Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

tcoit Jftree Free Press Telephones Today's Chuckle Tax loopholes are like parking spaces. By the time you get there, they've disappeared. City News Desk To Place Want Ads Insurance Dept. For Home Delivery All Other Calls 222-6600 222-6800 222-6470 222-6500 222-6400 THE SECOND FRONT PAGE Page 3, Section A Sunday; July 17, 1977 Black TV Station Making It After Months of Problems Or 6 I id t-ti I IMkM SAX mi mm iBHwiiiimiiimffftAmi i Sit Kfi- BY JIM NEUBACHER Free Press StaH Writer After nearly 20 months on the air, WGPR-TV, Channel 62, the nation's only black-owned and black-oriented television station, appears certain of survival. After infant months full of disappointments, layoffs and budget cuts, the station has reached a financial break-even point, its officials say.

And more important, Channel 62 has convinced a number of important advertisers and agencies that it is a useful medium for reaching the large market of black Detroiters who consume billions of dollars of products annually. General sales manager Jim Panagos says he expects revenues to increase at least 30 percent in the coming year, making it possible for the station to earn profits that can be reinvested in much-needed equipment and improved programming. 1 THE STATION was launched in September 1975 with an investment of about $4 million by the International Masons, a nationwide black society headed by Dr. William Venoid Banks, a Detroiter who is now station president. Originally the founders hoped for an alternative station that would produce 90 percent of its programming locally and offer a comprehensive daily show of news and features of interest to black Detroiters.

Those dreams have not been realized. Last week, only 17'2 hours of WGPR's programming were produced by the station. And a general austerity program has reduced a large, well-paid staff of newspersons to a hard core of six who report, write, produce and announce two 15-minute news shows daily. But the budget cuts that have kept the station from making much progress tdward its goals have also kept WGPR from bankruptcy. The payroll of $35,000 a month at the outset is now about $18,000 a month.

As a result, annual expenses are running about $1.2 Please turn to Page 6A, Col. 5 Free Press Photo bv HUGH GRANNUM The band sets up for "The Scene," a teen dance show: It's beginning to look like Channel 62 is here to stay. NEW BALL PARK PROJECTED Fund ICey to Tiger Deal 1, Free Press Photo bv HUGH GRANNUM City to Overhaul Old Stadium Michigan Humane Society's Jim Yardley with his friend Barney. He started as a volunteer and soon became Mr. Indispensable at the MHS.

Um i A Slip of a Man With a Big Heart For Animalkind BY JIM CRUTCHFIELD Free Press Staff Writer Detroit officials say the city's $1 purchase of the venerable Tiger Stadium will allow them to build up a reserve of millions of dollars that may be used to construct a new baseball stadium in the next century. "It's damn near impossible to project how much it will be," said William Cilluffo, an aide to Mayor Young who along with the mayor negotiated the agreement with the Tigers. The city's optimism is based largely on the Tigers' strong attendance record an average 1.5 million a year over the last 10 years. However, if attendance should drop dramatically, under their agreement with the city the Tigers would cut into the reserve fund to meet rent payments. Wednesday, Mayor Young and Tigers general manager Jim Campbell announced that the city was buying the 76-year-old stadium at Michigan and Trumbull for $1 and agreeing to carry out $15 million in renovations.

In exchange, the Tigers, who are pwped by 76-year-old John Fetzer, agreed to lease the stadium from the city for 30 years. If a new stadium is not con Mom Slew Two Girls Then Died Of Poison BY TOM HENNESSY Free Press Staff Writer Jim Yardley, a tough, trim, soft-spoken slip of a man; photographer, lecturer, salesman, publicist, investigator, rescuer of animals, assistant to veterinarians and best friend of Barney the Dog. His employer, the non-profit, non-governmental Michigan Humane Society, lists him by a grandiose title; something like director of special projects. What it really means is that Yardley, age 60, is the MHS utility man. "I've done everything for the society from cleaning kennels to managing a shelter," says Yardley.

True enough. In a decade of full-time service for MHS, Yardley has: Assisted in veterinary operations ranging from cesarean births to patching up animals that have been shot and stabbed. Transported hay to get Belle Isle's deer population through rugged winters. Been pelted with apples by a monkey he was trying to extricate from an apple tree. Rescued dogs and cats from trees, sewers, traffic-jammed expressways, empty houses and mailboxes.

