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Show by Jim Murray Muniriraiy (om Spqpirttg Out of the shadow of Brooks Robinson Page CI Thursday, April 8, 1982 Next game April 14 Late rally gives Silver Kings 4-4 tie with Snowbird in hockey by John Sundquist After three regulation periods and 10 minutes of overtime, Park City and Snowbird remained in a 4-4 deadlock to end the first of three games between the two hockey clubs. Park City's Mike Cornu scored from the front doorstep with 6:17 left in the third period to tie the game and eventually send it into overtime. Played at Cottonwood Ice Rink, the game featured tenacious defense on both sides, and shifting momentum momen-tum from one end of the ice to the other. It was a closely played game with each team backchecking and players staying in their lanes. The first scoring came from Park City with 14:45 to play in the first period, when Eric Smith shot from the blue line, keeping the puck on the ice. The Snowbird goalie never saw it through a maze of players around the net. The next ten minutes of the first period saw one power-play power-play opportunity for Park City, but the Silver Kings were unable to capitalize. Then Snowbird got on the scoreboard with 5:25 left in the first period on a power-play power-play goal by J. Balch from in front of the net. Playing a tremendous game for Park City in the nets was goaltender Dave O'Brian. He managed to stop ten shots in the first period to keep his team in the game. The second period was scoreless for the first six minutes. But at 15:12, Park City's Greg McWhinney received re-ceived a slashing penalty and a little more than a minute later, Snowbird's B. Lemieux drove a shot past O'Brian to make the score 2-1. The second period also saw the game's only fight between Park City's Eric Gudell and Snowbirds A. Burtan. Squaring off at Snowbird's blueline, the two players quickly discarded their gloves and sticks for a few moments of hand-to-hand combat. Both players got misconduct penalties and left the ice for the evening. As if to say they appreciated ap-preciated the efforts of the combatants, the Silver Kings came back and scored at 9:33 to tie the game again at 2-2. Defenseman Tim Miller let go a low drive on goal which was steered into the net by teammate Steve "Weasel" Klock, who was parked right in front of the net. It started to look as if the second period would end in a tie, but Snowbird had other ideas. Late in the period, on a perfect two-on-one play, Snowbird's R. Smith took a good pass from teammate T. Cameron and slipped the puck by O'Brian to give Snowbird a 3-2 lead at the intermission. in-termission. The third period continued to witness both hard skating and tough checking. Park City defensemen Brian Strait and Bill Dickson more than once put their bodies into in-to the opposition or the puck. "This is the best defense I have seen in a long time," said Park City goalie Dave O'Brian after the game. "It seemed like the object was simply to deck anyone who got too close to Park City's net." Several times when it looked as if Snowbird might be putting something together, the referees would call an offensive player for being in the goal crease and whistle the play down for a faceoff outside the blueline. Then, as if to show everyone it was still the object ob-ject of the game to score, Snowbird's V. Magon skated right around the net and stuffed the puck past O'Brian at 14:06 of the third period to give Snowbird its biggest lead of the night, 4-2. But the Silver Kings came right back to score their third goal, putting the pressure on Snowbird and keeping the puck in the offensive of-fensive end. Taking a pass from Eric Smith, defensemen Eric Couch slapped a low hovering drive into the melee of players around the Snowbird net and came up with Park City's third goal of the evening at 13:03. Both teams started to look a little tired but were game enough to keep the pace up for the third period's last ten minutes. Park City got the tying goal at 6:17 after Mike Cornu jammed the puck into the net. f The overtime period could have ended at several different dif-ferent points, as both teams had excellent scoring opportunities. oppor-tunities. But neither team could put the red light on, and the game ended in a draw. The next game between these two teams is scheduled for Wednesday, April 14 at 9:00 at Cottonwood Ice Rink. Park City skiers dominate Tribune classic If you saw a copy of Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune, you may have seen some familiar faces. The list of winners of Saturday's Tribune Ski Classic, Clas-sic, held at the Solitude Ski Resort, looked like a who's who