Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 1

Special pullout follows Page 8A J'1 Mm! i I 'I I i 1 1 I I i- i 5 4 1 I 1 3 I- -4 Yank pedals plane across the Channel Details on the Back Page slalc Sunny and mild High 76, low 53 Details on Page 15D 20c 1 Volume 149, Number 40 ON GUARD FOR 148 YEARS Wednesday, June 13, 1979 6 Day Home Delivery 1W M'oit Fr Prfss. Inc. SPARKY ANDERSON HIRED -w -w action line 0 T17 ed i er Mana ss rir ger Mo Write Action Line, Box 881, Detroit, Mich. 48231. Or dial 222-6464 from 8: 30 a.m to 4: 30 p.

m. Monday-Friday. Yearbook refund In January, I sent $155 to G.S. Gallery In Coopersburg, for some sports yearbooks. My order was shipped out, but apparently got lost in the mail.

By the time I reordered, some of the items, like Tiger yearbooks from 1960 to 1966, were out of stock. I was very disappointed, and the fact that I haven't gotten my refund yet hasn't helped. Can you get my money back? W.D., Oscoda Refund slid into home plate last week. When Action Line contacted G.S. Gallery, spokesman said he was sure check if.

HP 9 7 IK Anderson, who has been dabbling in television work and biding his time since he was unexpectedly sacked by the Reds last November, was understandably elated. "Jim Campbell said to me, 'We want you to be the one to lead those said the always enthusiastice Anderson. "I'm not going to be a dreamer. We're not going to catch lightning in a bottle in Detroit. But I am going back to what I really enjoy, working with good young kids.

"We've got five guys from catcher to third base who can catch that ball as well as anybody in baseball. And we've got Ron LeFlore, and Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker who can all run." Anderson, who had been rumored to be next in line for several manager's jobs, most notably with the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies, admitted he had hoped to put off his return until he could begin fresh somewhere in spring training. However, after talking to Campbell he said, "I began to wonder if I would ever get the opportunity to work with as good a group of people as they have in Detroit, if I would ever get the opportunity to work with talent that good, and if I would ever get a five-year contract." The more he thought about it, the better the Tigers' invitation appeared. Tuesday's firing, which came with the season only 53 See TIGERS, Page7A BY JIM HAWKINS Free Press Sports Writer In an attempt to instill a little more life into their lethargic, fifth-place ballclub, the Tigers abruptly fired low-keyed manager Les Moss Tuesday afternoon and replaced him with the effervescent Sparky Anderson. In fact, to show their confidence in Anderson, the Tigers presented him with the longest, richest contract they have ever given any manager.

The 45-year-old Anderson, who will arrive from California Thursday night to take command of the team, will at that time sign a 5 4-year contract at a starting salary of $1 10,000 a year. Moss, by way of comparison, was only given a one-year contract at an estimated salary of $35,000 when he was hired to manage the Tigers late last September. Anderson's agreement, which will extend through the 1984 season, will make him one the highest-paid managers in baseball. Which, according to Tigers' presidentgeneral manager Jim Campbell, is right where the popular, white-haired former manager of the Cincinnati Reds belongs. During his nine years in Cincinnati, from 1970 through 1978, Anderson's Reds won two World Series, four National League pennants, and five Western Division titles.

During those nine years, the Reds won 863 games while losing only 586, giving Anderson a winning percentage of .596 the best of any manager in baseball at the time. t'Va 1WJ mx had been sent out already. Another look-see, however, proved that it hadn't been mailed. A few days later, money went out. To help beef up your collection of baseball annuals, John Stommen, publisher of Sports Collectors Digest, offered to run notice publicizing your search.

He said More on 15A action line: Need a special car for a special occasion? sound off: Are you concerned about Skylab falling? Les Moss: He's out after 53 Sparky Anderson: He's in on a five-year contract. games. Most of the Tigers' players were just as surprised as Les Moss. The story is on Page 1D. Les Moss admitted "the progress should have been better." The story is on Page 1D.

yearbooks you're seeking shouldn't be too hard to find among magazine's readers. According to Stommen, it's 1959 Tiger yearbook that's most difficult to locate. enounces Spailiy 0 Undeison Timers are mv team Cartels Health Plan' For nine years with the Cincinnati Reds, Sparky Anderson was one of the most successful managers in major league baseball history. With him at the helm, the Reds won two world championships, four National League pennants and five Western Division titles. Nevertheless, last November, the Reds let Anderson go.

