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