A Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 3, 1984 Cubs cruise, CHICAGO (AP) - Gary Mathews hit two home runs to lead a record- breaking parade of five Chicago homers, backing Rick Sutcliffe's strong pitching as the Cubs clobbered the San Diego Padres 13-0 yesterday in the first game of the best-of-five National League Championship Series. Besides Matthews, the Cubs got home runs from Bob Dernier, Ron Cey and Sutcliffe, who had a 16-1 record with Chicago during a season that ended with a club record equalling 14 straight victories. DERNIER, who scored three runs, and Matthews, who had four RBI, hit solo homers off Padres' right-hander Eric Show for the Cubs' first two runs in the first inning. Sutcliffe hit a leadoff homer in the third, and Matthews ad- ded a three-run homer in a six-run fifth inning during which the Cubs sent 12 men to the plate against reliever Greg Harris. Aided by a 20 mph wind blowing out toward center field, Dernier's leadoff homer cleared the screen behind the left-field bleachers and landed in Waveland Avenue. It came on a 1-0 pit- ch from Show, who had yielded 18 homers during the regular season. After Ryne Sandberg struck out, Mat- thews hit his homer, a low line drive about halfway up the bleachers in left center. That home run ball came on a 3-1 pitch, and the Cubs led 2-0 to the delight of a crowd of 36,282 - some of baseball's most rabid and deprived fans. SUTCLIFFE, meanwhile, had taken aim at the rather large strike zone of Cavanaugh with great success over the first three innings. He struck out two batters each in the second and third in- nings, including McReynolds and Show looking. He did not allow a baserunner until Martinez walked to lead off the third. Leading off the bottom of the inning, Sutcliffe hit only the third League Championship Series homer by a pit- cher, smashing an 01 pitch from Show into Sheffield Avenue, over the right field bleachers. The only other LCS homers by pitchers were by Don Gullett 13-0 of Cincinnati in 1975 and Steve Carlton of Philadelphia in 1978. Before the inning was over, Chicago had scored two more runs, on air RBI single by Leon Durham and a sacrifice fly by Moreland. And the Padres were in the hole, 5-0. Dernier led off the Cubs' fifth with a double, and Harris walked Sandberg. And the Cubs had their two tablesetters - who had scored more than 200 runs between them - on base. Matthews hit the next pitch from Harris into the right field bleachers for his second homer of the game. Harris got the first out of the inning when Durham grounded to second, but Moreland followed with an infield, single up the middle. Cey walked, and Jody Davis drove in the fourth run of the inning with a single. Another run scored on Larry Bowa's fielder's choice grounder, and after a bloop single by Sutcliffe and a walk to Dernier, San- dberg drove in a run with a single. The inning finally ended when Matthews struck out. Pondering the playoffs Tiger fan gets cold feet on eve of opener By PAUL HELGREN I wish I had Bo Schembechler's confidence. Somebody asked the Tiger superfan if playoff fever would sideline interest in this Saturday's Michigan-Michigan State football game. Schembechler asked when the first three games of the American League championship Series are played. "Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday?" he repeated. "Series will be over by the time we play.'' By all rights the playoffs should be over by Friday. The Kansas City Royals don't belong on the same turf with the Tigers, astro or otherwise. Had they been unfor- tunate enough to be grouped with the American League's eastern teams, the Royals would have been buried in fifth place, 20 games behind Detroit. The Tigers own baseball's best relief corps, one of the best starting pitching threesomes and a lineup which boasts eight hitters in double figures in home runs. They had the lowest ERA in the AL and scored more runs than any team in either league. They're also the first team since the '27 Yankees to lead the league from start to finish. Then tell me, please, why do I have this creeping sense that disaster awaits this team? It's nothing i can put my finger on. But. so far everything has been too good to be true. Winning the division came easy - suspiciously easy. The Orioles and Blue Jays just rolled over and played dead. Could it be a trap set by the baseball gods? Are Tigers fans set up for a collective and gigantic fall? Will Detroiters pay for their boastful and nauseating slogan (Bless you something or other") with the sacrifice of their first- born champion? One Detroit sportswriter said it's "win or else" for the Bengals. That kind of pressure makes me nervous. I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I've been con- ditioned too well as a Detroit sports fan. Maybe I'be beer teased too often, brought to the altar of victory, only to be cynically stood up with a sneer. "Sucker. Haven't you learned yet?" Then again, maybe I'm just not used to this winning thing. My teams have never won anything, you see. I've been a Detroit sports fan since about 1970 and not one of the four major sports teams has been a champion in that period. Something like that shapes your whole outlook on life. Cub fans - kindred spirits to Tiger backers - would understand this. Those of you from New York or Los Angeles would not. I try to console myself that this is the reason for my pessimism. But still I'm uneasy. Something about this Royals team gives me an uneasy feeling, too. They remind me of the 1973 New York Mets. I think it was Sparky who first made this com- parison. The '73 Mets, like