gage Twelve THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, August 21, 1974 'age Twelve THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, August 21, 1974 CLARKE COGSDILL'S COLUMN: Bad fans make bad FOR MANY years, Philadelphia held a well-deserved reputation as the slums of major league sports. With a few rare breakthroughs, the Philly fans suffered through a long series of inept teams which made their city a national joke. Detroit, on the other hand, has al- ways been regarded as a sports-lover's paradise. Every major sport has had a representative here for a long time and all but the Pistons can point to past championships and eras of con- sistent success. The sad case of the Tigers may settle the score for good. Right now, the Ben- gals are in a decisive transition, which could easily go wrong. We'll know soon -if the Tigers aren't any good by 1976, they'll probably be inept until 1996. The odds lean toward the latter possibility. It's fun, but not enough, to blame the managements of the various teams for what's gone wrong. Ned Harkness of the Wings was as inept as they come. Russ Thomas of the Lions is a confirmed mediocrity. Charlie Wolf did things to the Pistons that Charles Manson could never have imagined. The Tigers' Jim Campbell let his scouting and farm sys- tems slip. The Detroit Wheels are al- ready mocked in distant places. All of this overlooks one fundamental point-cities get the level of profes- sional sports they deserve. The ulti- mate source of inept teams is inept spectators - the ones who refuse to support good teams when they appear and flock to the standard of franchises which feed them a steady diet of long promises and short performances. If people bought pro football tickets rationally, there's no way the Lions would sell out-let alone think about building an 80,000-seat stadium to share the misery with more suckers than ever. If people bought hockey tickets ra- tionally, the Red Wings would cavort before a stadium packed with Budd Lynch and a small swarm of bats.' If people bought baseball tickets ra- tionally, the Tigers wouldn't get close to the 1,000,000-mark this year in spec- tators. All these dreary things are happening. The Lions can sneer at the fans and the Players' Association all the way to the bank. The Wings will sell their annual 10,000-plus season tickets, and the Tigers will continue to titillate their hordes of Little Leaguers and beery-breathed refu- gees from the Mack Avenue Stamping Plant. The Pistons, on the other hand, spent years facing healthful empty seats in Cobo Arena - exactly what a losing basketball team deserves. Eventually they installed an accountant-of all people!! - in the General Manager's seat, and waited for things to improve. It took a while. Ed Coil entered the business knowing nothing, and he made his share of early blunders. But he also knew the discipline of the balance sheet. He made damned sure to learn the things he had to, got a capable profes- sional (Ray Scott) to run the team, and turned the franchise around. One would hope that the public could learn from that experience. Dying fretn- chises are easy to spot in advance. The Red Wings strung along for too many years with a team made up of Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, and whoever else showed up. A recital of the Lions' accumulated blunders would fill a volume of the Encyclopedia Brit- tanica. And the Tigers' farm system teams troubles began to show in about 1969, when the trickle of good rookies dried up almost completely. Meanwhile, the unperceptive fans con- tinued to support their favorites blindly, loyally, against all logic. It's not that they haven't had ade- quate warning. There were enough sports journalists in town who refused to be cheerleaders for dying causes, and print- ed the situation in clear language long before trouble developed. But the fans- that same great group of people who elected two crooks in the 1972 landslide -either ignored what the experts were saying, or chose to read their own mean- ings into what was being said. The situation remains ambigtos. The fans are intelligently avoiding the Wheels, but aren't giving enough sup- port to the Loves, who are reasonably good. The Tigers could recover. There is still hope. But if experience is any indicator, it's downhill from here. Detroit is about to replace Philadelphia as the cesspool of professionnal sports. Sure, the fans will scream. Let them. They've asked for it. Bosox top Chisox, widen lead in East By The Associated Press BOSTON - D w i g h t Evans ignited Boston with a three-run double in the third inning and second baseman D o u g Griffin turned in a succession of out- standing plays last night in lead- ing the Red Sox to an 8-3 vic- tory over the Chicago White Sox. The Red Sox, authorized to begin printing playoff and World Series tickets a few hours ear- lier, moved 14 games over .500 while extending their lead in the American League's East Division. Evans just missed a grand slam homer on a long foul be- fore he lined his bases-loaded shot off Chicago starter Stan Bahnsen, 11-14, in the third. Griffin turned in four sparkling defensive plays in helping Bos- ton starter Dick Drago pick up the victory. Tribe trampled CLEVELAND-Home runs by