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Show The Newspaper Thursday , October 14, 1982 Page B5 5u by Jim Murray MuWiraiy (Dim pgprit TNH Newspaper X' When baseball was as white as an Alabama restroom Park City 10, Wasatch 6 Underdog role suits Miners On paper, it looked like trouble for Park City. The Miners were hurting. The three members of the first-string backfield were out with injuries. Their replacements were, well, unproven commodities. On the other hand, the visiting Wasatch Wasps were on a roll. They had recorded six straight wins, including one over South Summit, the team which had beaten the Miners 28-13 only two weeks before. So much for paper. The Park City Miners, who seem to relish the role of the underdog, scored 10 points in the second half then held on for a 10-6 win over Wasatch Oct. 6 in Park City. A key to the victory was the Miner defense, which stopped two Wasatch drives inside the Park City 15 yard line in the first half and held the Wasps scoreless until the last 1:04 of the game. On offense, a 33-yard field goal by Craig Griffin and a 27-yard touchdown pass from Doug Vincent to John Howard provided the margin of victory. Reserve fullback Tim Tebbs picked up 122 yards on 19 carries to spark the Park City ground game. But it didn't start out that way. The Wasps put together an impressive drive early in the first quarter, taking the opening kickoff at their own 20 and moving deep into Park City territory. They reached the Park City 12 before losing momentum and turning the ball over on downs. The Miners responded late in the first quarter with a drive of their own. The running run-ning of Tebbs and Vincent gave the Miners a scoring opportunity until the Wasps intercepted a fourth-down pass on their own 20. The Miners then kept the Wasps bottled up in their own zone, until a 78-yard punt (that's right, 78 yards) pushed Park City back to its own 10. "It completely changed the momentum because it moved us from the offensive to the defensive," Miner Coach Bob Burns observed later. The Miners, unable to move the ball out of their own zone, were forced to kick and a short punt gave Wasatch excellent field position at the Park City 30. This time the Wasps drove down to the Park city seven yard line before a penalty pushed them back out of field goal range. The first half ended in a scoreless tie. The Miners finally lit up the scoreboard midway through the third quarter. Taking the second-half kickoff at their own 30, they put together a 12-play drive which ended with Griffin's 33-yard field goal. Helping to keep the drive going was a controversial 15-yard penalty against Wasatch for unsportsmanlike conduct. Park City's other scoring play came early in the fourth quarter on Vincent s only completed pass (in five attempts) at-tempts) of the day. The 27 yard touchdown play capped a 60-yard Park City drive which survived two penalties called against the Miners. The Wasps finally broke their scoring drought in the waning moments of the game after another short Park City punt gave them good field position at mid-field. mid-field. It took them only five plays to score against a "prevent" Park City defense. de-fense. However, the Wasps missea the conversion ana time ran out before they could regain possession. In total yards, the Miners had the edge with 187 yards to 171 for Wasatch. The Miners will return to league action at 4 p.m. Friday with a home game against the North Summit Braves. The Braves are 1-1 in league play, with a 28-6 win over South Rich and a 28-18 28-18 loss toDugway. "They've got four or five real big kids," Burns said. "The other kids are smaller but quick ... and they're aggressive." Among those to watch is senior Mike Calderwood, who stands 6'3" and weighs 206 pounds. Calderwood can play several different positions, including offensive offen-sive tackle, fullback, defensive defen-sive end and linebacker. Quarterback of the North Summit team is senior Ryan Richins who, in Burns' words, "can throw the ball along way." Still on the injury list for Park City are quarterback Tom Flinders, halfback Jamie Puckett and fullback Greg Foote. Burns said he would wait until later in the week before deciding whether wheth-er any or all of them would be ready to play Friday. Hiiti jmmmmmmiimmiimiiu turn riiiaiMiMMiiiaifciaMaittMtfiii mini lVfVP Reed, most valuable player in the Wasatch game, with trophy 1V1 ? i presented by KPCW underwriter Bob Wells of Quadriga Develop ment. Park City Ski Team benefit set by Bonnie B. Park "Their eyes are on the Olympics." That's how freelance free-lance writer Raye Ringholz once described the dedicated youngsters who train and compete together as the Park City Ski Team. It's a rigorous and demanding de-manding