Tuesday afternoon, in a plan may well become the straw that beaks the back of the American health-care system," Kennedy told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. 1 (In Detroit, UAW President Douglas Fraser branded Carter's proposals as "a facade and not a solution." (Fraser, who is chairman of the Committee for National comprehensive national health insurance, still at least a decade away in administration planning. Both Carter and Joseph A. Califano, health education and welfare secretary, asserted that the first phase of the plan to take effect in 1983 is the only legislation Congress will accept now. Kennedy has proposed a considerably more expensive plan to implement universal coverage in a single step.

A $63.8 billion price tag has been attached to his plan. Kennedy denounced Carter's proposal as being to costly and unfair to the poor and the elderly. "By failing to set a national budget, by inadequately controlling hospital costs, by failing to control doctors' fees in the private sector, by creating two separate and unequal systems of care, the president's See HEALTH, Page 15A Wayne mourned ivorldwide From UPI and Free Press Staff WASHINGTON -The details of President Carter's first step toward a comprehensive national health plan were greeted with pointed criticism Tuesday from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is floating his own plan, and an influential labor leader from Detroit.

The president called his initial move a "precious opportunity for progress" in the war against escalating healthcare costs. Designed to guard against the costs of major illnesses, ensure care for pregnant women and their infants and reform programs for the poor, disabled and elderly, Carter said the plan would cost $25 billion a year. "The American people have waited long enough," the president said. "The plan I am proposing today creates both the framework and the momentum" for eventual Editorial comment on the president's health plan. Page 10A.

as a last American hero Y'A it Yt 1 1 r' iff i AP Photo DC3 crashed between 1-95 exit ramp (bottom) and Ft. Lauderdale housing project. From AP, UPI and Chlcaoo Tribune LOS ANGELES President Carter said it for everyone Tuesday as the world mourned the loss of film great John Wayne. Said Carter: "In an age of few heroes, he was the genuine article." Wayne was the biggest box-office attraction in motion picture history. He won all his private and screen battles but finally lost his 15-year fight against cancer.

To the very end, he refused drugs to be awake with his family. THE 72-YEAR-OLD actor died at 5:3 p.m. (8:35 p.m. Detroit time) Monday surrounded by his seven sons and daughters. The family delayed the death announcement three hours to notify close friends.

"He would not take medication. He wanted to be1 awake when he died," a UCLA Medical Center spokesman said. Wayne died in a coma, feeling no pain. In keeping with the actor's wishes, funeral services will be private. Wayne's eldest son, Michael, who ran his father's Batjac productions said, "We appre- See WAYNE, Page 15A Inside: A farewell to the Duke his life, his films, his women and some fond remembrances.

Look for the four-page pull-out section following Page 8A. Editorial tribute to John Wayne. Pate 10A. surprise move, the Detroit Tigers fired Les Moss, their manager for the first 53 games of the season, and hired Anderson. The new skipper, 45, was interviewed by telephone from his California home.

By JIM HAWKINS Free Press Sports Writer When did the Tigers first contact you about the job? A Yesterday (Monday) morning, about 1 1 o'clock, our time. I had just finished watering the lawn and I had just laid down on the patio to catch a little sun when the phone rang. That was the first time the subject was ever discussed. I lost track of how many times we talked during the day. It seemed very harmless at first.

But it seemed like one thing led to another. In between calls I was talking it over with my wife and my 17-year-old son. My wife finally said, "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" I said, "Look at this young Detroit club. They have some people who can play." It had been rumored that you might become the next manager in Philadelphia, or in New York, or in several other cities. What convinced you to accept the Tigers' ofler? A The more I thought about it, the more I thought about that young ball club you have there, the more I became convinced that that was the place for me.

Yesterday afternoon I just felt in my heart that I was making the right decision. And I know I was 100 percent right. Everybody was thinking that I would go somewhere where I could take over a winner. But to me that isn't life. Life is looking for what is the best job for you, what is going to give you the most enjoyment.

And I just enjoy being around guys who are enthused because I'm a very enthusiastic person. Do you see any parallels between the Tigers and the club you inherited in Cincinnati in 1970? A Very much so, in the sense that they're young and don't really know yet what direction they're going in. They're searching. But the Tigers don't have a young Fete Rose or a young Johnny Bench or a young Tony Perez, do they? A Well, we say we don't. But when you look at young Lance Parrish and you look at Steve Kemp and you look at Jason Thompson and you look at Alan Trammell and you look at Lou Whitaker they could be there someday.