of the Park City Ski Team, with local youngsters taking six out of a possible 10 first-place awards. Park City showed its strength in the JII (14- and 15-year-olds), JIV (10- and 11-year-olds) and JV (9-year-old) classes by winning first-place trophies in both girls' and boys' events. Solitude must be a particular particu-lar favorite of Park City High School freshman Rolfe Sandberg. The previous Saturday, Sat-urday, Sandberg posted the fastest time of all the high-school competitors in the state in the annual Knudsen Cup. Then last week Sandberg repeated his performance in the Tribune race by beating Brian Barker Bar-ker of Nordic Valley by eight tenths of a second to take first place among the JII boys. Andrea Peterson, another Park City freshman, finished ahead of teammate Erin Calmes to win the top spot among the JII girls. Among the JIV girls, the Park City area took three of the top four spots with Stephanie Palmer in first, Essie Doilney in third and ParkWest's Holly Hunter in fourth. The story was almost the same among the JIV boys, with Park City's Tyler Tebbs in first, Jeremy Nobis in third and Bret Johnson in fourth. Jeremy's younger sister, Shannon Nobis, posted the fastest time among the JV girls. While the younger skiers were flexing their muscles at Solitude, some of the older members of the Park City Ski Team were competing at home in the three-day Eric Hays Memorial Race at the Park City Ski Area. Although the field included some stiff competition including in-cluding Olympic gold medalist medal-ist Kathy Kreiner, the first woman's name to go on the trophy is that of another Park City freshman, Tori Pillinger. By taking two first and a second in three giant slalom races, Pillinger was easily the best female skier in the event. The promising 15-year-old actually finished ahead of Kreiner in Saturday's Satur-day's first run, but could not match the World Cup veteran's veter-an's charge in the second run. The class of the men's competition was University of Utah student Scott Sanchez, San-chez, who posted two first and a third. "He was a real treat to have around." said Park City Ski Team Coach Bob Marsh. "He was calm, he was considerate of the other racers ... it's nice to have that kind of competitor around here." An encouraging sign for Marsh was the performance of 14-year-old Jason Lawson, who injured a knee earlier this season and is still recuperating. Lawson finished finish-ed seventh in Sunday's race. "Jason right now is back within five percent of his true form." Marsh said. For results of the Tribune Classic and the Eric Hays Memorial Race, please turn to the Scoreboard section. llifiilisiiiiilii " I: - I;?- V ' - ' - j5 ( " v ! ; Y i - ; - - t ' ' Ui I i - . , f si J- i t " tW i r ' ' I I - f " '' ' x tiki . V c ; proton,, I v- - ' - ' v 1 it . v ' -" ' ' ' - L Rolfe Sandberg (bottom lett) lea me Doys, 14-15 years old, and Shannon Nobis (above was tops in Girls JV. Tori Pillinger (below) beat Olympian Kathy Kreiner in their first run. photo by David Hampshire t - I ; mmm ; 4v " H ' ' "is Iflillff: Palm Springs One of my favorite all-time stories concerns the time Spencer Tracy was the king of the MGM movie lot and he was introduced to the young James Whitmore who was being billed as "the new Spencer Tracy." The old Spencer Tracy sized him up and then allowed, "They tell me you're the 'new' Spencer Tracy.Well, let me give you a .piece of advice: When they come to you with the idea of doing 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," don't." Doug De Cinces could have used that same advice. Doug was the young infielder in the Baltimore Orioles organization who was being groomed as "the new Brooks Robinson." The old Brooks Robinson should have come to him and said, "They tell me you're the 'new' Brooks Robinson. Well, let me give you a piece of advice: When they come to you to play in Baltimore, don't." The public never forgives an icon-blaster. The public never forgives the guy who whips Dempsey, shoots Billy the Kid, takes Babe Ruth's place in the lineup, comes after Knute Rockne at Notre Dame. Even the guy who shot down the Red Baron got snubbed by history. Name him, can you? Recall the guy who took Ruth's place in right field for the Yankees? The heavyweight champions were John L. Sullivan, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Ali, weren't they? Name all the others, can you? Brooks Robinson was almost the only big league ballplayer Baltimore had for the first 10 years of its existence. And he was larger than life. He hit 20 or more home runs a year, he drove in runs with almost every hit he got, but, most of all, he almost made the ground single and