w Page Twelve
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Saturday, July 13, 1974
MARC FELDMAN:
Let the old Yankees rest
THE NEW YORK Yankees. In this era
of World Team Tennis, World Foot-
ball League, and an 18-team National
Hockey League, thoughts of those great
Yankee teams of past decades conjure
up visions of the World Series and the
awe every baseball fan once had for
the Bronx Bombers.
The Yankees, the team of Babe Ruth,
Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey
Mantle, were the greatest 'lynasty in
the history of American sports. Winning
29 pennants and 20 World Championships
between 1921 and 1964, the Yankees were
hated and feared by everyone outside
of New York and by supporters of New
York's National League teams, the
Dodgers and Giants, as well. -
Indeed there have been other domi-
nant teams in American sports. UCLA
in college basketball, the Boston Celtics
in professional basketball and the Green
Bay Packers in football, but these great
teams were of a different period, an era
when many sports were competing for
the attention and money of the fin. The
Yankees, in their prime, WERE sports
in this country.
One prominent sportswriter in Detroit
remembers the glory years of the
Yankees very well and their exalted
place on the American sports scene. He
rooted for the Yanks as a kid and in his
early journalistic days for the New York
Daily News and the Associated Press.
Joe Falls idolized the Yankees, rooted
for the Yankees, and told his readers
in a column last week how he could
never root for them again.
EVERY TIME the Yankees come in to
Detroit to play the Tigers, we hear the
same old broken record about the hole
in Mickey Mantle's back, the big crowds,
and the old excitement of the Bombers
arriving in Motown. Then he mocks the
present team and asks, "who's this?"
and "where's he?"
Last week he asked what Elliott Mad-
dox, the former Tiger and Big Ten bat-
ting champion at Michigan was doing
in center field for the Yankees. Answer:
Hitting .330 even though he's not Joe
DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle.
Falls is one of an insidious breed of
sportswriters that seem to dominate jock
journalism in this country who constant-
ly scoff at the abiilties of the modern
player and perpetuate the legendary
stars they worshipped in a long-past
youth.
Falls asks where are the big crowds,
and the excitement that lit up Detroit
when the Yankees came in. It's gone,
Joe, gone for some ten years, a relic of
an era when the Yankees were the only
attraction on the schedule and they
dominated baseball to an unfair extent.
For years, the fans in Brooklyn, St.
Louis, Detroit, and elsewhere cried,
"Break up the Yankees" as pennant
after pennant was raised above triple-
decked Yankee Stadium.
BASEBALL, for the general good of
the game and in the interest of equalized
competition, abolished the Yankees, and
any other future dynasties, with the free
agent draft. No longer would the wealthy
New Yorkers be able to ride roughshod
over the landscape, tracking down every
prospect, or buying Bob Cervs and
Johnny Mizes to fill in a hole.
The fall of the- mighty from power is
what make sports and life interesting.
Quite simply, the Yankees have come
down the level of most major league
teams while some of the perennial tail-
enders of years past like the Phillies,
Pirates, and Athletics have been given
a chance to become respectable.
The Yankees of today are just another
team like the Tigers or Indians. They
stack up comfortably against their post-
expansion brethren but not against the
Gehrig, Ruth, Dickey, Mantle ghosts of
the past. I leave fellows like Joe Falls
to insult today's ballplayers,
What's Elliott Maddox doing in center
field for the Yankees? Hitting about .330.
Reeling Tigers lose another
| Royals rip
KANSAS CITY I -
Steve Bsby scattered 10
hits, leadiig the Kansas
City Royals out of a three-
game loing streak with a
- rs son over the De
troit Tigers last night.
Busy, 128 gsae in fiid hits
hod run-scoringingngles to Jim
Northrop and Bill Freehn in
the first hut then settled dow n
t2the rest of the wvay
t RotTi tied the score 22
gusbMickey tolich, 0-0t, in
the fuvurths on Amos Otis'
doble, a run-scoring single by
Y John MaBerry, an error and a
btse hit by Jim Wohlford.
to the fifth the Royas took a
3-2 lead on Kurt Bevacqus's
a single, a stolen base, a wild
pitch and Otis' sacrifice fly.
