Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 37

Tuesday, Aug. 20, 1C34 RUNNING 3 guess he thinks I'm going to break Hank Aaron's record and wants my first home run. St. Louis' Terry Pendleton after a Cincinnati fan refused to give him his first major-league home-run ball. HORSE RACING TIGER CORNER "1 1 DETROIT FREE PRESS (This combination of Tiaers victories andor Toronto losses clinches the AL East title for the Tigers.) Call with sports news: 222-6660 Sports Phone, 1-976-1313 The Lions day of reckonin Charlie Uinccnt Tigers' msgic number: mm Danielson is starter -for now In the real world, there's no room for free agency I like Kelly Tripucka, really I do.

In three years, I've come to know the man and a lot of good things can be said for him: He loves his mom and dad, he's nice to kids and he's an honest competitor who'll give his employer an honest night's work. He proved the depth and intensity of his desire in his rookie season, on that bitterly cold night when he sprawled out on a table In the Pistons training room, hid his head beneath a towel and cried his eyes out because he felt he was responsible for a loss to the New York Knicks. None of that, though, prevents me from feeling By CURT SYLVESTER Free Press Sports Writer Monte Clark's final decision Monday was to select a temporary No. 1 quarterback Gary Danielson. Clark said his decision to start Daniel son tne season opener Sunday against San Francisco was based on the fact that none of the three candidates Danielson, Eric Hippie and Mike Ma-churek won the job outright.

As a result, the Lions will start the season with four quarterbacks nnniplsnn Ma- envious. Jealous, too, I guess. Inferior, maybe even. And more than a little curious about the way things work. I mean, can you picture a butcher, a teacher or a writer saying: "Excuse me, boss, but I believe I'll take my talents out on the street and see if I can find a supermarketschoolnewspaper (circle one) that will pay me four times what you are." I don't know about you, but once my boss stopped laughing he would help me pack my things and open the door for me.

In real life, that's the way things happen. I know. When A.BJ. Hammett talks A year into my first newspaper job, I made an appointment to see the publisher of the small south Texas weekly I worked for, put on my only suit and bravely walked into his office. It was 1959, 1 was making $25 a week, hadn't churek, Hippie and GarV Danielson rookie John Witkowski.

"Rather than go ahead and make a decision I'm not sure of, I decided to go with four and start Gary Danielson the first game," Clark said. "I'm going back to the last playoff game (against San Francisco on Dec. 31) where Gary started and the way he played." THE 49ERS intercepted five of Daniel-son's passes, but he completed 24 of 38 for 236 yards and brought the Lions to within field goal range of a victory. "It will be a weekly thing, not a lifetime appointment," Clark said. "This can only be a temporary thing, you can't go with four for that long, although we may go on a while if we see this is the thing to do." See QUARTERBACK, Page 3D had a raise since I had been hired, and figured it fUOP.U fill was time to assert myself.

"Mr. Hammett," I said (A.B.J. Hammett was his name and he wore it like emperors wear crowns), "I've got to have a raise or else." Free Press Photo by MARY SCHROEDFR James Thaxton, Mike Saxon and Rich Hollins wait for rides to the airport after being cut. Lions cut Norris, 11 others At 19, I had no real idea what "or else" meant. He showed me.

A.B.J. Hammett pushed himself away from his big desk and sauntered toward an adjacent office, where his Sports soundof The right quarterback? After an exhibition season filled with trial runs at quarterback, the Lions announced Monday that Gary Danielson would start in Sunday's opener against San Francisco. Mike Machurek, John Witkowski and Eric Hippie had been given a shot at the job. Did the Lions make the right choice? Kelly Tripucka accountant, Wayne By CURT SYLVESTER Free Press Sports Writer Ulysses Norris not only lost the starting tight end job with the Lions he lost his job entirely. Norris, a part-time starter in 1982 and full-time starter in 1983, was one of 12 players released Monday as coach Monte Clark reduced the roster to the regular-season limit of 49.

Defensive back Maurice Harvey, a five-year NFL player with experience at Denver and Green Bay before signing with the Lions last fall, also was cut. Wide receiver Eddie Lee, who spent the past two years on injured reserve, was another among theose dropped, with defensive tackle Phil Darns and eight rookies punter Mike Saxon, running back William Dalton, center Glenn Streno, wide receiver Rich Hollins, defensive back James Thaxton and linebackers Jimmie Carter, Ron Ziolkowski and Ed Hughes. The Lions also added one player linebacker Angelo King, acquired from the Dallas Cowboys for a 1986 draft choice. NORRIS WAS THE best-known of the 12 players waived. See LIONS CUTS, Page 3D Lesch, was laboring over NO call 222-8848 before noon YES call 222-8838 before noon an adding machine.

"Wayne," he said, "make out Charlie's check. He's leaving us." That taught me something about free agency. Perhaps it's as Bobby Knight says: What people such as me do for a living isn't very important. "Most of us learn to read and write by the time we're five, then go on to bigger and better things," Knight likes say. I prefer to believe differently.

Nevertheless, it is only in the world of sports, it Luck was on Lemon's side For tips on how to be a good Tigers fan, win or lose, see The Way We Live, IB. Tigers pick up a pitchci When the Cincinnati Reds demoted Bill Scherrer to the minors in July, Scherrer was mad. "I'm going to report late. I don't care what they do. They can take their money and stick it," he said.