the double-down-the-line obsolete. Oldtimers swear he leaped in the air to stab line drives six feet over his head that would have been home runs had they got by him. He smiled a lot, signed autographs, and he had the outlook on life of a Little Leaguer to the day he retired. He never heard a boo in his life, he was never injured, and only about a half-dozen major leaguers played more games than he did. A lot of people suddenly felt 20 years older the day Brooks Robinson retired. Doug De Cinces walked into this haunted house like Snow White into the witch's castle. Squeamish observers couldn't bear to look. Doug was a nice enough kid. He was good to his mother, he got to church on time, stood at attention for the Flag and he signed autographs. You would have thought he sold defense secrets the way Baltimore treated him. De Cinces' scalp still prickles at the recollection. "You could feel the hostility," he recalled the other day, still shuddering. Guys he didn't even know were glaring at him. "You ever walk into a room and everybody stops talking?" he asked. Well, here, a whole city stopped talking. At first, it was the little things. A bullet off a bat, a 130-mile-an-hour line drive went screaming by him, visible only to the camera eye. "Brooks woulda had it!" screams the fan in the upper deck. "Brooks woulda got two ! ' ' corrects the fan behind the dugout . It got to where when the delegation approached Doug De Cinces, he would check to see which one had the rope. Pie Trayner couldn't have succeeded in that situation. "It was a no-win situation," De Cinces recalled as he sat in the dugout at the Angels' camp here the other day. "If they just introduced my name in a lineup, they'd boo." It wasn't as if De Cinces were a butcher. He had as much range as Brooks Robinson, and as much power. He just didn't have the smile. Nor did he have that eerie sixth sense Robinson seemed to have for where the ball was coming from next. Of course, neither did anyone else in the game. Sparky Anderson, from whom Brooks Robinson stole the 1970 World Series, turning about a dozen doubles into double-plays, once swore an angel whispered in Brooks Robinson's ear before every pitch: "Get ready move two feet to the left, and jump. "There were people who couldn't recognize Brooks Robinson unless he was horizontal. It all came to a head one day when 53,000 people crowded into the Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Oh, not for the pennant race, although this was close. It was "Brooks Robinson Day." They gave their favorite son a car, a boat, and waves of love. But the manager gave the glove to his successor, "They'll kill me!" Doug De Cinces protested. "Listen!" Manager Earl Weaver told him. "We're in a pennant race, not a historical pageant!" The record shows De Cinces hit a home run that day to help beat Boston and push them out of the pennant race. "I felt like 10,000 pounds of pressure were taken off me," he recalls. But Doug De Cinces is delirious over being traded to the Angels. It's not that it's his home area. It's something that happened in 1979 when the Angels and Baltimore were in the pennant playoff. Baltimore led two games to one, and were leading 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 4. The trouble was, the Angels had the bases loaded, one out. And if the Angels rallied and won that game, Game 5 would be played in the twilight the next day with Nolan Ryan pitching for the home team. The batter hit a smash down to third. De Cinces fell to his knees, lunged to his right, got the ball, tagged third with his foot and then threw off-balance to first for the double-play. That play won the pennant for Baltimore. Doug De Cinces felt elation for all of two minutes after the game. As he was peeling his shirt off, some well-wisher came up to him, face shining, to clap him enthusiastically enthusiasti-cally on the back. "Brooks Robinson couldn't of done it any better!" he shouted in his ear. That's when Doug De Cinces knew he had to crawl out from under that load, knew he had to get someplace like the Angels, where, if someone came up and said, "Hey, that reminds me of Brooks!" another fan would lean over his popcorn to him in puzzlement and then say, "Brooks Who?" (c) 1982, Los Angeles Times RACQUET CLUB FOR SALE Racquet Club Village Unit no. 54 This beautiful well maintained corner unit with spectacular views to the ski mountain is available for immediate occupancy. Two bedrooms with loft and two baths, freshly painted throughout. Woodburning fireplace with special owner touches. Must see. Priced at a reasonable $145,000.00 Call 649-9134 or Jerry Perrine at 649-8429, Sales Agent. REAL ESTATE |