Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 49

DETROITFREE PRESS March madness matchups; The. state high school basketball tournament begins Monday. The statewide schedule for all classes is on Page 6D. Sports Phone (scores): 1-976-1313 Wednesday, March 4, IC37 NBANHL SCOREBOARD 10 MOVIE GUIDE 13 Call with port newi: 222-6660 Pnllrna foocFrAtk'all Jack Saylor: How MSU lost its way on road Purdue goes title hunting in Michigan Plus: Statistics on U-M, MSU, U-D, Big Ten and more Page 5D Hitch Stop sign is up for Jordan Hey, red-hot radishes here Mr. Jordan Here's how Chicago guard Michael Jordan, the NBA's scoring leader, has fared against the Pistons this season: Date FGA FGM Pet.

FTA FTM Reb. Ast. Pts. get your celery stalks LAKELAND, FLA. I walk past them, player after player, shaking my head.

I am In search of By JOHNETTE HOWARD Free Pres Sports Writer As sales pitches go, this one had to rank up there with cures for baldness and pills to make you jump higher. But Pistons guard Joe Dumars admits that when he walked into an airport newsstand recently and spotted the March issue of Sport magazine the one with the blurb on the top that invitingly promised "How to Stop Michael Jordan" he bought it anyway. "I had heard about it," Dumars said with a laugh. "And yeah, I read it." Let history record that Dumars did not regard the story as the Holy Grail. Nor does he sleep with it under his pillow to speed up the osmosis.

For when it comes to guarding NBA scoring leader Michael Jordan as Dumars will for the fourth time this season when the Pistons play the Chicago premise is flawed. "You don't ever stop him," Dumars said. But wait just a minute. Jordan, playing mostly agains Dumars this season, is averaging 39.3 points against the Pistons (near his 37.3 average). But isn't he also shootinf only 41 percent (41-for-100, well below his 47.3 average against the Pistons? And didn't Jordan pick out Denver'! T.R.

Dunn, Boston's Dennis Johnson and the Lakers Michael Cooper as some tough defenders he faces, then paj Dumars the biggest compliment of all? "The best job anyone's done on me this year was Detroit's Joe Dumars," Jordan said in the magazine article "He didn't do anything that different. He made me drive and when I did he stayed with me real well. And he was hard t( post up. But next time he'll relax a little and that'll be my edge." See MICHAEL JORDAN, Page 2C Nov. 7 11 26 Jan.

3 16 35 Feb. 1 14 39 fat. I cannot find any. .423 .457 .359 11 15 9 15 17 9" 5 33 2 47 5 38 "Does anyone have a pot belly to show me?" I ask. "Some flab in the middle? An extra chin?" I get only stares.

Silly stares from tight, lean bodies. Someone offers me a celery stalk. No fat. Bulls at 7:30 tonight at the Silverdome there really isn't any secret. The way Dumars tells it, sighing when the subject Is brought up and wearing a cynical half-sneer, the whole Am I wrong to ask? I am not wrong to ask.

This, after all, is just the first full week of spring train ing a ritual which, if I am not mistaken, was created largely to work off the extra inches ball players once put on during the winter. Why else does anyone need six weeks here? "Quick, show me some flab," I say to shortstop Alan Trammell. Show me some love handles Where's the beef?" "Sorry," he says, looking down at his rib cage, "I do remember beef. Prime rib. I used to eat it five out of seven nights." "And now?" I ask hopefully.

"Oh, mostly fish and chicken," he says. Ghost story Tigers not sure of the effects of Parrish's absence Fish and chicken. And light beer and mineral water. This is the new baseball. This is the fit-for life baseball.

No more man-sized bellies to sweat off in the Florida sun. No more spindly legs shaped like a barstool. Once, spring training was like a long Sunday morning after a boozy Saturday night. Now it is a chance to improve your bench press from 300 to 1 vc i JNk v. A f'jf j-yti 111 1 IT fV 1 By JOHN LOWE Free Press Sports Writer LAKELAND, Fla.

Lance Parrish had been coming to spring training here for as long as any of the current Tigers. This would have been the 13th spring in Lakeland for No. 13. No one can yet assess what impact his free-agent departure will have. But the veteran Tigers the players with whom Parrish worked toward winning the 1984 World Series know how it feels not to have him around.

"How can you not miss Lance?" Kirk Gibson said. "He's a good friend. "I miss Lance's existence just around here 350 pounds. "What's in there?" I ask a clubhouse man carrying a bowl to the food table. Hershey's Kisses?" "Radishes," he says.

Radishes? 3here is the rubber suit? These are the days of nutrition and weight routines. These are the days of radishes. Everyone1 will say this is good. I say eh. Baseball was once a sport where you didn't need to resemble a young Hercules.

Babe Ruth looked like an olive on a stick. Mickey Lolich looked like he swallowed a bowling ball. Maybe two. But now, if you look like that, they put you on David Letterman. Look at this clubhouse.

Darrell Evans, age 40, is trim enough to wear bikini briefs. Kirk Gibson could swing from a vine and Larry Herndon could run the 1 10 hurdles. These are men for the '80s. Muscular men. Conditioned men.

Thin men in a thinny-thin world. "You know, when I was with the Dodgers in the '50s," recalls coach Dick Tracewski, "spring was the time players used to get in shape. Even Jackie Robinson used to have to lose weight. So did Roy Campanella. They'd come to camp and put the rubber suit on under the uniform." The rubber suit? Where is the rubber suit now? Even pitchers these days arrive in condition.

