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Show Quote of (he week: "He fought like a girl." . A Marvelous Marvin Hagler after Sugar Ray Leonard beat him. j Features Local Sporting Events High School Results Recreation Park Record Thursday, April 9, 1987 Page B1 3 " A quest for sun, fun and America's favorite pastime aaay Ba u o a f " " " 1 ' " u 1 Spring IRriefs As the snow melts... ParkWest Ski Area closed last Sunday, one week ahead of their original plan to close April 12th. As spring-like conditions continue con-tinue to plague the Park City community, Deer Valley is calling call-ing for an April 19th closing date and Park City Ski Area is sticking fast to closing on April 26th. In the meantime, start dusting off those golf clubs! April calendar Running: April 11: Goddess of Speed, 9 a.m., Rock Canyon Elementary School, 2230 No. 650 E. Provo, 225-4901. KPCX Frostbite Series, 50 Kilometer, 25 Kilometer, 467-4203. YWCA All Women's Fun Run, 8:30 a.m. Liberty Park, Barb Isom 355-2804. The Kid's Race, Libary Park North Shelter, 10 a.m., 1.3 for those up to 10 years old. In-person In-person registration through the SLC Recreation Dept., 1965 W. 500 S. 972-7800. April 18: Tax Tracks '87, 5K, 3:30 p.m., City Creek Canyon (upper gate) 359-3533. High school , sport schedule Park City High School sport action ac-tion for the next week includes: April 9: track meet at Morgan High School, 3 p.m. April 10: Boys soccer, JV and varsity at Lehi. Easter Break- April 13 through April 17). Notes.. .1948 In 1948, Gretchen Fraser became the first American skier, male or female, to win Olympic medals in the Winter Games. She won a gold in the slalom and a silver in the alpine combined in St. Moritz, Switzerland. During the same year, Walt Schoenknecht took the first stab at artificial snow-making. As owner of the Mohawk Mountain Ski Area in Connecticut, Scheonknecht was frustrated because of the lack of snow over Christmas. So he decided to truck in big blocks of ice, which he chipped chip-ped and crushed to cover his bare slopes with slush-type snow. Wilderness Society opens The Wilderness Society has opened a field office in Salt Lake City to step up its efforts to enact a BLM wilderness bill for the state. Founded in 1935, The Wilderness Society is the only national na-tional conservation organization that works exclusively on public land issues and the preservation of wilderness. The Wilderness Society is currently calling for the designation of 5.1 million acres of Utah BLM land as wilderness. USGA Handicap Slope System The Slope System is a refinement refine-ment of the USGA Handicap System. It adjusts a player's handicap han-dicap for the difficulty of the course He plays. Your USGA Handicap Han-dicap Index is now expressed in tenths of a stroke. It represents your ability on a course of average difficulty, you never play with this number. You convert con-vert it to the strokes you will receive, both at home and away, but consulting a table prepared for that purpose. Turn to page B3 for course handicap table. by RANDY HANSKAT Record guest writer "Here we go," cackles the play-by-play announcer. "Bottom of the ninth. Game seven of the '68 World Series. Tigers and Cards. Cash singled Horton over to third, but the Motor City boys still trail by two. Two out, full count on Hanskat, the rookie shortstop. Tiger Stadium is a picture in bedlam, young and old screaming hysterically. The late afternoon sun gleams off the kid's sweat-soaked forehead as he stares at his nemesis on the mound. Gibson Gib-son gets the sign from McCarver, bears down on Hanskat, set..." BUZZZZZZZZZ! ! My eyelids burst open, but instead in-stead of seeing the cold, steel blue eyes of Bob Gibson, I'm staring sleepily at the red numbers on my blaring alarm clock. I bolt out of bed to the window. No Tiger Stadium, no dark green infield, no screaming fans, no pine tar, just Slurpee stuff being tossed down out of a depression gray Park City sky. Ugh! I glance with hate at my calendar calen-dar to see the date set at March 21, the first day of spring. From somewhere in my muddled subconscious sub-conscious pops up a fragment of a Tennyson quote about spring when "a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love" or something like that... For me you could add baseball. But six inches of fresh Slurpee snow on the ground isn't exactly conducive to baseball. I start pulling pull-ing my mottled hair, feeling a bout of psychosis coming on. I've got to get out of here! Two minutes later I'm on my way to Phoenix and spring training. train-ing. All I've got with me is a pair of shorts and my memories of a youth spent pretending to be Al Kaline one day, Willie Mays the next. Wait, you say, spring training in Phoenix? Wrong, gloveoleum breath, everyone knows Florida is the spot for baseball in the springtime. spr-ingtime. Not truc.eight teams from the Midwest and West call the desert home for the month of March. The Cactus League consists of the San Diego Padres, the Cleveland Indians, In-dians, the Chicago Cubs, the San Francisco Giants, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Oakland A's, the California Angels, and the Seattle Mariners, all playing each other in exhibition games until the season opens April 6. The Phoenix area is home base for five clubs, with others based in Yuma, Tucson and Palm Springs. It has been a long time since childhood days in Detroit and regular attendance at big league games, so I think it wise to begin this reacquaintance with baseball Park City by JENNIFER MADGIC Record staff writer By almost everyone's standards the final Town Race of the season was well up to par. For once, chaos among the troops was diminished as the timing mechanism got its act together for a record-breaking, problem-free day. And the sun did make an appearance, ap-pearance, helping to warm spirits and make the free beer more pourable and the chicken more palatable. In the final showdown of the season two teams sponsored by Jans claimed the highest percentage of winners as they won both the Pro and A classes. In the Pro class, Rightfit and Jans fought to the end as opposing racers Bill Skinner and Kristin Neergaard finished the season tied for first in the