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Show The Daily Herald Saturday, April 15, 1S95 Brits make U;S. sports look good By RICH HOFMANN Philadelphia Daily News PHILADELPHIA There will always be an England, thank heavens. Because every time I really start to feel bad about the state of sports in this country , the . ! Brits always do something to make me feel all better. ' We have strikes. They have riots. - We have lockouts. ' ; They have murder. We wring our hands about how ; baseball has lost an entire of kids, about how free 4 generation agency is about to rob football . By JACK SAYLCR Detroit Free Press PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. Gangway, the stars came out Friday in the second round to take charge of the PGA Seniors' Championship. mood now (after a letdown) and I'm in contention. "I haven't shot myself in the foot. I just hope to give myself a chance in the last few holes on the gey) and vaulted from a tie for 79th to a tie for seventh, 73 players. State quarterback had plenty of company, however, d as Calvin Peete, DeWitt Weaver and Harry Toscano fell back. Aoki tacked a 69 to his opening 70 to trail Colbert by a shot, while d 70 Floyd matched his and is two back at 140. weekend." day," he said. post-Maste- rs leap-froggi- "I've got where s, first-roun- le 138. first-roun- tri-lead- first-roun- "I feel I left some scoring on the golf course," said Floyd, who made five birdies, "but I'm in the Weaver's I now half-a-chan- ce certainly didn't yester- kept him within range at 141, with J.C. Snead and Larry Gilbert, ;tyho each shot 70. But Peete and Toscano tumbled from their opening 68s to 76, six shots off the pace. 73, er The big surge was by Nicklaus, who shot a bizarre 66 (which included a bogey and a double-b- o Rodman's 15 rebounds aids Spurs ! -- Analysis -; tWHMHBaBMWMIMBHMHaHM teams of their traditional identities, j They, on the other hand, on the other side of the Atlantic, have fans l who kill each other. ! On a trip to England a few years ago, perhaps the most ; unforgettable sight was in Stadium j Hillsborough i Birmingham. Ninety-fiv- e people had died there in 1989, when a combination of forces hooliganism and an ancient fence stadium and a crowd-contrand police incompetence in crowd control resulted in a terrible stampede in which many people literally had their last breath forced ' out of their chests by the crush of the crowd. It was horrible. A year later, ; residents in the area were still stunned in talking about it. Dead ' bouquets of flowers still were intertwined in the stadium gate, grim testimony to the horror that had occurred. But that was the event that was going to change things. And for a time, they were right. They actually thought they had thjs hooligan thing licked, or at least controlled. From those horrible days at the end of the '80s, English football authorities thought they'd figured it out.-The! remodeled a lot of the nightmares they called stadiums, eliminating ' the areas that standing-rooseemed to be the source of many of the problems and insisting on more and more stadiums. They raised ticket prices, too, as a way of pricing some of the thugs out of the market. And then there are the police. And the horses. And the dogs. And the cameras, especially the :cameras, which are trained not on the field but the stands, which provide a creepy kind of surveillance on the creeps. And it all was working, or so it seemed. Some went so far as to pronounce the death of hooliganism. And then came 1995. ,In early February, England played a game against Ireland at a stadium in Dublin. There were 46,000 people in the stands, about 4,500 of them from England. After an Ireland goal, the British fans started tearing up the wooden bleacher benches and tossing down the debris on the Irish fans sitting below. As you might imagine , all hell rapidly broke loose. The game ended up being canceled after only 28 minutes of play. Forty people were injured. England was so before Cougars notch ; ; i ; ol ; ; ' m all-se- at . embarrassed Prime Minister John Major found himself forced to apologize to the Irish. And England team manager Terry Venables said, "It's so bad, so sad. It's impossible to describe. It's just disgraceful." Later in February , an English team from Chelsea traveled to Bruges, Belgium, for a quarterfinal game of the European Cup Winners Cup. Police there ended up having to deport 400 of the British fans and detain 350 others. One Brit stabbed a Belgian outside the stadium. Water cannons and billy clubs were used to disperse other fans outside of bars. In March, in Birmingham, a local team was returning home from a defeat or something on a bus. Fifty fans met the bus armed with bricks. Injuries were said to be minor. About a week ago, the boys from Chelsea made another road trip, this time to Zaragoza, Spain. the There, after falling behind Chelsea boys ripped up seats and threw them, along with some sticks, at the police. The cops managed to herd the Chelsea fans into one corner of the stadium and . 