Last year, Dave LaPoint was Dave LaPoint enjoyed a Budweiser and french fries. Dave LaPoint, I could relate to. Dave LaPoint was traded. Now even Walt Terrell a man who has turned sitting with a beer into an art form barely has enough of a middle to separate the top and the bottom. A "Where did all the "fat go?" I ask Willie Hernandez, who is a relief pitcher, and therefore entitled to look like Jackie Gleason.

"Money," he says, sucking in his stomach. Love those frozen chemicals Yes. That is where it went. Money. There is so (the clubhouse) more than on the field.

We may or may not miss him on the field." JOHN GRUBB said that what he misses about Parrish is "his personality." While Parrish wasn't loud, no Tigers -player exuded more of a quiet steadiness in the clubhouse. He was a Roger Craig in shinguards. "He's a personal friend of mine," shortstop Alan Trammell said. "To have a guy just leave like that is unsettling." How much has Parrish meant to Trammell? Trammell named his first son Lance out of respect for Parrish. Lance Trammell, who'll be five years old on Friday, is due in Lakeland soon.

Lance Parrish, 30, won't be coming this year. The Tigers can't sign Parrish again until May 1. He could sign with the Phillies or another club before then. Even if May 1 arrives and Parrish is still unsigned, that hardly means he'll be coming back. When Parrish has talked publicly in the last few months, he has speared the Tigers See TIGERS, Page 8D MARY SCHROEDERDetrolt Free Press Doug Baker (left) and Chet Lemon share a laugh during Tuesday's pickoff drills.

ATA much to be made from extending your career these days, health has become dollars. "You come in out of shape, you can lose your job," says Evans. "And since players don't have to work in the off-season they have all that time to condition. Negro Leagues star elected to Hall of Fame "The other night, four of us went out to eat, right? In the old days we would have pounded a few. But we didn't drink a thing.

Just iced tea and Diet Coke." Iced tea and Diet Coke. Radishes. Do you know Free Press Staff and Wire Reports TAMPA, Fla. Ray Dandridge, 73, a slick-fielding third the current rage in the Tigers' clubhouse? A no-sugar, no-cholesterol, frozen mix of chemicals that comes out like soft ice cream and looks like soft ice cream and tastes like a frozen mix of baseman in the Negro Leagues who never realized his dream chemicals. I No hints Lance will sign soon By GENE GUIDI Free Press Sports Writer CLEARWATER, Fla.

The Philadelphia Phillies spring training camp continues without free agent Lance Parrish. A day after new reports had Parrish and the Phillies close to agreeing on a one-year, $1 million contract, there were no outward indications that the longtime Tigers catcher was expected here from his California home any time soon. "I'm going to a Chamber of Commerce dinner tonight," Phillies public relations director Larry Shenk said Tuesday. "I'd have to believe that if anything was happening with Parrish right now, Mr. Giles (Bill, Phillies president) would have told me to stand by." Parrish, who rejected a $1.2 million contract from the Tigers this winter, appeared close to a deal with the Phillies late last month.

But talks broke off when Parrish refused to accept a clause that would prevent him from filing a lawsuit against the Phillies or the other 25 teams relating to the manner in which owners have dealt with free agents this winter. Negotiations between Parrish and the Phillies resumed last week, and the catcher's agent, Tom Reich, indicated that Parrish would be willing to compromise on the lawsuit clause. 4) "What's it called?" I ask Dave Bergman. "Wispy," he says, taking a spoonful. What a surprise.

But then, no. For these are wispy times. Give us of playing in the major leagues, was the only player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday by the Veterans Committee. The 1 8-member committee again passed up Phil Rizzuto, Leo Durocher, Tony Lazzeri and other old-timers who were thought to have a chance. Ted Williams, a Hall of Famer who is a committee member and a Rizzuto supporter, left the meeting room hurriedly and failed to stop for comment.

"I never thought it would come after so many others went In and I kept missing," Dandridge said at his home in Palm Bay, Fla. "I thought they had forgotten about me." Dandridge starred In the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 1940s but was considered too old to be added to a major your tired, your plump, your huddled fatties. We'll shoot them. The only place to find a real belly here anymore is on the Tigers trainers. "I think," says Frank Tanana, they are here to remind us of what we can become." 1959 UPI File Photo Ray Dandridge: "I never thought it would come after so many others went in and I kept missing.

I thought they had forgotten about me." said Dandridge's nickname ws "Hooks" because of his fielding ability at third base. "He could go to his right or his left and hook those balls that came his way," Finney said. "He was one of the best at third base in the Negro Leagues, and he also could play second base and shortstop." The 5-foot-7 Dandridge retired in 1953 after five seasons In the minor leagues, four with Minneapolis of the American Association. Results of the voting were not announced. A minimum of 14 votes was required for election.

Dandridge received the required nuner of votes on the second of two balks allowed. Enough. Too much. I am walking in a daze now. Wispy? Radishes? Flabby trainers? And then, suddenly salvation.

Here is beer and pret league roster after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. zels and mayonnaise. Here are jaws chomping and Dandridge began his professional career with the Detroit bellies hanging. I can smile again. I have found the Stars In 1933 and played here one season before going to the New York Dodgers.

fat. I have found the place where baseball's lack of conditioning is given its time-honored respect. Art Finney of Detroit, co-founder of the Atro-Amencan Thank God foVthe press box. Sports Hall of Fame and a longtime Negro League follower, a.