Wednesday, October 13, 1999 - The Michigan Daily - 15
.Braves, Maddux quiet Mets
at home, take 1-0 NLCS lead
ATLANTA (AP) -Leave it to Greg Maddux
to bring pitching back to this postseason. And
leave it to the Atlanta Braves to remind the New
Work Mets who's boss in the National League.
Maddux shut down Mike Piazza and the Mets
for seven innings and John Rocker sprinted
from the bullpen to finish them off, giving the
Braves a 4-2 victory last night in Game 1 of the
NL Championship Series.
After two days in which baseball fans across
the country saw Boston and Cleveland combine
for 50 runs in two AL playoff games, Maddux
and the Braves showed what really wins in
October.
"We need three more games. We're on the
ght track so far," Maddux said.
Maddux, Mike Remlinger and Rocker com-
bined on a six-hitter as the Braves beat New
York for the 10th time in 13 meetings this year.
Atlanta, which sent the Mets into a late tailspin
that almost cost them the wild-card spot, has
defeated them in 14 of the last 15 matchups at
Turner Field.
"He's Greg Maddux. He doesn't have all
those trophies because he's lucky" Mets manag-
Bobby Valentine said. "He did a great job."
Valentine was left without much else to say.
Instead, all the verbal sparring between the
teams leading up to the series took a backseat to
dominant pitching.
Piazza returned to the lineup after missing the
final two games of the first-round win over
Arizona because of a swollen left thumb. He
drove in the Mets' first run with a groundout and
finished 0-for-4.
Piazza did not hit the ball out of the infield.
The Braves also stole three bases against the
-Star catcher - he made a poor throw on one
attempt and didn't even make a throw on anoth-
er
A crowd of 44,172 - it was 6,000 short of
capacity, perhaps held down by an all-day rain
that caused a four-minute delay at the start -saw
Atlanta win the opening game of the NLCS at
home. The previous two years, the Braves lost
Game 1 at home and eventually lost the series.
Every year since 1991, the team that won
Game I went on to win the NLCS. Atlanta has
been in every one of those best-of-7 series.
"It's better to win the first game," Braves
manager Bobby Cox said. "You like to win the
first one."
Game 2 will be Wednesday afternoon with
Kevin Millwood, who pitched a one-hitter
against Houston in the opening round, starting
for the Braves against Kenny Rogers.
Maddux, a four-time Cy Young winner and a
nine-time Gold Glover, gave an all-around per-
formance in improving to 10-9 lifetime in the
postseason. He beat the team that got eight
straight hits off him Sept. 29 at Shea Stadium,
put down a perfect sacrifice bunt and made sev-
eral nice fielding plays.
Walt Weiss, making his first start since the
last day of the regular season, had three hits and
stole a base for the Braves. He doubled and
scored on Gerald Williams' single for a 2-1 lead
in the fifth and, after Eddie Perez homered in the
sixth, added an RBI single in the eighth.
"He did a great job against their lineup;'
Weiss said of Maddux. "Our pitchers have han-
dled them for the most part. That's the differ-
ence."
Rocker got four outs for a save. As is his cus-
tom, he ran in to relieve and, with a runner on
second, threw fastballs of 97 mph, 94 and 97 to
strike out John Olerud.
He allowed an unearned run in the ninth on
Todd Pratt's two-out single.
A day earlier, Rocker was one of the most
vocal Atlanta players, wondering aloud how
Valentine "can say a word" about the Braves.
Williams singled home the tiebreaking run in
the fifth, lining a shot past charging shortstop
Rey Ordonez. Later in the inning, losing pitcher
Masato Yoshii was pulled. After leaving the
dugout, he broke a bat and smashed a couple of
chairs.
Perez homered off Pat Mahomes in the sixth,
right after Ordonez and second baseman
Edgardo Alfonzo turned a nifty double play.
The Braves took a 1-0 lead after two batters.
Williams singled up the middle on the first pitch
and quickly tested Piazza, stealing well ahead of
the catcher's one-hop throw to the wrong side of
the bag.