Because they have the ability. Now it's a question of how much they want it. That's going to be my job. I saw a sign years ago and I've never forgotten it. It said: "Show me, don't tell me." How soon do you think you can transform the Tigers into a winner? A I'm not a fool.

I know we're in with New York, Boston, Baltimore and Milwaukee. I don't want the fans to think that now that Sparky Anderson is here, everything will be all right. Sparky Anderson never won anything. It was the kids who played on that ballclub in Cincinnati who won it. All I know is, the Detroit Tigers are now my team.

You'll never hear me bring up the Cincinnati Reds again. That's gone. That's history. I am now the Detroit Tigers. And I will give those people every bit of effort I've got.

John Wayne at the Academy Awards April 9, his last public appearance. U.S. flies 61 out of Nicaragua From AP and UPI MANAGUA, Nicaragua Sixty-one Americans, guarded by Nicaraguan troops and U.S. Marines, sped to a secret airstrip outside Managua Tuesday and took off aboard a U.S. Air Force plane to escape the intensifying guerilla war against President Anastasio Somoza.

Evacuation of the Americans mostly wives and children of U.S. Embassy staff members came as fresh fighting raged between So-moza's National Guard troops and Sandinista guerillas in many sections of this Central American capital. The Americans were taken to the Panama Canal Zone. At one point, as gunfire rocked a poor district a few hundred yards away, guards at the U.S. Embassy opened fire on bushes across the road.

People standing in the compound scrambled for cover. Elsewhere in Managua, a witness reported a rocket fired by a government war-plane destroyed the building housing Nicaragua's last remaining opposition newspaper, La Prensa. AN ATTEMPT to airlift Americans out Monday was aborted when fighting broke See AIRLIFT, Page 15A Crash pilot averts tragedy on ground From AP and UPI FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. The pilot of a plunging DC3 probably saved many lives on the ground by guiding the aircraft between a row of houses and a traffic-jammed freeway, authorities said Tuesday.

The pilot and a passenger died in the accident. Neither has been identified. "Can you imagine if he'd gone another 100 feet?" asked Lt. Bob Rankin of the Ft. Lauderdale Fire Department.

Rankin watched Tuesday morning as the twin-engine cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport. The plane fell and burned in a small, grassy field within a few feet of Interstate-95, which was jammed with rush-hour traffic. "It's a wonder it didn't kill somebody else all those people on 1-95. It was awful.

Oh my God, it was terrible," said Richard Smalley, who watched the plane nose-dive and crash as he drove along Cypress Creek Road. MORE PEOPLE MIGHT have died had the pilot not brought the plane down between 1-95 and a subdivision, Rankin said. The nose of the plane smashed into the ground only 50 feet from the nearest house. "Children were just getting up for breakfast, people were getting ready to go to work," Rankin said. "There's no telling how many people would have been killed." Rankin said the aircraft left the runway at 7:23 a.mM climbed to about 250 feet, struggled for altitude, passed over traffic-jammed 1-95 and plunged toward the subdivision.

"I think he (the pilot) saw the houses and he wanted to land on the grassy strip between the highway and the houses, but when you're only 250 feet up you can't turn your plane," he said. "He got the nose up too high and he stalled out." Hopes dim for more DC survivors in Idaho. Page I A. Old overcoat pocket held $100 bills, says Talmadge's ex-wife Free Press Wire Service WASHINGTON Sen. Herman E.

Talmadge's former wife testified Tuesday it was "a way of life" in the Talmadge household to pay expenses from a cache of $100 bills stored In the pocket of an old overcoat. Testifying reluctantly and under oath before the Senate Ethics Committee, Betty Talmadge contradicted her former husband's repeated statements that the only pocket money he had came in $5 and $10 contributions from his Georgia constituents. The ethics committee has accused Talmadge of converting campaign contributions and Senate expense funds to his own use. The money was allegedly funneled through a secret bank account and delivered to Talmadge by a former aide, Daniel MInchew. In earlier testimony, Minchew had said that Talmadge usually carried $100 bills.

Minchew also said that 1973-74 See ETHICS, Page 15A inside today ANN LANDERS 3C BUSINESS NEWS 8-13C CLASSIFIED 13-19C COMICS 13-1SP DEATH NOTICES 13C EDITORIALS 1QA ENTERTAINMENT 11-12P FEATURE PAGE 13B FOOD GUIDE 1-IOB MOVIE GUIDE 14-18D OBITUARIES SC SPORTS 1-IOD STOCK MARKETS 9-i 3C TELEVISION 12B THE WAY WE LIVE 1-4C TUESDr873.