"I will not put on a Reds uniform again." By GENE GUIDI Free Press Sports Writer SEATTLE An inch or so. That's how close Chet Lemon came to suffering the kind of serious injury no one wants to think about. "The doctors said I was very fortunate that the ball hit me where it did," said Lemon as he rested in a Seattle hotel room with an ice pack against his face. "They said if I would have been hit a hair or two down lower by my eye it could have been serious trouble." Lemon was injured in the sixth inning Sunday afternoon when he lost a high fly off the bat of Fred Lynn in the cloudless California sky and was struck by the ball above the right eye. "I flipped my sunglasses down and went to get it, but with that darn sun, I never did see the ball," Lemon said.

"At the last second I flipped the glasses up hoping I could pick up the ball with the natural eye, but that didn't help either. I tried to get in position where I thought the ball might come down, so I could at least block it with my body, or maybe even somehow catch it, but it hit me right in the head." DOCTORS TOLD LEMON he probably saved himself from a much more serious injury by flipping the sunglasses up at the last second. If they had been down, doctors said, the glasses would have shattered in his eye. Lemon was carried from the field, a bloody towel pressed against his face, by a half-dozen teammates and rushed to nearby St. Joseph's Hospital.

Shortly after Lemon arrived at the hospital, the switchboard lit up with calls from Detroit fans wondering how the Tiger center fielder was. "The doctors and nurses were really impressed when all those calls came in there were so many they tied up the switchboard," Lemon said. "I told them they wouldn't be surprised if they knew anything about Detroit fans. That's See CHET LEMON, Page 4D Bill Scherrer seems, that free agency works. A guy who can no longer struggle along on a quarter of a million a year seems never to have trouble finding someone to double or triple that with the notable recent exception of the now unemployed Franco Harris.

Free agency should work so well everywhere. Of course, if it did, we'd have to pay $50 for a pound of hamburger, $10,000 a year for our child's education or $10 for a newspaper. And that's the direction tickets prices for sporting events are headed, in Los Angeles last year, court-side seats for Lakers games cost $75 apiece. If the Pistons decide to match Cleveland's $6.3 million offer to Tripucka, their ticket prices will have to be hiked again, too. Already Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer had received substantial and deserved pay increases.

The fans will foot the bill. It is an economic monster that club owners unlike A.BJ. Hammett have allowed to get out of hand. The salary cap, which goes into effect this year, was supposed to hold payrolls in check and restore economic reality to the sport. It has done nothing of the sort.

Scherrer was right. On Monday, he became a Tiger. The Tigers obtained Scherrer, a 26-year-old left-handed relief pitcher, from the Reds for cash or a player to be named later. See BILL SCHERRER, Page 2D Going solo, Traub shoots 66 at PGA For every lawyer who believes he has written the foolproof set of guidelines, there are 50 who are able to find loopholes in the legalese of such documents. Squeezing the bank It's difficult, though, to criticize a guy for squeezing all the dollars he can from his employer.

Athletes and their agents seem to do it better than anybody. Billie Jean King once made the point: "How much is a person worth? As much as you can get." That's a theory that athletes have exploited Young stars ready to shine at U.S. Open By CHARLIE VINCENT Free Press Sports Writer FLUSHING MEADOW, N.Y. He was relentless; she faltered and doubted herself. With a tennis racquet in his hand, he is cold, precise and resolute.

She looks as if she's out for an afternoon of sun, a romp on the court with friends. What they have in common Aaron Krickstein of Grosse Pointe Woods and Lisa Bonder of Saline are Michigan roots, youth, and sudden acknowledgement as two of the finest tennis players in the world. When the U.S. Open Tennis Championships begin this morning, Krickstein and Bonder will be among the handful of seeded players in the field of 256. Krickstein, eighth, opens the tournament facing Bruce Manson of Fort at 1 1 a.m.

No. 9 Bonder plays Wednesday against Pilar Vasquez of Peru. See U.S. OPEN, Page 2D with great success for the past 20 years. for one, envy them.

It must give a guy a great feeling of power to have people begging you to put their dollars in your pocket. But I'm not sure I'd go By JACK SAYLOR Free Press Sports Writer John Traub has picked up numerous Michigan championship golf trophies in the past, but he's always had to share them. Not that he's selfish, but Traub would like to win one by himself for a change. He made a move toward that end Monday with a sizzling first-round 66 in the Michigan PGA championship at Indianwood Country Club in Lake Orion. Traub, pro at Great Oaks CC in Rochester, is one of the longest drivers in Michigan golf and a premier best-ball partner.

Twice he has shared the state pro-pro and Michigan Senior-Junior titles. Traub and his former Great Oaks assistant, Jim Anken-brandt, also won the Michigan Golf Classic at Schuss Mountain last month, another best-ball affair, for the second straight time. BUT TRAUB, 33, needed no aid as he conquered the elongated, rolling Indianwood course and its twisting, See GOLF, Page 2D so far as to volunteer to work in Cleveland for a mere $6.3 million. Besides, I can identify more with an athlete when his strategy takes an unexpected turn, as Harris' did last week. I can almost hear the words.

"Make out Franco's check. He's leaving us." Mike Downey is on vacation. Free Press Photo by JOHN STANO Aaron Krickstein is seeded eighth at the U.S. Open.