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Show The Newspaper Thursday, February 4, 1982 Page B7 by Jim Murray Mnninraiy nim ppnit The most refreshing sports figure of the year Newspaper MOTS Nordic skiing White Pine's handicap relay passes test by Frank Erickson Bob Woody, Carol Louder and Ted Sundquist topped three other teams to win the season's first citizens crosscountry cross-country relay race held at the Park City golf course, Jan. 31. Sponsored by the White Pine Touring Center and Trak Ski Company, the event was a shakedown of a handicap scoring system that attempted to equalize speed and age through a formula that White Pine's Steve Erickson stayed up all one night to figure out. "There are two categories in this kind of race, young and old," Erickson explained. explain-ed. "Each team is made up of three people representing both sexs. If the average team age is 21 or under, they are in the young category and we figure the handicap by taking total team time and multiplying it by average aver-age team age, with the lowest score being the winner. win-ner. When the average age of team members is over 21, we divide total team time by average age, and in this category the lowest score determines the winner." Woody, Louder and Sundquist Sund-quist were exuberant upon winning, congratulating each other with slaps on the g .... ShMl' 1? The winners toast their victory over insurmountable odds. From left: Bob Woody, Carol Louder and Ted Sundquist. back and toasts. In a statement to the press, Bob Woody promised that the team would not endorse any products or accept subsidies from any companies. "We would rather make it on our own," he said. The winning handicap score was 1.968. The team of Jim French, Carol Morgan and Ken Louder finished second with a 2.042 score. Third were Larry Coulter, Cassie Ba-dowski Ba-dowski and Robert Mitchell with a 2.378, followed by the team of Jim Miller, Mark Wariakois and Kay Bowles at 2.888. Jim Miller circled the five km golf course track in 19 minutes, 44 seconds for the fastest, unhandicapped, individual in-dividual time of the day. Ken Louder was second at 20:02, followed by Jim French at 21:18. The next relay race will be Feb. 13 at the golf course. Registration is at 9 a.m., with the race starting at 10 a.m. sharp. Record now 5-8 Miners maul Manila Mustangs by Jwin Sundquisf For the Miners, beating the Manila Mustangs will be the last easy touch for the season. Repeating an earlier season performance, the Miners convincingly out-scored out-scored the Mustangs by 13 at the half, and finally walked off the court ahead by 20 points, 66-46. The Miners, 5-8 overall, now take their league record of 2-4 to Coalville and go up against the powerful North Summit Braves this Friday night, Feb. 5. Paving the way for Park City in scoring were Roger Burns with 18, Steve Toly with 14, and Bill Simmons with 12 points. Even though the whole team played in the game, the scoring was fairly concentrated. "This was the last easy game we play," said Miner Coach Bruce Reid. "So I wanted to get everyone in the game.. We beat Manila earlier in the season by 30 points." Park City led at the end of the first quarter 29-11, after trailing in the opening moments mo-ments by two, 6-4. But in the second quarter, the Miners Troy urr on the court. fell off the scoring wagon, leading at the half by only 14 points, 36-23. "It is a frustrating type of game to play," said Reid. "If we play at our level, we score a zillion points, and if we play at theirs the score is closer. We played at theirs, so we tended to make some mistakes which were unnecessary." un-necessary." In the third quarter, Reid began to substitute more often. But it did not stop the big rebounding edge Park City was building up. At the end of the game the Miners had 50 rebounds to Manila's 29. The shot selection by the Mustangs certainly contributed con-tributed to the onesided rebounding. The Mustangs throughout the entire second half took 15- to 25-foot shots which frequently were off the mark. The third quarter ended 54-32 for Park City, and all the starters were out of the game. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Reid had John Ott, Doug Vincent, Bob Blackbourn, Chris Sloan and 'We had spurts where we played well," said Reid. "I thought the team was beginning begin-ning to learn how to pass unselfishly, not just worry about their own situation. A real problem for us this year has been playing like a team. They are starting to develop the concept of a team sport." Park City made 29 of 76 basket attempts, and Reid contends this was due to smarter passing in the offensive zone, finding the open man. "Trent Leavitt had a good game, only the stats don't show it," said Reid. "He played well at the point. He was making the right pass to the right man, down the sidelines instead of across the court." The game ended with 25 turnovers for the Miners and 26 for the Mustangs. After the Miners play the Friday game at North Summit, Sum-mit, they are due to face South Rich, North Rich, and South Summit, leading up to the state tournament in St. George starting March 10. jL f ' A if x Writing for the recent issue of Aports Illustrated, my old pal John Underwood composes a fantasy in which he pretends he cannot remember the name of the present owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and he has to call the sports department at the local newspaper to find out. The sports department depart-ment has to riffle around among the clips before it can even find