development program. pro-gram. Physical conditioning, technical training, hard, fast skiing through every prevailing prevail-ing weather condition, early mornings, and long hours on the road to victory, or defeat, and back again it's all part of the commitment required of those enrolled in the Junior Race Program. The Park City Ski Team has a wealth of talent found in the ranks. Tori Pillinger, Jason Lawson, Rolfe Sand-berg, Sand-berg, Nicki Koch, and Andrea An-drea Peterson all qualified for the J-ll Junior Olympics (15 and 15 year olds) last season. In fact, Tori Pill-inger's Pill-inger's performance lead her to victory as overall combined champion in the J-IIs, ranking her in the top 2 or 3 percent nationwide for her age group. In the J-I division ( 16 and 18 year olds) Robert Ayers and Mateus Alvarez qualified for the Junior Olympics, as did Scott Black, Jere Calmes, and Greg Tesoro in the J-IIIs (12 and 13 year olds). Needless to say, Park City's representatives are very strong, and the outlook for the upcoming season, promising. pro-mising. While the kids work hard physically, mentally, and emotionally, to excel, many of their parents work harder in an attempt to cover the costs financially. Expenses affiliated with ski racing from top of the line equipment, equip-ment, to team tuition and travel expenses tally up rapidly until it becomes a substantial price to pay. Fortunately, the Ski Team offers an assistance program pro-gram for talented kids with limited funds. An occasional fundraiser gives the team a much-needed financial boost. In addition, manufacturers' manu-facturers' reps and Park City retail sport shops help out with equipment and clothing needs. On Oct. 29, 6:30 p.m., at Snow Park Lodge, Jans Mountain Outfitter will sponsor an evening to benefit the Park City Ski Team. According to Coach Bob Marsh, For this reason, Jan's Winter Welcome has been designed to bring the skiing community together. It will allow participants to talk first-hand with several major ski industry reps. They'll have the chance to preview new gear for the upcoming season, and take time to compare merchandise merchan-dise and seek advice before, perhaps, making a bid at the Winter Welcome Auction. As a special highlight, MARKER, USA, will bring in the guest of honor World Cup Champion, Phil Mahre. Tickets are on sale now at Jans Mountain Outfitter, 6494949. US... CALL AT 649 WE'RE HOT! WORD PROCESSING: Disk storage & Printout TYPING: Legal Letters Forms Financial Resumes TRANSCRIPTION: Lanier 24 hour phone-in dictation Stenographic Micro-cassette XEROX COPYING: Individual or volume ACCOUNTING BOOKKEEPING: Recordkeeping Billings Reconciliations Payroll Quarterly Reports P & L MAIL HANDLING: Volume stuffing Postal Pick-up and forwarding SECRETARIAL SERVICES When you talk about the giants of civil rights in this country, you begin with Lincoln and Jefferson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dred Scott and John Brown's body and F.D.R. and the Warren Court and, of course, Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller. Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller? Not the Bob Feller who got in those shouting matches with Jackie Robinson, who said of Robinson he was "too tied up in the shoulders to hit an inside pitch to save his neck," and who added, "If Robinson were white, I doubt if they would consider him Big League material?" Not THAT Feller? Yes, even that h eller. You have to understand what the climate was in this country in 1936 when Bob Feller first became "Rapid Robert" Feller, the plowboy who began striking out major league hitters in groups of 18 per game. Baseball, in those days, was as Jim Crow as an Alabama restroom. It had to preserve the fiction that lily-white baseball was the finest in the land. In baseball, you didn't even get the back of the bus. You walked. It forced black players to congregate in something called the "Negro" leagues or to barnstorm with bearded freaks like the House of David. Black ballplayers, it conceded, were "flashy." But they said it as if to imply so were ladies of the evening. That it was the red light district of the sport. Bob Feller changed all that. He didn't set out to do it. Bob Feller set out to make a buck. As usual. He had a high instinct for that. You see, before Feller, baseball had not been integrated anywhere much. In the early '30s, a troop of white major leaguers took on black "minor" leaguers in an exhibition game or two. But, the powers that be frowned on that. They particularly feared a comparison between their "big leaguers" and a "bush" leaguer like Satchel Paige or Josh Gibson. Dizzy Dean got bored with that. Diz was making, probably, $3,500 for winning 30 games a year for the