Pose Twelve
THE SUMMER DAILY
Seeds and stems
Umpires and
'foul' calls
Dan Borus
UMPIRES, the late great Bill Klem claimed, call
'em like they see 'em. But what happens
when they don't see 'em?.
That was the problem the Michigan Wolver-
ines faced last Tuesday as home plate arbiter Herb
Nordquist awarded a three-run homer to Western
Michigan's Tom Vanderberg on a ball that cleared
Fisher Stadium's right field fence, foul by a good
six to ten feet.
Despite the ranting and raving of the under-
standably outraged Wolverine squad, the decision
stood. Under the college system of two umps,
plateman Nordquist had ultimate authority. a
Fortunately the Wolverines had a 4-0 lead at
the time of the blast and the tainted runs did not
alter the final score.
Although the men in blue are capable of error,
no miscue is more glaring than the "foul" home-
run.
ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS in these parts is
one off the bat of Big Frank Howard two or so
years ago. Howard, then playing with the Washing-
ton Senators, lifted an inside pitch which had
fooled him badly toward the right field corner of
Tiger Stadium, which is 325 feet away from the
plate. The ball, just like Vanderberg's drive, had
been imparted a great deal of spin as a result of
Howard's poke.
Still spinning, the ball landed in the reserve
seats along the right-field line.. Much to the Ben-
gals' dismay, the first base umpire whose name
has been mercifully forgotten rotated his hand in
mid-air to signify a home run.
Furious, the entire Bengal bench emptied just
Thursday, May 17, 1973
like the Wolverines did. The ump claimed that the
ball had cleared the foul pole in fair territory but
had hooked around into the paying customers.
FREQUENT PATRONS OF THE MICHIGAN
and Trumbull sports palace will at once recognize
the error in that one. The reserve seats and the
right field bleachers are separated by a screen
so that if the man in blue's judgement was correct,
it would be quite impossible for the ball to land
in the reserve section, which no one denied that
it did.
The same "foul" home run ruling besmirched a
Missouri High school game six years back. The
Ladue High Rams were struggling through a poor
season and their pitching wasn't much better than
the St. Louis Cardinals' is today.
However on the day in question the Ram pitcher
was hurling quite a good game. Their opponents,
the Melhville Panthers, were having little luck in
hitting the ball. However the pitcher was a bit
erratic and put a man on base with a walk and
sent him to second when he uncorked a wild pitch.
THE BATTER, THE PANTHER PITCHER,
stroke a curve to left. The Ram leftfielder dove
for the ball and in doing so landed on the line,
sending up a cloud of white dust. The ball landed
to his left but the umpire signalled fair ball. The
batter continued loping around the basepaths scor-
ing the key and winning run. The Rams didn't win
a game after that and ended the season some-
thing like 4-18.
Needless to say, the umpire at the Ladue game,
as I reckon will be the case with Mr. Nordquist,
was not invited back to umpire.
BRONXMEN BOMB BREWERS
Bengals bean Bosox, 6-5
i
Sports of The Daily
I
Out of the fire
LAFAYETTE, La.--Beryl Shipley, head basketball coach at
Southwestern Louisiana, resigned yesterday after 16 years as
USL coach and after being in hot water with the NCAA for re-
cruiting violations and with the Southland Conference for calling
it "Mickey Mouse." Shipley's teams won 296 out of 425 games
including° a 12-0 conference mark this season.
Time out for this word ...
(Cue the hard rock intro) . . . Coming . . . Friday night,
Saturday night, and Sundaaaaay afternoon - . . to Detroit Drag-
way . . the United Hot Rod Grand Nationals . . . with funny
cars from all over the country . . . (Turn up the heavy beat)
. . . super stockers smokin' . . . fuel-injected dragster roaring
down the quarter-mile track at over 240 miles per hour . .
to get to Detroit Dragway . . .'take Telegraph Road to Sibley
.. . drive one inile east to Dix and follow the signs to Detroit
Dragway . . . (more p'tlse-satting music) . . . Friday and Satur-
day night at 7:30, Sunday at 2 p.m. . . . UHRA Grand Nationals!
Be therrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
On tab . ,.
. Yotb cm \vtah the sun set tonight, the flowers
close up or the Tigers play Boston at Navin Field (a.k.a.
Tiger Stadi'tm) --tq p.m. It's a day-to-day thing in the
American Le-g-e' E'st to see whose in first place and
this series is no exception. If you're ;hut in, listen to
it on WJR (o00).