men's division. Racing for Jans, Skinner said Neergaard and him have been racing rac-ing virtually neck and neck all season long and wasn't surprising to have the battle end in tie. The two Pro racers didn't start the season out in front however as Todd Schlopy, racing for Jans, took off with the first Town Race victory. Schlopy, however, was unable to keep the momentum going, blaming lack of training for his slow disintegration to 4th place by season's end. Brewer slugger Robin Yount "Wait you say...spring training in Phoenix? Wrong, gloveoleum breath, everyone knows Florida is the spot for baseball in the springtime." slowly. I decide to first pretend to be a typical fan. My next couple of days become a myriad of tourism: a MarinersGiants game one day, Brewers and A's the next, sandwiching sand-wiching in trips to the dog track, horse track and a few of Phoenix's 84 golf courses. One quickly feels his or her blood pressure drop when hanging around this scene. You can't say anything about the Cactus League if you don't say casual. ; - Temperatures hover in the 70s, shorts are the accepted attire. Swigging beer is almost mandatory for the overflow of crowds which pack the parks (each of which is cozy, about the size of most college fields). What you have is basically a Club Med for the baseball fan. After playing the typical fan part for a spell, I feel ready to become a sports writer. The day's game of choice is the Mariners and Brewers at Seattle's home, Tempe Diablo Stadium. I try to muster up my best Sports Illustrated-type look even as the Seattle office secretary tries not to snicker upon hearing my Park Record affiliation. While waiting for her to type up a field pass, my roving eye falls upon a stack of teletypes. The top release announces that AAA outfielder out-fielder Glenn Anderson is "available for sale or trade," somewhat reminiscent of the Civil War days. It reminded me that this kids' game is indeed big business, and though things may seem relaxed, they are anything but relaxed for Town Race winds Meanwhile, Skinner and Neergaard set the pace by both winning win-ning two races of the season and finishing with an exact point total of 125. Jan Karpel took second in the Pros with 85 points after polishing off the season with a 3rd. In the Pro women's division, Karri Hayes-Waltzer helped the Jans' cause turning in a first overall for the season ahead of Sue White racing rac-ing for Rightfit and Holly Flanders of Jans. While Flanders managed a 1st place wrap-up race against Hayes-Waltzer Hayes-Waltzer last Monday it wasn't good enough to beat Waltzer's overall points of 135. Placing 3rd overall for the season, Flanders, who raced on the U.S. Ski Team for nine years and is the present pre-sent director of skiing for the Park City Ski Area, managed to miss the first three races of the season but was able to come back in the last two and win. Jans continued their winning ways in the A class with a 10 point lead overall with Cole Sport, Ltd. Helping the Jans contingency were A racers Rob Roetman, Julie Norcross, Larry Jackson, Jack Walzer and Maree Plunkett. - Roetman pulled his team through after turning in a 2nd in Monday's race to claim 3rd overall for the season with a total of 65 points. He was edged by Rick Swanger racing If misses this one, but the next pitch the middle level players trying to make the teams. I wander down to the field to talk to the Mariners' third base coach Ozzie Virgil about that aspect of spring. Virgil, who has spent his entire adult life in major league baseball, some 30 odd years, bemoans be-moans cutdown day (the final cut before the season starts) as "the toughest thing in baseball." Each team has 24 roster spots, with 10 of those usually going for pitching. The Mariners' coaches each submit a list of whom they think are the top 24 players every week through the spring to head honcho Dick Williams, who compiles com-piles all the advice to make his decisions on cuts. For Seattle, Virgil said this year's toughest competition is in pitching. As of March 23, the team has seven of the 10 spots set. Eight guys are vying for those three remaining re-maining slots. "I've been cut on the last day," he muses. "The bottom of your world drops out." I eagerly await the arrival of the players for batting practice, but find out I'll have to wait another day. Today is the Mariners' turn for a players' association meeting and there isn't enough time for batting bat-ting practice before game time. In the meantime, all of the press people peo-ple gather around the only available interviewees, the Seattle coaches. It strikes me that spring is a funny fun-ny time, sort of an anachronism. Everyone is either looking forward to the coming season or back at Winners of the '87 Town Race A team division were from left Norcross, Rob Roetman and Maree Plunkett. for the Adventure Center and Scott Thompson of Cole's. Thompson took an easy 1st in the men's A division nabbing a 55 point season lead over Swanger. In the women's A class, lift operator Becky Hall, skiing for Peek S-Wi Akii, . "7 4 ' ' ended up against the fence. . vf Q ' 1 What would a ballgame be, especially in this desert setting, set-ting, without a beer? The concession man has bucket full. last year. Spring itself is no big deal (hell, the games don't even count), just something to work through, a time of limbo. The press questions are the same. Some local Seattle guys ask Williams about his starting lineup for opening day, others ask about Mariner mistakes from last year. down to final draw a Boo's, skied to the overall title after winning Monday's race. Finishing the season with 125 points, Hall edged Sally Fausold by 15 points and third-place finisher Julie Norcross by over 60 points. A narrow contest for first was Randy Hanskat if :. Jm- -S Ji Xa - ' 4 V I Handy HansKal I try a different task. "Can Boston win without Roger Clemens?" I venture. "No," Williams is quick to answer. "Even with him it would be tough." continued on page B2 to right: Jack Waltzer Julie fought in the Pro Vet division as Team Dynastar outskied Spa Tenders by 10 points. The two teams have been battling throughout the season with the Stein Eriksen (the continued on page B4 |