Page 10-Thursday, April 2, 1981-The Michigan Daily


L.A.

reliej

race

Howe Dodge(r)s minor leagues

By GARY LEVY
It is highly uncommon for a baseball
player to make the jump from the
college level straight to the major
leagues. It's even more unlikely that a
player who does make that jump will be
successful as a rookie in the big leagues.
Steve Howe beat the odds. As Los
Angeles' first selection in the June 1979
draft, the 6'1" 180-pound Howe chose to
bypass his senior year at Michigan. He
then bypassed the minor leagues as

College World Series, blanking Baylor,
4-0.
In today's world of professional
baseball, players spend little time in
the minor leagues honing their skills
before they're ready for a crack at the
majors, pitchers in particular.
However it is still customary procedure
for a college player to spend a few
years in the minor leagues. Howe ad-
mitted that he surprised even himself
by making the Dodgers directly out of
college.
"Usually, it's a prerequisite to spend
at least two years in the minor leagues
playing Double-A and Triple-A ball,"
said Howe in a telephone interview
from the Dodgers' spring training
camp in Vero Beach, Fla.
UNLIKE THE SYSTEMS of football
and basketball, in which colleges act as
free farm clubs for the professional
ranks, in baseball the minor leagues
provide the stepping stone between
college and the majors. Howe at-
tributed his quick trip up the baseball
ladder to his training at Michigan.
"The facilitiest and the fundamentals
I was taught in college helped me a
lot," said Howe. "Instead of having to
drill me in the basics of pitching and
fielding, all they (the Dodger coaches)';
had to do was put the polish on me."
As a reliever, the lefthander won
seven games for the Dodgers last
season and saved 17 more. His ERA
was a solid 2.65 in 85 innings. But the
fact which best illustrates Howe's ef-
fectiveness out of the bullpen is that he
allowed only one home run all season.
AT THE END OF the season, he got
word that he had won National League
Rookie-of-the-Year honors by a wide
margin. Howe, though pleased, was not
startled by the news.
"I had a couple of good strings of pit-
ching," he said. "I went 63 innings with
an ERA of 1.00, so that didn't hurt too
badly. I thought my chances were hurt,
though, by us not making the playoffs."
(Los Angeles finished tied with Houston
at the end of the regular season but lost
in a one-game playoff for the National
League West title.)
Howe was-a starter throughout most
of his college career, but he doesn't
worry about whether he will be one
again.

"THAT (RELIEVER) is where they
want me to play and where they think I
can help the team most. All I want to do
is help the team win and get the chance
to pitch."
To Howe, the most difficult adjust-

HEADING INTO HIS second season,
Howe is confident that he can perform
as well as he did in his rookie year. He
doesn't believe in the "sophomore jinx"
or that National League hitters, will be
tougher for him the second time
around.
"I'll be pitching the same as I did last
year," he predicted. "I never tried to
fool anyone last year. All they've got to
do is hit the ball."
Recently, Howe was rumored to be
trade bait in an even-up deal for Bill
Buckner of the Chicago Cubs, but the
trade never materialized.
"I think everyone worries about
being traded," said Howe, who signed a
two-year pact with Los Angeles this
spring. "You'd like to know you're
secure so you can concentrate on
baseball."
One thing is certain - Howe has
secured the role as the Dodgers'
bullpen ace for the upcoming 1981
season..

t r
n
p
v
a '9

ment from starter to reliever was a
mental one.
"You have to get yourself ready to
come in at any time," he explained.
"You just tell yourself you've got to do
it. I try to get as much rest as possible
because I might only throw 100 innings
all year, but I'm throwing 300 in the
bullpen."

AP Photo6
Pile up _
Chicago Black Hawks Rich Preston (16) and Peter Marsh (17) scuffle with
Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Jiri Crha and teammate Barry Melrose (26) in
hockey action last night in Toronto.

