Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 39

Liw i will 6 I- The Tigers have high hopes for the '84 baseball season. Will they win the pennant? See Sound Off, Page 2D. Sports Phone, 1-976-1313 3 think if Genie Coetzee is lucky enough to whip i no, he'll be recognized as the heavyweight champion, and I'll praise him as a great fighter. Larry Holmes, who lights Coetzee, June 8 PISTONS HORSE RACING MOVIE GUIDE 56 7 LJ DETROIT FREE PRESS Call with sports news: 222-6660 There was just one way to go 11 Oilio 1Jj Bouncy HH Hitch pumps life, success into Wings, for a change By BILL MCGRAW Free Press Sports Writer It was spring of 1980, and bad vibes, crisis atmosphere and mass confusion were rampant in the Red Wings front office. In other words, it was business as usual.

The club was losing. It had been losing for the past decade. The payroll had grown to 82 players, more than twice that of most teams. And most weren't good enough to play in the NHL. The owner, Bruce Norris, was in a snit.

The ruling troika Norris, Louis Risi, his Miami-based money man, and Lincoln Cavalieri, his longtime Detroit lieutenant met and decided to fire general manager Ted Lindsay. The troika summoned Lindsay, who was sitting outside the room, but before Norris could tell him he was fired, Lindsay suggested he should be the So he was appointed coach. Then the troika took an employe Lindsay had ignored for three years, Jimmy Skinner, and made him Lindsay's boss. The results were typical of the Norris regime. Lindsay's team won only three games by the next Thanksgiving; he was fired.

Skinner wound up trading the Wings' first draft choice the next year. Then, Skinner admitted talking to the portrait of Jack Adams on his office wall. 4 lAMWtMlMktt 'A- National pastime upon us wi th some rhyme and reason SEATTLE The major league baseball season does not, open in Seattle if you can classify what the Mariners play as major league baseball until Wednesday, when the Toronto Blue Jays drop by with evidence that an expansion franchise doesn't have to play like one forever. The action-packed excitement of watching Spike Owen and Jack Perconte turn double plays might have commenced a day sooner had the comfortable Kingdome not been occupied by a bunch of big people in short pants. The national pastime had to wait because the finals of the Final Four were held late Monday night, with a very large Jamaican leaping for rebounds against a very large Nigerian.

And you thought America never accepted foreign aid. It feels good to reach the climax of a winter season, especially since this is the time of year when even the most trivial transaction of a baseball team seems more newsworthy than a whole page worth of Houston-Georgetown jumpers. To watch the baseball wheeler-dealers trim their rosters, "waiving" and "optioning" human beings like so many shares of soybeans, is to forget sometimes, in our casual callousness, that what we are actually witnessing is the disruption of lives. To trade somebody is to uproot that man's family, yank his kids out of school, give them 24 hours to get outta town. Quick, pack your stuff and say goodby to the neighborhood.

Either that or leave the loved ones behind. As for out and out cutting somebody from the team, it is nothing short of sawing off his hope. It is taking that man's bubblegum card and ripping it in half. A sad day for Naha Consider what happened last weekend to a nice enough fellow named Bill Nahorodny, whom everyone simply knows as Naha. He is a catcher who hit a ton in the Tiger organization last summer, but is the victim of advancing age and unfortunate circumstances.

When even the woebegone Mariners were forced to give him his walking papers Saturday, Naha emerged from the manager's office with teardrops on his cheeks. Teammates came by not only to shake his hand, but to hug him. Baseball is a lyrical, wonderful game when it is played right, and even sometimes when it isn't. We soak up its sunshine and its strategy and gorge ourselves on its statistics. One could write an entire Gilbert and Sullivan operetta using nothing but box-score names, and self-educated fans could identify every Two years later, on the night the Wings celebrated 50 years of Norris family ownership, fans booed lustily.

One yelled, "Sell the team, Norris." He sold the team. MIKE ILITCH bought it in May 1982 for about $15 million. Norris was a rich kid from Chicago who inherited See MIKE ILITCH, Page 2D Free Press Pholo By JOHN COLLIER Red Wings owner Mike Hitch surveys Joe Louis Arena and some of the changes he's made. Ipening lay 'M CEiisoii. lecls win Tigers set Tigers ready to play for keeps No problem, says Lance Parrish.