Tony Solaita and Fran Healy and the five-hit pitching of Al Fitzmorris and Lindy McDaniel led the Kansas City Royals to a 2-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians and Gaylord Perry yes- terday. Both drives over the center field fence came in the fifth inning and Perry lost for the seventh time in his past eight decisions and dropped to 16-8 for the season. The homers were Solaita's fifth and Healy's eighth. Fitzmorris, 9-3, the winner, went five innings but the right- hander had to leave because of injuries sustained in the fifth. Lopes explodes CHICAGO - Davey Lopes blasted three home runs, a double and a single and Willie Crawford also homered yester- day to power the Los Angeles Dodgers to an 18-8 rout of the Chicago Cubs. The Dodgers rattled off 24 hits as Don Sutton, 11-9, picked up only his fourth career tri- umph over the Cubs against 15 losses. Lopes, a .261 hitter with only three previous homers this sea- son, connected in the first two innings, doubled in the third, singled in the fourth and hom- ered again in the sixth. Loves end IWTT season From wire Service Reports PITTSBURGH - The Detroit Loves made their final appear- ance of the World Team Tennis season last night, and went out on a dismal note, losing 32-17 to the Pittsburgh Triangles in the opening round of the World Team tennis playoffs. That score, coupled with the Triangles' 31-10 punishing of the Loves Monday night, gave Pittsburgh a 63-27 two-match total-point victory over Detroit, and sends the Tris into the WTT semifinals against the Philadel- phia Freedoms. The Freedoms clinched their berth in the semis yesterday af- ternoon by defeating Cleveland 23-22, to wrap up their total- point series 49-44. For the socond straight eve- ning the Triangles swept all five sets in the one-sided af- fair, which saw the Loves for the second straight night play- ing without their top male player, Phil Dent, out with an injured back. Evonne Goolagong defeated the Loves' top player Rosie Casals in the first set, 6-2, and from there the rout was on. DAVEY LOPES of the Dodgers rounds third after homering during his smashing day yesterday. NCA A tourney to take second league team ST. LOUIS 01P-The National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament was of- ficially opened to more than one team from each conference yesterday by the NCAA Execu- tive Committee. At the same time, the execu- tive Committee also approved a recommendationato increase en- forcement of NCAA recruiting regulations. ANNOUNCEMENT of the ac- tion came at a news conference following the executive com- mittee's annual meeting in St. Louis. The N C A A policy-making group ruled that a second team from any conference will now be eligible for one of the 12 "at large" spots in the 32-team tournament. The team will not have to be the second-place team in the conference, but no -more than two teams from any conference will be eligible. OFFICIALS SAID any teams selected from the same confer- ence would be placed in differ- ent brackets so they could not meet until the final game of the tournament. Teams will automatically qual- ify for the tournament upon winning their conference titles and four others will be chosen on the basis of four geographical tournaments held by the East Coast Athletic Conference, In another basketball ruling, the executive committee said coaches would now open their locker rooms to newsmen 10 minutes after the end of a game. Previously, there was no rule requiring coaches to allow newsmen to talk to their play- ers, Major League Standings AMERIcAN LEAGUE NATIONAL LEAGUE East East W L Pet. GB W L Pet. Ga Boston 68 54 457 - St. Louis 65 59 .524 - Baltimore 62 59 .512 5, Philadelphia 62 61 .504 2 z Cleveland 60 58 .50 6 Pittsburgh 62 61 .504 2% New York 65 61 .500 7 Montreal 57 632.4756 Milwaukee 59 63 .484 9 New York 52 67 .457 10 Detroit 57 65 .471 11 chicago 50 70 .416 13 west west Oakland 70 53 .569 - Los Angeles 77 47 .27 - Kansas city 64 56 .533 4 cincinnati 75 49 .705 IF Texas 67 62 .100 8% Atlanta 66 156.541 10% chicago 60 63 .460 10 Houston 63 59 .516 13 Minnesota 60 64 .484 lO', San Francisco 65 68.452 21% california 49 74 .398 21 san Diego 49 7s .395 28% KassCt ,Results ad0Yesterday's OResults Kansas city I, cleveland Los Angelesas hicago s Bsaltmore , Texas 1 Atlanta 8, St. Louis 6 noston , chicago t1San Francisco 8, Pittsburgh 7. l0 in. New York 2, Minnesota a kcincinnati 6, Philadelphia 1 Miau at Oalan . i nc. San Diego 3, Montreal 0 Detrit a (tatforia, nc.Houston 0, New York 2 Today's Games Today's Games Minnesota (nutler 4-5) at New Los Angeles (Messersmith 13-5) at York (Medich 14-11). chicago (Bonham 10-15). chicago (Johnson 4-2) at Boston St. Louis (Gibson.7-10) at Atlanta (Moret 7-5)" (Capes 10-6), night. Kansas city (Dal canton 7-6) at San Francisco (D'Acquislo 9-11) at cleveland (Bosmnan 5-2), night. Pittsburgh (Ellis 9-$), night. Texas (Bibby 16-14) at Baltimore New York (Koosman 11-4) at (Grimsley 14-10), night. Houston (Griffin 12-5), night. Milwaukee (wright $-1 or Robel Philadelphia (Lonborg 13-11) at 5-9) at Oakland (Odom 1-3), night. cincinnati (T. Carroll 4-0), night. Detroit (LaGrow 7-13) at califor- San Diego (spilnner 5-8) at Mon- nia (Hassler 2-), night. treal (Renko 9-11), night.