3-- 0, . (See HOFMANN, Page B7) By DOROTHY KNOELL The Daily Herald pjf, mm' v,"m' 'W " ,m"m wi&& There's never a dull moment at baseball game. h Even when the Utes come into the game 4 (0-- 9 in the Western Athletic Conference) and the (8-- 1 in Cougars come in theWAC). Friday at the BYU baseball diamond, there were six home runs, one coach tossed out, a four-ru- n rally to trim a nine-ru- n lead to five, k g doubles from Utah County athletes wearing red, 10 strikeouts, a newlywed who wasn't even in the starting lineup blasting two homers, a guy who had been in the starting lineup but a BYU-Uta- win 14-1- 0 t v : u""; By The 1 er day." The Cougars and Utes square off today in a doubleheader at Cougar Field beginning at noon. The Utes got off to a quick start Friday, then fell way behind before rallying behind an angry coach to make a game of it. Utah scored two runs in the top of the first on two singles, a walk and a BYU error. The Cougars got one of those runs back in the second on Brad Winget's solo homer. They tied the game in the third when Leroy Brown, who got married Tuesday and was pencilled into the starting lineup at the last minute when Lance Moore was scratched due to tightness in his back, deposited the ball over the rightfield fence with one out and the bases empty. One out later, Eric McDowell singled and Ryan Roberts, who was supposed to be the designat- - Dennis Rodman, returning to the San Antonio Spurs after missing 14 games with a separated shoulder, grabbed 15 rebounds in 22 minutes as the Spurs beat the Sacramento Kings 98-8- 8 Friday night. David Robinson, who led the Spurs with 32 points and 16 rebounds, was glad to have his teammate back. "It was a good, gutsy effort for him to come out and do the job that he did," Robinson said. "Right at the end there, that was the Spurs I ninth-innin- changed positions at the last minute blasting two homers and one umpire hit by a batted ball. All this, and a late-sprisnowstorm that had to melt off the field before the game could start, too. and in the midst of the Oh craziness, the Cougars came up with a 14-1- 0 win to move to 9-- 1 in the WAC Eastern Division. "We'll take it (the win)," said BYU coach Gary Pullins. "We battled pretty well. With the way things went, it's easy to forget some of the things in the early innings that we did well to get the lead. "Utah's scored runs on most everyone they've played. They just haven't had the breaks go their way. It's our job to make sure that the breaks don't start going their way at least for anoth- Associated Press What shoulder injury? "" 22-16- -1 back-to-bac- blew more probably just warming up for the weekend . " The cagy veteran chipped in from 20 feet to saves par at the ninth, then chipped to three feet for birdie at the 10th. He also used his putter from varying distances off the green to preserve pars. Nicklaus is locked in a cadre of seven at two-und142, which also includes defending champion Lee "I used all my skills," said ColTrevino, who improved to 70, and Jackson product Mike Hill, who bert, studying the prominent names fired six birdies three of them on following him Aoki, Floyd, the last five holes to shoot 68. Snead, Nicklaus, Trevino, Hill. "This was a much more difficult Did any of them scare him? Colcourse and pars are as important as bert smiled and had a quick anthey've ever been in this tournament," Colbert said. "The wind swer. "They all do," he said. high-power- ed Jim Colbert, Isao Aoki and Raymond Floyd shot their way to the top, rapidly pursued by Jack Nick-lauwho had been left behind to wither after a d 76. Colbert shot a heady 69 on the Champions course at PGA National for the second straight day to lead with grab the 36-ho- "I missed a lot of greens, but I had the ball in the area," he said. "I made a lot of good chips and didn't make a bogey. ' ' The former Kansas know." Sacramento fought back from a 9 deficit in the third quarter and took an 80-7- 9 lead on a field with 8:04 Brown goal by Randy left. 0 But San Antonio went ahead on a field goal by Rodman with six minutes remaining and never trailed again. The Spurs, who had lost two straight after a 60-4- - jl ,' 81-8- 15-ga- winning streak, held the Kings scoreless for 514 minutes as San UJ I ' J fe -- -- Pr J! Antonio took a 93-8- 2 lead as Robinson andllodman dunked to send wild cheers through the Alamo-dom- e. I The victory improved the Spurs' the best in the record to 57-2- history fk 1 , , ft fFq 0, of the franchise. "All I can say is that I'm a big fan of their ball club. They've got a chance to a long way," Kings coach Garry St. Jean said. St. Jean praised the Spurs' rebounding, and joked, "I wish Dennis' shoulder was still hurting . ' ' After the game, Rodman displayed his usual candid demeanor when he smiled and used an expletive in a live television interview to explain his shoulder indeed was still hurting. But he said he wasn't going to let it stop him. "Pain drives me. It makes me get into my game that much more," Rodman said. "I was Daily Herald PhotoPatrick J. Krohn BYU's Leroy Brown (4) receives congratulations from teammate Ryan Roberts 8fter hitting a ed hitter until he moved to third to take over for Moore, took anoth- er Jason Struble pitch deep, this over the left field fence, for a 4-- 2 BYU lead. After the first inning, the Utes did nothing against BYU starter Scott Haws through seven in- - nings. They managed just five more hits, never more than one home run against Utah Friday. The Cougars won 14-1- 0 to improve to 1 in the WAC East race. 9-- per inning. Meanwhile, the Cou- gar defenders were killing any chances of rallies with good de- fense. Two double plays one in the third and one in the fifth that included a nice dig by first base- snuffed out man David Bayles