the Royals, got an early Christmas present by virtue of belonging to a division where nobody wanted to (or was able to) win. They were a club of leftovers from a past champion (like the Royals) that squeaked into the Fall Classic with slimey 82-79 record. Their opponents, the Cincinnati Reds (remember who their manager was?), posted 99 wins. They drooled at the opportunity to humiliate the N.Y. Nyets. The Metropolitans won the series, three games to two. They damn near won the World Series, too. Maybe things are different now. Times have changed, they tell me. Look at the Cubs. They beat the Kroc out of the Padres yesterday. Didn't the Cubs used to be losers, too? Perhaps this is the year - of the loser. That's not a pleasant thought, either, because the Cubs have been losers longer than the Tigers. God, how I'd hate to lose to a team whose best pitcher is an ex-Cleveland Indian and whose best everything else is an ex-Philadelphia Phillie. But a worse fate than that would be losing to the Royals. Who's their best hitter? Steve Balboni? Gimme a break. Their second-best starter is 10-11? Super. Then how come the Tigers took only seven of 12 games from them this year? How in the world did they sweep four from us at home? Why do they have a relief pitcher, whose name sounds like it should have the words "Kellogg's Frosted" before it, save 44 games? Nothing to be afraid of, right Bo? Then why do I have this feeling? 0 5 it's the Year of the Cubs, uBSthey can't be stopped By MIKE MCGRAW When a group of people become a "team of destiny," there is no stopping them. Balls bounce off pitcher's backs and become game-ending double plays. No-name second basemen hit game-tying home runs off the league's best reliever. And pitchers start hitting the ball into the street. The Cubs are exactly such a team. After 39 years of waiting, most Cub fans never honestly believed their team would ever appear in another World Series and took enjoyment in winning a few games in the optimistic months of April and May. But the impossible finally happened this season. The Cubs won the National League East. Such an achievement can only mean that the curse is over. Win- ning is once again possible in Wrigley Field. So while they're at it, they might as well win the whole thing. Regardless of the Cubs already-determined destination, they are -still the best team in baseball. There is no question that the National League is the more powerful of the majors and the Cubs dominated play there this season. The Tigers may have won more games, but the competition they faced was far weaker. There are three keys to a good team in baseball: sound fielding, a strong bullpen, and lots of power at the plate. The Cubs are among the very top of the National League. in all three categories. The key to the Cubs' defense was the trade made just before the regular season began which put Bob Dernier in center field. The most effective weapon a club can have is a speedy gloveman in the middle of the outfield that can erase potential extra-base hits. In the bullpen, the Cubbies have the big Louisianan, Lee Smith. And when the shadows start to creep out over home plate at Wrigley, as they will do early in the after- noon in October, no hitter can see Smith's 100 mile-per- hour fastballs, let alone try to hit them with a bat. Balls flying onto Waveland Avenue is as common a sight in Chicago as Harry Carey drinking a Budweiser. There are only three spots in the batting order in which there are Cubs with fewer than 15 home runs- one, eight and nine. Put all these factors together and you have a cham- pionship ball club. But there is another reason why the Cubs will win it all, their experience. With all the ex-Phillies and Dodgers on the squad, there are few in blue pinstripes that haven't tasted the thrill of post-season baseball. And that can be a factor when you're battling a bunch of players that have never been there before, like for example Detroit. This does make things a little less enjoyable for longtime Cub enthusiasts when they notice that only three players on the 25-man roster - Smith, Henry Cotto and Rick Reuschel are originalCubbers. But that's something we can live with. And I'll tell you something else, there's the in- timidation factor that will loom large come World Series time. You put a guy like Kirk Gibson or Tony Gwynn out in the sunshine in right field with the Bleacher Bums yelling behind him and he's going to crack. Fans will likely be watching Gibson lose a ball in the sun or crash into the ivy on more than one occasion. And look at the support they'll get. Everyone in the world is going to be pulling for the Cubs to win the Series, except for maybe a few local Bless You Boy-ers. Forget all that crap about the Braves being America's Team. A fan on Rush Street said it best when he leaned into a microphone on division-clinching night and uttered, "This is a victory for all of Arferica." But the bottom line is the Cubs deserve to win it more than any other team. I personally remember the Tigers and Royals being in the playoffs before and nobody cares about baseball in San Diego. None of these teams will make acceptable champions. The last time the Cubs captured the World Series was 1908, a time when few people besides Ronald Reagan were alive. Face it. The Cubs should win it. It's long past their turn. And nobody is going to stop them. 14 A 14 I 4 I Associated Press, Cubs' leadoff man Bob Dernier opens the first game of the National League playoffs by smacking a first inning home run off San Diego pitcher Eric Show. 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