out. The point is made. Peter O'Malley, the owner in question, is not George Steinbren-ner, Steinbren-ner, Ted Turner, Charlie Finley, Ray Kroc, Gussie Busch, Edward Bennett Williams, Brad Corbett, or even Ruly Carpenter or John J. McMullen. He's not even Gene Autry . For sure, he's not Jack Kent Cooke or even Lamar Hunt, Al Davis, Clint Murchison or Ewing Kauffman. He's the most invisible owner in sports. There isn't even a sketch of him in the team brochure. He's never been seen in a locker room or dugout during the season. He doesn't even fly with the team to the World Series. He goes commercial. He's never been known to raise his voice. He's never been seen not wearing a tie. He has been accused of having the soul of an accountant and the wardrobe to match but nobody can prove it. Few people outside of the Dodger organization would recognize him. His picture never gets in the papers. He's as serious as a surgeon, and his conviviality is as controlled as the rest of his life, but he has the curious compassion that dominated his father and the rest of the Dodger family. No one ever gets fired by the Dodgers. "Organization man" would be a perfect description for Peter O'Malley except he is the organization. He is over six feet tall, never looks rumpled, and has a haircut right out of the Gay '90s. If Walter O'Malley could have had a knob in the back of his only son and set it precisely wherre he wanted, he couldn't have improved on the model. His shoes are always shined, his socks match his tie, and I don't think he even smokes. Parents whose shaggy kids arrive home on motorcycles with girls on the back with flies buzzing around their hairdos look at Peter O'Malley and shake their heads. He's as programmed as a space flight. If all this makes Peter O'Malley sound colorless or robot-like baseball's Tin Man-he's Man-he's not. First of all, the Dodgers are not his plaything. They're his life. The old story ("What's the first thing you did when you became president of the Dodgers?" "I said, 'Thanks, Dad'") applies to Peter O'Malley. But, where a lot of the Big Rich, whose inherited wealth bought them sports teams, treat those teams like a set of electric trains, Peter O'Malley works long, hard hours. Christmas Eve found him in his office well past 8, o'clock in the evening. New Year's Day caught him looking not at the Rose Bowl but at 20-page documents from pitchers' lawyers. His friends are not stuffy businessmen, they're judges, lawyers, some politicians, golfers and tennis players. He makes no attempt to cultivate the Hollywood crowd and is not often seen dining in the movie colony hangouts. He seems to prefer the Pasadena Country Club set to the flashier show business crowd. His relations with the press are cordial, correct, and he's readily available, but no one has ever heard him publicly object to a story or greet an unfriendly chronicler frostily. He's Irish, so you know he's emotional. But it never colors his reasoning. His athletes describe him as "Fair" which is the highest accolade a ballplayer can confer on front office personnel. He's not cold or aloof though he gives that impression. "When a situation comes up," his vice president and general manager, Al Campanis, says, "The first thing Peter says is, 'Well, let's sit down and figure what's right and then do it.'" People accuse him of looking at the team as just so many assets, just figures on the black side of the ledger, but Peter O'Malley has turned down extravagant offers for the Dodgers from big conglomerates. At a time when other owners dance on dugouts, fire the manager on TV, publicly apologize to the city for their team's performance, suspend infielders, fight with outfielders, or demand that communities construct a new ballpark for them, Peter O'Malley just sells tickets and pays taxes. The Dodgers wouldn't even let the Rams play at Dodger Stadium for fear of offending the municipally-supported Los Angeles Coliseum. There are ballparks in the league five years younger than Dodger Stadium that look 20 years older. When players cause waves, Peter O'Malley doesn't get in a name-calling contest with them in print, he just deals them off to Chicago. His Dodgers won four pennants, but he confesses that finally beating the Yankees "gives us credibility." "I have always felt," he adds, "that the joy of winning far outweighs the disappointments of losing. And it proved to be so." He is what an owner should be. He is what owners used to be: custodians of a public trust, not ego-trippers, megalomaniacs, public pop-off artists. The cover of the magazine Underwood was, writing in depicted the pugilist, Sugar Ray Leonard, as Sportsman of the Year. Underwood doesn't totally agree. Neither do I. Writes Underwood of O'Malley: "What I mean is, I love the way this guy owned the Dodgers in 1981. He did a terrific job of owning a ballclub. For me, he was the single-most refreshing sports figure of the year." I'll drink to that. (c) 1982, Los Angeles Times Park City Conoco Complete Winter Service Batteries, Snow Tires Jump Starts, Service calls. 649-9331 North Park Avenue John Ott drops in two points against Manila. photo by John Sundquist Roger Burns (31) gets an elbow to the chops during battle for the ball. photo by John Sundquist BETTER BOTTOMS SKI TUNING 8 yrs. experience Full Tune $15.00 Hot Wax only $5.00 Top of Main, 1 76 Main Street. Call Mike 649-4232. PRESTIGE HOMES REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT PRICE GROUP Park Meadows Plaza Box 701, Park City, Utah H40W) hWW, |