threats in those innings, a twist- ing, diving catch in left field from Brown kept the Utes from scor- - ing in the sixth. And Haws fanned four in that stretch, Meanwhile, the Cougars built on their lead. Singles from D.G. Nelson and Carter Hagerman and a walk by Brown loaded the bases in the fourth, and one run scored when Jared Bills was hit by a (eeLUUljAR,PageB7) going to do what it took to play. "I just had to go out and do what I could. It was no big deal . ' ' Spurs coach Bob Hill said he was surprised Rodman was able to play as much and as well as he did. "Fifteen rebounds in 22 minutes was a pretty good night," Hill said. "He did a good job." Sean Elliott scored 17 points foi the Spurs and Avery Johnson added 16 and Vinny Del Negro 12. "We wanted to make a statement against a team that we might meet in the playoffs," Johnson said, "Dennis added that punch to (See SPURS, Page B7) By WENDY E. LANE AP Basketball Writer - On a SALT LAKE CITY the with afternoon, bright spring Wasatch mountains gleaming in the distance, Karl Ma-loneeds no convincing that these are the happiest of times. His team has the look of an NBA champion, and he has the look of an MVP. And with the Utah Jazz's practice over for the day, the power forward with the biceps is on his way to lunch with his wife at the usual place, the Judge Cafe downtown. , "The fun has come back in it for me," he said. "Last year, it had sort of faded away." In his 10th NBA season, Malone has found a number of reasons to love playing again, not the least of which is the best Jazz team he has ever had around him. With five snow-cover- ed ne eye-poppi- games remaining, Utah already has tied a franchise record with 55 wins. After a series of playoff disapMalone and the Jazz pointments, finally believe they can do what they've never been able to despite winning 50 games in five of the last six seasons: advance beyond the conference finals and play for a tide. e Malone member of the original Dream Team and future Hall of Famer with more than 21,000 career points thirsts for a ring, but a sumand a season mer of that's proved unexpectedly fulfilleight-tim- All-Sta- r, soul-searchi- ing has shown him he can be complete without one. "For the first time in my career," he said, "I can actually say no matter what happens in the playoffs and the rest of the season, this is the first time in my career that I look at every guy on this team and every guy wants to win for the next guy. "Sure, my ultimate goal to tap this year off would be a championship. But being around the guys that I've been around has given the satisfaction of playing again." So much so that for the first time when he averaged since 1988-89, 29.1 points and 10.7 rebounds, Malone is a legitimate candidate for the league's most valuable player award. He's fourth in the NBA in scoring (26.5), 10th in shooting percentage (54 percent) and 11th in rebounding (10.4), all while playing on a sprained right ankle that has bothered him since March. "Karl has played extremely well for us on both ends of the floor," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "He's scoring points and rebounding, as usual, but he's also been a better defender than ever before." Even though he and the Jazz have won consistently, Malone never has finished better than a distant third in MVP balloting. Part of the reason may be that Malone shares die spotlight with one of the best point guards ever to play the game. "Stockton and myself arc con- nected at the head for our careers, and that's not a bad guy to be connected with," Malone said. "If that's the reason I'm not getting it, great." of last season, after the Jazz were eliminated by Houston in five games of the conference finals. Malone publicly criticized Utah's chemistry and talent. He and management for not being aggressive in improving the team and said he wouldn't mind being traded to a contender. Suddenly, a player who had missed only five games in his career was considering retirement. It was one of the things he and his wife, Kay, discussed during a summer that Malone, 31, calls a personal crossroads. "I sat down and said, 'Do I want to do this again?' I was either going to play and give it my all, or I wasn't going to play," he said. "I've got a wife and two beautiful What could make the difference this time is that Malone is surrounded by a team of surprising Stockton, leading the league in assists for the eighth straight season, are complemented by shooting guard Jeff Hornacek, and role players such as forwards Antoine Carr, languishing as a free agent when the Jazz picked him up during the preseason, David Benoit, enjoying his best season after completing alcohol rehabilitation, and Adam Keefe, whose play off the bench has helped make up for the loss of center Felton Spencer in January. "These are guys other teams gave up on that the Jazz gave a chance," Malone said. "In years past, I felt every big game we won we were ovcrachiev-er- s. I look at this team now, and we're not overachicvers. We have a good team. I look at myself and Stockton, and we don't think we're '' bigger than the rest of the team. it at was the how end That's not little daughters, but there was something that was a little empty there." Among the things gnawing at Malone, the youngest of nine children growing up in Louisiana, was his increasingly distant relationship with his siblings. (See MALONE, Page B7) |