A photographer by vocation, Yardley came to Detroit in 1952 to bechief cameraman for the UAW. That job, plus a free-lancing career after the UAW photo structed, the reserve fund can be used for further renova tions, according to the agree ment. Cilluffo says the financial arrangements will probably keep the team in Detroit much longer than the 30-year period BY WILLIAM HART Free Press Staff Writer A 27-year-old Trenton The buildup of extra funds from the Tiger rent and a ticket price increase will make woman described by neigh bors as a model mother poisoned herself by drinking hy the city an attractive place for Free Press Photo bv CRAIG PORTER The stuff of childhood pastimes became serious business in Southfield Saturday Collectors Find Big Bucks In Little Baseball Cards the team to play, Cilluffo said "If they don't stay, I don't think we re going to pay for a stadium outside of Detroit," "I've seen people treat animals with unbelieva- drochloric acid Friday after drowning one of her young daughters and apparently suffocating the other, according to an autopsy Saturday at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office. unit shut down, had him shooting pictures for such luminaries as the late Walter Reuther, former Gov. John Swainson Cilluffo said.

cruelty. But 1 ve and missing Teamsters chief- tain James R. Hoffa. THE DEAL, under which the city will acquire $5 million in federal funds and sell $10 million in revenue bonds for Trenton police had at first also seen people spending their last buck to take care of a dog or a cat." the stadium, calls for the city to But animals were always his first love. "When I was a kid in South Philadelphia we used to go around the neighborhood believed that Darlene Fritz and her daughters, Heather, 7, and Allison, 4, had all died from get at least $450,000 a year drinking an acid-laced soft drink, remains of which were found in a pitcher in their home BY DEE SIEGELBAUM Free Press Staff Writer When John Bogema was growing up in Grand Rapids, he'd listen like thousands of other boys to Tiger baseball games on radio.

He'd sit in his room and spread his baseball cards out on the bed, lining up the Tigers in their respective field positions, trying to visualize the game that announcer Harry Heilmann was describing. "It was just a fantasy, I guess," said at 3927 Highview. But death certificates issued Saturday indicated that only Mrs. Fritz died from ingestion from the Tigers in rent, an estimated $650,000 a year from an average 50-cent surcharge on, each ticket and a minimum $320,000 annually for new multiseat boxes expected to be sold for at least $8,000 each. That minimum $1.4 million, according to Cilluffo, will offset the anticipated $900,000 annual debt for the $10 million in bonds that are supposed to be paid off in 30 years.

Actually, Cilluffo says, the of the acid, an extremely corrosive substance used in a wide range of cleaning operations. mood rings, old pennants, yearbooks and programs. ONE OF THE more ambitious collectors was Gary Hoover, 34, of Royal Oak, who started with baseball cards four years ago and has worked his way up to bats, uniforms and other sports equipment, the luxury items of the world of sport collecting. Among his most prized possessions was a football jersey that Brian Piccolo would have worn in the 1970 season had he not died of leukemia. Hoover said he had turned down an offer of $500 for the shirt.

He also had the smallest bat used by one of today's major leaguers Rick Burleson's 30-inch, 31-ounce swatter and the largest Manny Sangui lien's 37-inch, 41-ounce weapon. The bats were selling for $8 to $40, depending on the status of the player who used it. Hoover said he attends about seven national collectors shows a year and travels to baseball spring training camps in Florida twice a year in search of baseball relics. ciers, the collectors also know that the value of a thing in a capitalist economy is not in the thing itself but in what you can get for it. And you get can big bucks for those little cards.

For instance, Bogema started his original collection 25 years ago with cards that came with penny packages of bub-blegum now are worth as much as 60 cents a card. "That's a 6,000 percent return. Even banks don't pay that," he said. He walked up and down the aisles of the show Saturday, clutching an attache case containing rare Leaf Gum Co. cards he was hoping to trade for the highly valued 1887-1914 vintage cards offered by tobacco companies.

One such card recently brought $3,800 at auction in New York, according to Charles Brooks, executive director of the association. In additon to baseball cards, people at the show, which continues from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, were selling sports books, comic books, old uniforms, the bats of major leaguers, Mark Fidrych Bogema, now 32. But it started him on a lifelong hobby that brought him to the Heather's death was attrib Michigan Inn in Southfield Saturday, washing dogs for a quarter.

Things were tough in those days and we didn't have much, but somehow I always had a dog and I was always bringing animals home with me." Ten years ago, Yardley's voluntary photo work for MHS developed into a full-time, paid post. Ostensibly he was the society's photographer, but he saw his role as one of bringing together people and homeless animals. To this end, he initiated the "Dog of the Week" an idea unabashedly stolen from the Chicago Tribune by lobbying Free Press editors with irresistible photos of homeless pups and kittens. Invariably the photos were accompanied by equally irresistible dog and cat names, like "Lonesome Jim," a Yardley-chosen sobriquet which in one day brought 700 calls from people wanting to adopt a single pup. When not finding homes for those with four-on-the-floor, Yardley can be found in other MHS pursuits.

Among these is his work as an investigator of cruelty cases. main interest is finding homes for dogs and eliminating if- Please turn to Page 4A, Col. 1 uted to asphyxia through an obstruction of the air passage, along with scores of other avid collectors of sports memorabilia, for a baseball card show presented by the National Association of Sport Collectors. which is usually associated with smothering or strangula tion. Allison died from city expects an extra $800,000 annually.

