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Show SPORTS DEAN Dean Chance: chance isn't a guy on sentiment. When the Los Angeles Angels' star pitcher was awarded the game ball after a brilliant shutout of Minnesota last season, he promptly made plans to auction the lot trophy at a used-ca- r "Damn Yankees," hitting the banquet circuit at up to $750 an appearance, filming tv commercials at $2,000 apiece plus residuals, and planning his own tv . show "five minutes of something for the kids." It was better than tending a filling station as Dean had done after less successful seasons. One thing Dean has never done is look for "the easy buck." He works nara at everyimng ne unaeriaKes, just as he did as a boy on his parents' farm. He goes all out in everything he does, from press interviews to tv commercials ("Did I do it right? Want me to try again?"). On field he begs to pitch every fourth day and, in between, asks to work out in the bull pen "just in case you need me in relief." The "Bo and me" phase of Dean's 4 me may ue over now mat nl; seiinsxy is under the discipline of Gene Mauch in Philadelphia. Angel manager Bill Rigney hopes so because he is the man who started it all. . Three years ago Rigney suggested that Belinsky spend more time with his teammates and less with Hollywood characters, so Bo picked Dean, then 20 and just off the farm. Instead of reforming the lefty Lothario, Chance ended up (1) caddying Bo's collapsible pool cue; (2) getting fined $250 for being present when Bo and a girl friend had a street brawl at 5 a.m.: (3) getting fined again for showing up at the ball park 2 hours late. Baseball Hottest - Right-Hand- er "It won't get me anything sitting on a mantel," he explained. This is the farm boy At 23, he has learned a lot the hard way since coming off an Ohio farm; now he's teaching the city slickers the whom associates describe as "dedi- cated to growing lettuce the kind you fold in a wallet. Yet Dean has mer roommate, Bo Belinsky, discovered. When Bo, the New Jersey pool expert who graduated to playboy of the Sunset Strip, was suspended for socking a baseball writer, he found himself with only one staunch defender Dean Chance. "Bo is the best friend I ever had," Dean said, challenging Angel man- agement and the American League. "Why, nobody except my mother has done more for me than Bo." What has Bo done for Dean? He has taught him to play gin rummy and pool (in Wooster, Ohio, Dean's mother says, "I don't really approve folks around here never did that") and involved him in some high j inks costing sev- J. 11. in Hijnes. Ti..L nuiiureu uuiiars out eri no matter Bo is still "the most" in Dean's book. curves and fast balls of high finance I By JACK RYAN -- after-curfe1 1 1 .' 1 d you were to sum up the with droopy bedroom eyes and equally droopy gait, you would need only his favorite expressions to do it: "You bet"I gotta get it ter believe it" now" . . . and "Bo and me." The first "You better believe it" Dean applies to almost all statements he makes, particularly that d he is baseball's best pitcher. And, in fact, you had "better believe it" because it's all in the 1964 records: 20 wins, 9 losses, 11 shutouts, only seven home runs given up in 278 innings, and an earned-ru- n average of 1.65. With that rec- . Last year, though, soaking wavy-haire- IF six-foot- er Al A. player to win the Cy Young Award as baseball's best pitcher. But Dean is accustomed to being the best His mother, for instance ticks off his achievements thus: n at age 11, best rode his pony salesman ("he all over, canvassing the countrytrophy for the beef he side") ; 12 on the family's at raised g champion of farm; the sixth grade; and leader of both baseball and the state basketball teams. Dean had a 51-- 1 magazine-subscriptio- 4-- H 340-ac- re Ping-Pon- high-scho- ol that man! I'll never talk to him record with 18 but he says his greatest sports thrill was winning the state basketball championship. The second of Dean's favorite high-scho- ol phrases "I gotta get it now" reflects his awareness that an athlete's life, particularly a pitcher's, is a short one, and that Dean is to get rich after he retires With his wife Judy and old son Brett to their farm near Wooster. "We raise wheat, hay, corn, and oats but no money. I gotta get that now." This philosophy has raised hob with Los Angeles archangel Fred Haney. The general manager found ' himself with baseball's first "holdout" last summer when Chance decided his $18,000 salary was "a joke." Haney balked' at a raise, and Chance roared: "I1 hate not-like- 83-ac- re mid-seas- 7 Family Weekly, April 11, 1965 Dean was in the tub Belinsky poked a baseball writer in their room, and the worst that happened came later in the season when his sleep was disturbed by a telephone call at 6 a.m.. "Dean, I was just going to bed," the caller said, "but I had to tell you what a great game you pitched." Chance seemed surprised when somebody asked him who his early .was. "Why, morning he else goes to "Who Bo,", replied. bed at 6 in the morning?" Dean looks forward to the 1965 season with characteristic confi- when ... right-hande- 1 1 on 1., again!" It cost Haney $7,000 to regain speaking privileges. This winter Dean was back waging his gold war. His reaction to winning the coveted Cy Young Award was: "That should make my I'll stick presence worth more - it to Haney for $50,000 this tinw.'-J-H- well-wish- , ... ly . u e settled for $42,000. Dean's dedication to'getting- - It now" leads him into some strange schemes. At one time he considered charging $400 for a off-seas- press interview, explaining, "There's this little charity back in Ohio . . ." Then he and buddy Bo planned a billiards tour of Japan, which fell through when they found they could make only $300 a day, hardly expenses for such bona vivanta. Dean settled for a "character" part in a stage presentation of er ' A an a an ttrall o a nnmatliinnr nam a sense of financial security he has never naa oeiore. u may mane mm even a greater pitcher and cure him of two habits that sometimes set the Angels' bench on edge alter- nately biting his fingernails and loudly cracking his knuckles. One thing is unchanged, though. He still gets in the last word with Angel management. Recently club owner Gene Autry bragged that "this year or in the near future, Chance will win 25 games." "Thirty,", corrected Dean. |