"The younger guys on the club have played together here long enough to know what it takes," he said. "Everybody should be able to handle it. When we were in the thick of things last year, we played well." "I hate to run my mouth of and say we're going to do this or that," said Morris. "But potentially, I think we can be very good." "This will be the most exciting opener since my rookie year," said Evans, the Tigers' first major acquisition from free agency. "It's a lot nicer knowing you have a lot more to play for, that you legitimately have a chance." ppmH "My foot is a little tender," Chet Lemon said Monday.

"But come Tuesday night, 7:30, 1 won't feel a thing." (The game begins at 8:35 p.m., Detroit time, and will be telecast on Channel 4.) THE TIGERS not to mention their fans are particularly pumped up this season because they appear to have their best shot at a division title in more than a decade. Last year's record of 92-70 left them six games behind Baltimore, but the Tigers won more games than any team in the National League. Of course, nearly every team in the American League East is competitive, and the Tigers have their share of problems. There are doubts about starting pitching (after Morris and Dan Petry), third base and the bench. Sparky Anderson calls this team the most talented he has ever managed, but he questions whether it has the maturity to win when it counts.

By BILL McGRAW Free Press Sports Writer MINNEAPOLIS It's starting to feel a lot like baseball, even here in the hermetically sealed Hubert H. Humprhey Metrodome. It's Opening Day, the ball player's New Year. Who cares if Juan Berenguer had trouble controlling his fastball? That was spring training. What's the difference if Marty Castillo out-hit Darrell Evans? Those stats are forgotten.

So what if Kirk Gibson let a ball get through his legs? Starting Tuesday, he can still be another Al Kaline. For the first time since the first warmup toss of the spring, what the Tigers do Tuesday night in their season opener against the Minnesota Twins will mean something. "The games count now," said Jack Morris, the Minnesota native who will be the Tigers starting pitcher for the fifth consecutive season. "There's excitement in the air. Opening Day is special." character, even if it were sung very fast.

There's. Berra, Harrah, Barker, Parker, Cooper, Stuper and Tim Raines; Smalley, Rawley, Driessen, Kison, Murray, Scurry, Harold Baines; Zisk and Fisk and Spillner, Milner, Dolson, Watson, Dave Righetti; Puhl and Ruble, Esasky, Laskey, Morris, Norris and Gaetti; Zahn and Swan and Tnmmv WITH GAME ONE upon them, many players set unspecified (or secret) goals, but all start the schedule with some special thoughts. See TIGERS, Page 5D i- George Brett John and Pryor Speieri Gardenhire, and Flynn and Lynn and Gwynn and Wynne and now let's all begin again. Wilson, Filson, hollar, Mahler, Bell, Lavelle and Nothing quite like opening day Manny Trillo; Stearns and Burns, O'Brien, Ryan, Cey and Ray, and Matty Keough; Luzinski and Dybzinski and the Hendersons and Cruzes, and if you give your cheers to winners don't forget to boo the losers. White Sox win matchup of AL powers By MARK KRAM Free Press Sports Writer BALTIMORE The 1984 American League season opened appropriately enough Monday with a glimpse of the reigning division powers.

The World Champion Baltimore Orioles and the Western Division Champion Chicago White Sox restored their 1983 Championship Series rivalry before a capacity crowd of 51,333 at Memorial Stadi It will not go down with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "Talkin' Baseball" as our unofficial anthems, but at least it gives you an idea of what whimsy the summer game inspires. One can spend an entire summer ignoring the Cleveland Indians once they have burrowed into their natural habitat of seventh place, but that doesn't mean Ohioans love their club any less. They still support the local boys, and rarely let a morning go by without making sure of last night's score. "What 'd the Indians lose by?" is the way they usually find out, but at least they still have interest. By GENE GUIDI Free Press Sports Writer CINCINNATI Call it April optimism, call it tradition, call it an excuse to play hooky from school or work.

Whatever the reason, opening day at the ballparkis a big deal. Make that a very big deal. Never mind which teams are playing, or where. Consider Monday's matchup between the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets (the Reds won, 8-1) teams that were a combined 142-182 in 1983 and finished last in their respective divisions. No matter.

