" pro football team the undefeated Arrows. pitch. This time the whole family flew but that about kills the budget for the year. Mr.

Fidryh was in the building trying to get a copy of Dick Mayer's iron-on of young Mark which appeared in our paper last month. The folks back in Northboro have been bugging him to get something they can put on their shirts or their walls or their desks. He figured the iron-on portrait would do it. "Oh, no, not to make any money just something we could give the paper back home so they'd have something about Mark," said Mr. Fid.

"I wouldn't charge them for anything. I'm just happy they think so much of Mark." NCAA, Big 10 To Investigate OSU Charges -'V 'XSs Us i i A wp iih AkfXP v- Hfi K'V? ft Paul Fidrych Mr. Fid sat there with his shirt open smoking a cigar and appearing very happy with his world. Mark's sudden success hasn't touched him, and you suspect it never will. "It's really hard for me to believe all of this that it's me sitting there watching my son Mark out there on that big stage with all those people cheering.

I tell myself, it can't be me. It must be somebody else. "The only thing I try to is well, I just don't move. If he starts out pitching well and I've got my legs crossed, I'll keep them crossed for the whole game. I won't move an inch.

Boy, the last time he pitched I had to go to the bathroom but I didn't dare move." Does Mr. Fid. offer any words of advice to The Bird? "I don't say an awful lot. Mark's always been a good kid. I've never worried about him," he said.

"I just tell him to keep his head on straight. "He's never really given us any cause for concern. Oh, I mean beyond the usual things, like coming in a little late and stuff like that. But he's never been a problem to his mother or myself." school coach, and a "source close to Ohio State." Ronders would not reveal the names, but the player is believed to be a member of the current Spartan squad that will open fall practice this month. According to hte wire-service reports Monday, the Big Ten commissioner, Wayne, Duke, said the conference "has an obligation to conduct an inquiry into any allegation of violations." Warren S.

Brown, executive director of the NCAA, said he had not yet read the stories, but "we always look into allegations which appear in print." SUCH INVESTIGATIONS do not assume guilt or wrong doing, said both the NCAA and Big Ten spokesmen. But Duke Please turn to Page 5D, Col. 3 BY JIM BENAGH Free Press Sports Writer Spokesmen for the NCAA and Big Ten said Monday they will investigate charges of football-recruiting violations made against Ohio State. The Buckeyes and their coach, Woody Hayes, have been accused of several alleged improper practices in copyrighted stories by hte State News, Michigan State University's daily campus newspaper. The stories, which appeared in three parts last week, were written by Ed Ronders, 30, the student sports editor.

After it was announced that hte Big Ten and NCAA would investigate the charges, Ronders said his sources for his stories would come forth and testify. They include a current Big Ten player; a former player; a former Ohio high Yes, Mark Is Maturing LeFlore Sprinting Toward 60 Steals 9 V'1 .4 How about any changes in young Mark? A parent surely would know that better than anyone else. "Well, he is getting a little edgy," said Mr. Fid. "He has quieted down a lot lately.

It hasn't been easy for him. He can never get any time alone. The phone is always ringing and there's always somebody knocking at the door. "Mark sleeps late maybe 'til one or two in the afternoon and then he just sits around listening to his stereo. I know he is feeling it all because when I went down to New York to see him pitch, he said to me, 'You know, dad, there's more pres-ture on me to win now than when I first started in the The nice thing the comforting thing in talking to Mr.

Fidrych is that he does not want to seem to move in on his son's territory. eH is cantent to let young Mark have the entire stage to himself. He is boggled by what's going on, though. "Do you know what we just did!" he exclaimed like a kid. "We just got done sorting out Mark's mail.

I'll bet we went through 5,000 pieces. Naw, wait. It wasn't 5,000. It couldn't be. But it seemed like 5,000.

"Well, we got it all sorted out when a gal at the ball park told us, 'What are you doing that for? The ball club will take care of that for Can you imagine that, all the work we went through for nothing!" Mr. Fidrych broke into a loud laugh. The joke was on him and he enjoyed it to the fullest. Is Mark maturing? Mr. Fidrych thought that over for a moment.

"Let me put it this way," he said. "When Mark lost a couple of games, I told him, 'Mark, you just can't win them He looked at me and said, 'I know that, I think you can call that maturity." Just a quiet, peaceful day in the sports department. Nice to meet you, Mr. Fid. BY JIM HAWKINS Free Press Sports Writer It has been 59 years since anyone wearing a Tiger uniform stole second base as frequently as Ron LeFlore has this season.

But the fleet centerfielder still isn't satisfied. He wants to become the most successful base thief the Tigers have employed in six full decades. And with 55 games left to play in the next eight weeks he just might make it. All he has to do is maintain his present pace. Going into Monday night's game against the Texas Rangers, LeFlore had stolen 41 bases in the Tigers' first 107 games easily the best any Tiger has done on the base paths since the immortal Ty Cobb swiped 55 way back in 1917.

At that rate, LeFlore will have stolen about 60 bases by the time the season ends Oct. 3. And no Tiger has topped that since Cobb stole 68 in 1916, six decades ago. "I SHOULD be able to do it," said LeFlore, who currently ranks fifth in the Amer-i a League with a .330 batting average. "All I have to do is keep getting on base." The all-time record for stolen bases by a Tiger is 96 set by Cobb, of course, in 1915.

But for the last half century the Tigers have definitely been a running team. In fact, until LeFlore came along to steal 23 bases in the Please turn to Page 6D, Col. 5 You don't have to pay a runaway price for Bostonian's glove leather jogs. They're 19.90.' That's our super special price on these super special shoes. Two styles, both ruggedly styled for indoor outdoor footin'.

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