Bret Boone followed with an RBI single and
when Chipper Jones walked, pitching coach
Dave Wallace marched to the mound and Orel
Hershiser began warming up. Yoshii settled
down right away, retiring 12 of the next 13 bat-
ters.
The Mets missed a chance to score in the
third after Yoshii missed a bunt on a suicide-
squeeze play. After Yoshii grounded out to end
the inning, he was so upset that Valentine had to
settle down his pitcher - talking to him in
Japanese.
As the Mets took the field, Valentine spoke
with bench coach Bruce Benedict, filling in as
the third-base coach while Cookie Rojas began
his five-game suspension for shoving umpire
Charlie Williams last weekend. New York
remembered Rojas by hanging his jersey in the
dugout.
The Mets made it one-apiece in the fourth on
Piazza's RBI grounder.
NOTES: Braves first baseman Andres
Galarraga, sidelined all season by cancer, threw
out the first ball. ...Benedict last coached third
base on a regular basis in 1996 under Valentine
at Triple-A Norfolk. ...Braves first baseman
Ryan Klesko tried to trap Roger Cedeno with
the hidden-ball trick in the seventh. No luck.
...Cedeno made a superb diving catch on
Boone's liner to right in the fifth. ...The Mets'
streak of 110 straight innings without an error
ended on left fielder Rickey Henderson's mis-
cue in the fifth.
AP PHOTO
Atlanta's Eddie Perez tags out New York's Roger Cedeno at home plate. Since 1991, the team that has
won the first game of the NLCS has gone on to win the pennant and advance to the World Series.
ACC officials suspended for calls
.1999 League Championship Series Schedule
National League . American League
Game 1, at Atlanta Game 1, at New York
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) --
The Atlantic Coast Conference on
Monday suspended for one game all
six officials who refereed Saturday's
Clemson-North Carolina State
game.
Reviews of video tape replays and
interviews with officials and game
administrators confirmed com-
S laints by both schools, league offi-
als said.
"Our review of the situation
involving penalties during the
Clemson-N.C. State game, leaves no
doubt that the officials errored in
their application during the course
of the contest," ACC commissioner
John Swofford said.
He called officials James Knight,
Frank Overcash, Mike Looney, Bill
Wampler, Rick Page and Virgil
Valdez "extremely competent."
"However, the entire officiating
crew works as a team and must be
accountable as a team," Swofford
said.
The experience of the officials
ranges greatly - from 21 years call-
ing games for Knight to one year for
Looney.
ACC officials refused to elaborate
on the specific errors in North
Carolina State's 35-31 victory.
The game crew apparently erred
once when marking off yardage on a
penalty and once when the 25-sec-
ond play clock apparently expired
without a violation being called.
North Carolina State coach Mike
O'Cain admitted Monday that he
lost his composure while trying to
get the officials' interpretation of a
holding penalty midway through the
second quarter with Clemson ahead
24-14.
N.C. State was called for holding
in the backfield on a first-down pass
play.
Officials assessed the penalty
from the spot of the foul instead of
from the line of scrimmage.
The resulting mark pushed the
Wolfpack back to their 15 and the
drive ended with a punt.
The officiating crew called a total
of 26 penalties for a tally of 244
yards.
Atlanta 4, New York 2
Game 2, at Atlanta ,
Wednesday, Oct 13,4 p.m. (NBC)
Game 3, at New York
Friday, Oct. 15, 8 p.m. (NBC]
Game 4, at New York
Saturday, Oct 16, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 5, at New York
"Sunday, Oct 17,4 p.m. (NBC)
Game 6, at Atlanta
Tuesday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Game 7, at Atlanta
Wednesday, Oct 20, 8 p.m. (NBC)
Wednesday, Oct 13, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Game 2, at New York
Thursday, Oct. 14,8 p.m.(Fox)
Game 3, at Boston
Saturday, Oct. 16, 4 p.m. (Fox)
Game 4, at Boston
Sunday, Oct 17, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Game 5, at Boston
Monday, Oct 18, 4 or 8 p.m. (Fox)
Game 6, at New York.
Wednesday, Oct 20, 8 p.m. (Fox)
Game 7, at New York,
Thursday, Oct. 21, 8 pm. (Fox),
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