TAYLOR HURLS NO-HITTER:

4

Howe
...spells relief

Sofitballers annihilate

UofD

well, winning a spot en the Dodger pit-
ching staff and soon establishing him-
self as the team's number one reliever.
For his efforts, he was selected as the
National League's Rookie of the Year.
THE PONTIAC, Mich. native stands
as the winningest pitcher in Wolverine
baseball history. Howe's three-year
statistics are impressive : a 27-8 win-
loss record, 1.79 ERA, 61 walks and 196
strikeouts in 2652/ innings. He com-
pleted 31 of the 34 games he started in
his career at Michigan, and his 11-3
mark as a sophomore is a season
record. That same year (1978) Howe
tossed the last one-hitter thrown in the
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By JIM DWORMAN
Led by the pitching of Sandy Taylor and Laura
Reed, the Michigan softball team raised its record to
7-0 with a doubleheader sweep of the University of
Detroit Titans yesterday at Veterans Park.,
Taylor, a sophomore, pitched a no-hitter in the
opener as the Wolverines routed the Titans by a score
of 13-0. The game was halted after five innings
because of the "mercy rule," in which the trailing
team's coach can call it quits when her team is down
by 10 or more runs after five frames.
IN THE NIGHTCAP, Reed, a junior, allowed only
four hits enroute to a shutout and an 8-0 Michigan vic-
tory.
The Wolverines jumped out to a first inning lead in
the opener, as they literally swiped two runs from the
Titans. Debbie Haines began the inning with a walk,
the first of six off of Detroit pitcher Yvonne Baran,
and quickly proceeded to steal second. She advanced
to third on a single by Sue Burk, and then raced home
as she and Burk successfully executed a delayed
double-steal.

Michigan scored its second run in the same fashion.
After a base hit by Diane Hatch, Burk and Hatch
again victimized the Titans with the double-steal, and
Burk scored when Titan catcher Lynn Krupinski
fired the ball to second base trying to nail Hatch.
WHILE TAYLOR breezed through the Titan bat-
ting order, her teammates provided her with eleven
more runs, nine of them coming in the fifth and final
inning. The softballers supplemented three Titan
errors with six singles of their own to produce the
runs.
Taylor struck out four of the last six Detroit batters
to preserve the no-hitter and rack up her third victory
of'the season.
Despite her flawless performance, the righthander
felt it could have been easier with more consistent
umpiring. "The umpire never really established a
strike zone," said Taylor. "I just tried to throw it
down the middle and hoped she called it a strike."
SURPRISINGLY, coach Bob DeCarolis wasn't en-
tirely pleased with his team's performance. "We
missed five signs in three innings. We didn't miss any
on the. spring trig," said DeCarolis,. Our intensity

just wasn't there."
Although the score didn't indicate it, the second
game of the doubleheader was very closely-playedi
Michigan could only manage to produce one run'and
one hit in the first four innings of the contest, but'
Reed's shutout pitching kept the Wolverines in the
lead.
A six-run outburst in the fifth inning, resulting'
more from the Titans' six walks and three errors than
the Wolverines' pair of hits, put the game out of
reach.
DIANE PUHL gave the Wolverines their final run'
of the evening when she blasted an opposite-field
home run in the sixth inning. The roundtripper was-
the softballers' second of the season, equalling last--
year's total production.
Reed retired the final six Titan batters in order to
seal the victory.
"We weren't aggressive," DeCarolis said of the
nightcap. "When you let a team not as good as you':
stay within one run for four innings, anything can'
happen. These are the type of games that are easily"
lost."

!,

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I

SCORES
NHL
Hartford 5, Quebec 4
Chicago 2, Toronto 2
Exhibition Baseball
New York Mets 2, Toronto 0
Chicago White Sox 6, St. Louis I
Texas 13, Atlanta 12 (104innings)
Los Angeles 7, New York Yankees 4
Detroit 4, Montreal 1
Minnesota 5, Pittsburgh 3 (10 innings)
Cincinnati 7, Philadelphia 2
Milwaukee 12, San Diego A
San Francisco 7, Oakland 2

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