Cardinals. Dizzy didn't care what color the other pitcher was so long as they filled a barnstorm ballpark. Bob Feller felt the same way. Secure in their own talent and confidence, Dean and Feller willingly stacked their reputations against Paige, Gibson and others. Feller and Paige campaigned through corn-fed America matching inshoots against each other and local talent for pass-the-hat money for years. Satchell usually out-pitched Rapid Robert, who was on his way to the Hall of Fame at the time. Feller didn't mind. Bob Feller pitched three no-hitters and 12 one-hitters in the major leagues, but some of his greatest pitching duels were in the winter in Sun Belt minor league towns against a superannuated, gangly black who had to wear four pairs of socks so his legs would be visible at all and had to grip a baseball with spidery fingers and skinny wrists no bigger than a rubber band. Feller didn't feel threatened. Baseball did. They tried to stop him. Satchel Paige was to write: "I told some baseball writers in Pittsburgh, 'You write that I'll take a team from the Negro Leagues and we'll play the all-stars from the major leagues, and we'll play them right across the country anywhere, any time. You write we'll beat 'em so bad, they won't play us ever again anymore." After the war, Bob Feller chartered two planes and took Satchel Paige at his word and flew Satch and the Negro Leagues' best and a big league team of its best and went off on "the best organized, most successful barnstorming tour ever held," as Feller was to tell me at an Oldtimers' game in Dodger Stadium recently. "I had to pay writers in some towns under the table to write up the contest and make it controversial," Feller confessed. "We couldn't raise the inflammable inflam-mable race, black-white issue in the advertising, advertis-ing, but they sure could bring it out in their columns. And we tilled every ballpark we went into with that. I had Stan Musial, Bob Lemon, Rollie Helmsley, Micky Vernon and others. Stan Musial made more money with me than he had gotten for his cut for winning the World Series that year. I paid up to $6,000 a game to some players. Satch was rolling in dough." Better than the money for Satch was the media reaction. In town after town, the local press boxers would blast major league baseball for not having a pitcher the caliber of Satchel Paige in it. Since the games were mostly on the West Coast, however, it took a while for that to leak back Easi. You see, sports dogma was supposed to come the other way. Feller didn't do it out of any hot-eyed zeal for reform. But, didn't Lincoln himself say, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others, I would do that, too." Did Branch Rickey sign black ballplayers because he came from a long line of abolitionists or because it was the last remaining pool of untapped talent in the hemisphere? Bob Feller had no rose-strewn path to glory himself in baseball. He was in the service for four full seasons in his prime; yet, he managed to win 2G2 games. He never got in a WTorld Series until he was in his dotage; yet, he pitched a two-hitter and lost it to an umpire's wrong call. He never made more than $80,000 in one season, even with his three no-hitters and dozen one-hitters. Some .500 pitchers make that in a week now. When Feller signed as a highschooler, the Cleveland Indians hid him by assigning him to a minor league contract (Fargo, N.D.). These shenanigans later caught the eye of Commissioner Kenesaw Landis who would rule Feller a free agent. The Red Sox's Tom Yawkey, Feller told me, offered $250,000 to him, an unheard-of sum in those depression days. "But, Cleveland had paid all the medical bills for my father who had had an operation for cancer then, and I would not sign with any other team," Feller said. Oddly enough, Feller's prickly relationship with Jackie Robinson sprang from differences dif-ferences which began when Jackie was taken along on one of Feller's touring troupes, picking up not only pocket money, but probably more than he made regularly. Feller is an unlikely candidate for a role in history as an emancipator. No one is going to suggest him for inclusion on Mt. Rushmore. But, Bob Feller's contribution to the game, no matter whether it's due to his own ego or greed, is a lot more considerable than 262 victories, 46 shutouts, 2,581 strikeouts, or his record of 36 complete games out of 42 started in one year. When Feller set the major league strikeout record in 1946, he still told the world Satchel Paige was a far greater pitcher than he was and then he let Satchel prove it he did as much to break down hypocritical barriers as anyone. (c) 1982, Los Angeles Times r V-'' ; . " rP v:,-ePvO .,o .- 9 . ; . -e- v ' -co;,-:- r " |