Because it was opening day: A local radio station broadcast its entire program from atop a billboard and dedicated it to the Reds; See REDS, Page 5D One must approach this new season apprised of the um. The result was a satisfying, if not conclusive, 5-2 victory for LaMarr Hoyt and Chicago. On a cool, gloriously radiant day and with President Reagan in the Baltimore latest developments: An injury to George (Tar Baby) Brett that will keep his sticky bat out of his hands for a ifKr V- y. i -J dugout, the White Sox scored five runs off Orioles left-hander Scott McGregor in 5 innings. Hoyt, the 1983 American League Cy Young Award winner, held the Orioles to five hits, including a first inning home run AP Photo month or more; a drug bust that has broken up that old Kansas City gang of Brett's; a gleam in the old eye of Tom Seaver that may make the New York Mets rue the day.

they chose not to hide him from the American League scavengers from Chicago; even a left-handed third baseman, Mike Squires of the White Sox, and a Medicare applicant with shaggy, Grecian Formula'd hair, Pete Rose, who has taken his perpetual hustle to Carlton Fisk dives safely across home plate, and past Baltimore catcher Rick Dempsey, during the White Sox' 5-2 victory. See WHITE SOX, Page 5D Gather 'round the TV for a sports feast Canada. Fans must be on their toes, too A glance at opening day lineups supplies a reminder basketball game If it was the other way around, we'd do the same thing." FOR CHANNEL 50 to televise the Red Wings home playoff game, the contest must be a sellout. "We anticipate that it will be," Prange said, although there are still tickets available. The rest of the Detroit sports fans' video celebration Saturday includes the Tigers at Chicago against the White that a good baseball fan must stay in shape, mentally, just" as a ball player has to keep honing his body.

Otherwise, who would ever have heard of the starting third baseman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, somebody named German Rivera, or the third baseman of the Brewers, a kid with the Gil Thorp comic strip name of Randy Ready? Who is this Darryl Motley in right field for.the Royals, and why would the Phillies rather have Glenn Wilson in left field than Gary Matthews? Huh? Why? Coming up: big TV weekend Sox in the season's first "NBC Game of the Week" at 2:30 p.m. Saturday (WDIV-TV, Channel 4), and Channel 50's telecast of the Michigan Panthers' USFL game against the Oklahoma Outlaws in Tulsa, also at 2:30 p.m. Though Prange said the Pistons were "very gracious" about WKBD's decision to air the Red Wings playoff game instead of the Pistons-Bucks contest, the Pistons were apparently less than thrilled. "We weren't (happy), to be honest with you," Pistons executive director Tom Wilson said. Even Channel 50's decision to televise the Pistons-New York Knicks game Friday night (8:30 p.m.) to make-up for the bumped Pistons-Bucks game didn't fully satisfy Pistons management.

"There are too many people who want to see it (Pistons-Bucks)," Wilson said. SO, CHANNEL 2 came to the rescue. But Channel 50's Williams said he was upset that Channel 2 announced they have the game. "We have a contract (with the Pistons) and we just haven't given our permission for the Pistons to shop that game around. If Channel 2 has said they have that game, they're wrong." By MIKE DUFFY Free Press Staff Writer With an assist from WJBK-TV (Channel 2), Detroit sports fans can look forward to enjoying a full-fledged television sports orgy Saturday.

A big pro basketball showdown between the Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks, fighting it out for first place in the NBA Central Division, will be shown on Channel 2 from Milwaukee at 9 p.m. Saturday, the station confirmed Monday. Originally, the game was scheduled for WKBD-TV (Channel 50), the station that normally carries the Pistons and the Red Wings. But Channel 50 decided to bump the Pistons-Bucks game to show a Red Wings-St. Louis Blues NHL playoff game from Joe Louis Arena at 8 p.m.

"It was just really bad timing the way that it worked out," said WKBD program director Paul Prange. Said Channel 50 general manager George Williams: "We have an obligation to tbe fans and the city of Detroit to show a Red Wings playoff game instead of a regular season are things we intend to find out. Managers and general managers must have had their reasons for putting these guys where they are. There must be some A big menu of sports is promised for Detroit sports fans this weekend. Plan ahead for these games on TV: FRIDAY: Pistons vs.

New York, 8:30 p.m., Channel 50 SATURDAY: Tigers vs. Chicago, 2:30 p.m., Channel 4 Panthers vs. Oklahoma, 2:30 p.m., Channel 50 Red Wings vs. St. Louis, 8 p.m., Channel 50 Pistons vs.

Milwaukee, 9 p.m., Channel 2 SUNDAY: Tigers vs. Chicago, 2:30 p.m., Channel 4 Red Wings vs. St. Louis, 8 p.m., Channel 50 i justification for a hardly overpowering team like the Cubs, to bat Bull Durham as low as seventh, or for the Giants to send a Mark Davis to the mound for the season opener. And surely only Sparky Anderson's hairdresser Ijjnows how he decided on a third baseman.

All we can say 'is that it is time for baseball..