2 Maor Laoue St ndings
Fron wire service Reports
DETROIT - Rookie John
Gamble, making his first appear-
ance as a Tiger, scored the
game-winning run last night on
Mickey Stanley's 10th inning sac-
rifice fly to give Detroit its first
extra-inning victory of the sea-
son, a 6-5 verdict over Boston.
Gamble was pinch-running for
Ike Brown who walked off loser
Luis Tiant, 4-4, to lead off the
Tiger half of the tenth. Catcher
Duke Sims singled and Dick Mc-
Auliffe walked to load the sacks
for Stanley.-
Hank Aaron on his way to
breaking Babe Ruth's record has
been receiving a lot of mail;
most of it racist. For details see,
page 11.
John Hiller, 1-2, pitched bril-
liantly in relief tanning a pair of
Red Sox in the ninth with two
men on, and shut off the visitors
in the tenth.
Detroit, giving Manager Billy
Martin a decent birthday pres-
ent, took an early 3-0 lead in the
first on home runs by Gates
Brown and Sims. But Boston
countered with solo shots by
Carleton Fisk and Carl Yastr-
zemski.
The Bengal bats roared again
in the fifth as they added two
more runs to the scoreboard on
rbi hits by Sims and McAuliffe.
But Boston erupted for three
tallies off Mickey Lolich with
Yastrzemski doubling home the
tying run.
Milwaukee milked
NEW YORK - Thurman Mun-
son drove in four runs with a
double and a home run last
night as the New York Yankees
walloped the Milwaukee Brew-
ers 11-4.
Munson's two-run double came
in a six-run Yankee uprising in
the sixth inning. In the seventh,
he socked his third homer of the
season, a two-run shot into the
lower stands in- left field.
Munson also had a single and
scored in the fifth on a hit-and-
run double by Gene Michael.
Cubs carded
CHICAGO - Mike Tyson hit
a two-run triple yesterday to
highlight a three-run second inn-
ing which carried the St. Louis
Cardinals to a 3-1 victory over
Chicago, snapping the Cubs'
winning streak at seven games.
Summer Daily
American League
East
w L Pct. GB
Detroit 16 17 .481 -
Milwaukee 15 ;16 .482 -
New York 15 17 .469 16
Boston 14 16 .467
Baltimore 14 17 .452 1
Cleveland 15 19 .441 1 '.
West
. Chicago 19 10 .655 -
Kansas City 20 15 .571 2
California 17 13 .567 C'-
Oakland - 18 16 .529 31'
Minnesota 15 15 .500 4'
Texas 12 19 .387 8
Yesterday's Results
New York 11, Milwaukee 4
Detroit 6, Boston 5, 10 innings
Texas 2, sKanas City 1
Minnesota 8, Chicago 6
Oakland at California, inc.
Tonight's Games
Baltimore (Palmer 3-2) at Cleve-
land (Perry 5-4)
Milwaukee (Colborn 3-1) at New
York (Stottlemyre 5-4)
Boston (Curtis 1-3) at Detroit
(Fryman 2-3)
Kansas City (simpson 2-2) at Texas
(siebert 1-1)
Chicago (wood 8-3) at Minnesota
(woodson 2-1)
Oakland (Hunter 3-2) at California
(May 4-')
National League
East
W L Pct. GB
Chicago 21 14 .600 -
New York 18 15 .545 2
Montreal 14 17 .452 5
Pittsburgh 13 16 .448 5
Philadelphia 13 20 .393 7
St. Louis 10 23 .303 10
West
San Francisco 26 13 .667 -
Houston 22 15 .594 3
Cincinnati 20 13 .606 3
Los Angeles 19 16 .543 5
Atlanta 15 19 .441 8'-,
San Diego 13 23 .361 111
Yesterday's Results
St. Louis 3, Chicago 1
New York 8, Montreal 3
Philadelphia 5, Pittsburgh 2
Los Angeles 4, Cincinnati 3, (6 innings)
Atlanta 5, Houston 2, l'innings
(Aaron-hr-no. 11)
San Francisco at San Diego, inc.
Today's Games
Los Angeles (sutton 3-3) at Cin-
cinnati (Grimsley 4-2)
St. Louis (Bibby 0-2) at Chicago
(Pappas 1-3)
New York (Seaver 4-3) at Montreal
(Moore 2-2)
Philadelphia (Carlton 4-5) at Pitts-
- burgh (Moose 2-3)
Atlanta (Dobson 2-5) at Houston
(Roberts 3-1)
CINCINNATI'S JOHNNY BENCH looks on helplessly as Los Angeles' Dave Lopes (15) sco
first Dodger run in last night's National League game.