Most of the collectors conceded that If there were no qualifica there is slight intrinsic value in a two-by-three-inch piece of cardboard picturing The death of Mrs. Fritz, who was found lying on her living the face of an obscure major league tions in the agreement and there are that would mean the Tigers would take in an baseball player. room sofa by her husband, Alvin, around 6 p.m. Friday, was ruled a suicide. Those of BUT LIKE great Wall Street finan Please turn to Page 4A, Col.

4 the two children, who were lying on their beds still dressed in the swimsuits they had worn to a Friday morning swimming lesson, were ruled homicides. 'The Bear' Is Caught in FBI Fencing Trap POLICE Saturday had yet to determine a motive in the suicide-murders. A spokesman for the department said Fritz told police Friday that his wife had been depressed in the past, but Please turn to Page 5A, Col. 1 Storm Brings Mini-Blackout BY HELEN FOGEL Free Press Staff Writer careful who you talk to, the man who called himself "The Bear" warned the proprietors of Universal Distributing Inc. in Taylor.

The Bear had come to the curtain-shrouded storefront office in an out-of-the-way spot off 1-94 to try to sell the three men truckloads of stolen goods ranging from spark plugs to beefsteak. 'A friend had told him UDI was a fencing operation and the men who ran it were ready to buy just about any kind of hot cargo that came down the pike. BUT FIRST the Bear cautioned the men to watch out for? federal agents. The FBI had set up undercover fencing operations "all over," he said. A buddy of his had been caught in one.

he's right," said the man named Tom to his business partner. Nodding toward the Bear, he asked, "Hpw do we know this guy isn't a cop?" -The Bear, apparently trying to keep his newfound friends out of trouble, might better have taken his own advice. ROBERT LEE BAER of Archbold, Ohio, is in the Milan federal prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted of possession and transportation of stolen goods across state lines. After watching Baer's meetings at UDI played out on videotape and listening to taped phone conversations, a federal court jury convicted Baer on all counts. Tom (Special Agent Thomas Cupples) is on a new FBI assignment in a new location.

At Baer's trial, Cupples testified that after seven months of pretending to be thieves and fences so the FBI could identify and get evidence against real thieves and fences, he and his partners were glad their unusual undercover assignment was over. Cupples told the jury that he and Special Agents Patrick Livingston and Thomas Fassanella were "excited and happy" when the time came that they could "step forward and say, 'We are respectable people. We are with the The Baer trial, conducted by U.S. District Judge James Churchill, gave the public its first clear look at an FBI undercover operation that has made news headlines from coast to coast. Baer is the first of those charged out of a network of such undercover operations to try to beat the rap before a jury.

Faced with extensive records of their illegal activities on videotape and in photographs and recorded phone calls, the others have entered guilty pleas. ALTHOUGH BAER and two colleagues who pleaded guilty are the first charged in Michigan, prosecutions of others are planned here. Robert Kent, special agent in charge of the FBI in Michigan, acknowledged last week that undercover agents had posed as thieves and fences from October to May "in an effort to penetrate Detroit's underworld fencing operation." According to Kent, the Michigan undercover operation had the goal of curbing interstate hijacking where thieves steal truckloads of merchandise to sell to fences or middlemen for as little as 20 cents on the dollar. In turn, the fences sell the goods, often to legitimate businessmen, at their full value. Kent said that insurance claims indicate the loss of cargo theft nationally amounts to more than $2 billion annually.

In the course of the Michigan operation, 51 people were "identified for federal prosecution and an additional 23 were identified as committing state and local criminal violations," Kent said. Stolen property valued at $618,000 was recovered, and "substantial intelligence data" was gathered about the way thieves and fences operate in Michigan, he said. KENT REFUSED to comment on the nature of the operation elsewhere in the country or even to confirm that the FBI is into phony fencing on a national scale. However, testimony at the Baer trial revealed the. existence of other such operations in East and West coast cities, in Chicago, Indianapolis and other locations where hijacking is a major problem.

Once when Baer brought in a load of aluminum and demanded more money for it than the Michigan undercover agents had on hand, the financially embarrassed FBI here tried to send Baer and his cargo to Indianapolis where a lusher FBI crew had the cash. Baer decided he wouldn't do that. Instead he left the hot aluminum with the men he believed to be fences so a Please turn to Page 16 Col. I Thunderstorms that hit the Detroit area early Saturday morning caused power failures affecting 1,997 electric customers in two neighborhoods near Woodward and Seven Mile. A Detroit Edison spokesman said high winds in the 6 a.m.

storm knocked down power lines. Service to the customers, most of them residential, was restored about six hours later..