They scored three more mis
in the sixth on a walk, Woh-
AP Photo ford's infield bit, a two-run
by Pirate pitcher Jim Rooker triple by Al Cowens and Fred
Patek's sacrifice fly.
LUCKY NUMBER 13 Dave Concepcion of the Reds releases his bat and turns in pain after being hit
last night. Concepcion felt no pain at the final score of the game, 7-0, Cincinnati.
BY TV STATION
U-D, MUryland cited for
Malone recruiting deals-
Maior Lea
gue Standings
RICHMOND, Va. (P) -- A television station said
yesterday night it has learned the National. Col-
legiate Athletic Association has been told of al-
leged violations by the Universities of Maryland
and Detroit in recruiting Petersburg, Va. high
school basketball star Moses Malone.
The NCAA declined comment, which is its stan-
dard policy whether or not a school is under in-
vestigation.
NEWSMAN Terry O'Neil of WXEX-TV said
last night the NCAA has been told that Mary-,
land basketball coach Lefty Driesell allegedly.
suggested an arrangement to a Richmond car
dealer under which Malone purchased a 1974
autonobile an dthat Howard White, an assistant
coach, allegedly drove a Maryland coed to visit
Malone in Petersburg last month.
The 6-foot-11 Malone recently announced he
would attend Maryland. An estimated 300 cot-
leges had tried to recruit him,
O'Neil also said White allegedly arranged for
a friend of Malone's in Petersburg to drive the
athlete and his mother for a second visit to the
Maryland campus and that ..Driesell allegedly
arranged for Mrs. Malone to get the day off from
her job as a meat packer in a Petersburg super-
market.
Detroit's alleged violation was not specified
by O'Neil.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
East
W L Pet. GB
Cleveland 46 38 .548 --
Boston 47 39 .547 --
Baltimore 46 39 .541 y.
Milwaukee 43 42 .506 3Y3
New York 43 43 .500 4
Detroit 43 43 .500 4
West
Oakiand 48 38 .558 --
Kansas City 43 42 .506 4%
Chicago 42 43 .494 Sya
Texas 43 46 .483 6%
Minnesota 400 48 A55
california 33 56 .371 16i/
Yesterday's Results
California 7, Boston0
New York 3, Oakland 0
Kansas City 7, Detroit 2
Cleveland 9, Minnesota S
Texas 4, Milwaukee 3
Chicago 4, Baltimore 3
Today's Gaines
Oakland (Blue 8-8) at New York
(Tidrow 6-8).
California (Hassler 1-4) at Boston
(Drago 5-5).
Texas (Bibby 11-11) at Milwaukee
(Coiborn 5-5), 2:15 p.m., Ch. 4.
Cleveland (G. Perry 15-2) at Mila-
nesota (alyleven 8-10).
Detroit (Fryman 3-5) at Kansas
City (splittoret 9-8), 8:30 p.m.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
East
W L Pet. GB
St. Louis 44 42 .512 -
Philadelphia 43 42 .506 %i
Montreal 40 42 .488 2
Pittsburgh 37 47 .440 6
Chicago 37 47 .440 6
New York 36 48 .429 7
west
Los Angeles ยข0 21 .6s2 --
Cincinnati 51 37 .580 9
Houston 47 41 .133 13
Atlanta 47 43 .513 14
San Francisco 39 49 A43 21
San Diego 38 53 .418 25%
Yesterday's Results
Cincinnati 7, Pittsburgh 0) (Ws5
Cincinnati 4, Pittsburgh 3 (2nd)
Atlanta 7, St. Louis 3 (1st)
St. Louis 10, Atlanta 0 (2nd)
Houston 5, Chicago 4
New York at Los Angeles, inc.
Today's Games
Cincinnati (Hall 0-1) at Pitts-
burghe..(Reuss "-).
Atlanta (Reed 5-4) at St. Louis
(McGlothen 12-4), night.
Chicago (Hurris 3-1) at Houston
(Osteen 7-7), night.
Montreal (Rogers 10-9) at Sa
Diego (Freisleben 6-4), night.
New York (Parliet 3-7) at Los
Angeles (Messersmith 9-2), might.
j