Friday, March 5. 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 5
World-record sprinter eyes top prize
The Associated Press
MAEBASHI, Japan — Maurice Greene is the world record-holder at 60 meters, yet he still has something to prove in the World Indoor Championships.
Greene is coming off a "very disappointing" second place in the USA Championships last weekend, his first defeat of the season.
"I didn't run like I wanted to," Greene said Thursday. "I know I let down my fans. I have to do something here to regain them."
Greene, who set the world record of 6.39 seconds last year at Madrid, Spain, ran 6.40 in the semifinals of the USA Championships at Atlanta, but clocked only 6.49 in the final, losing to Tim Harden's career-best 6.44.
Greene had an excuse.
He slightly injured his left hamstring in the semifinals, and was cautious in the final, coming
out of the blocks last.
"I started easy in the final," Greene, the 1997 world outdoor champion at 100 meters, said. "Something didn't feel right in my leg. I didn't know the problem. I didn't know whether it was a career-threatening injury.
"It turned out to be no big deal. It's fine now. I expect to have a good race here."
"But there, I was uncomfortable and nervous. I told myself I wasn't going to rely on my start. If I could get out of the blocks safely, I would be fine. I relied on the middle part of my race. I just wanted to finish healthy. I wasn't 100 percent certain I was going to win."
As it turned out, Greene's start was horrible and that proved costly. Still, he ran fast enough to make the U.S. team and earn a chance for redemption against Harden.
Greene said he feels fit enough to break the record again, but winning will be his major aim
when the three-day championships begin Friday.
when the ten-day challenge ended.
Last year, Greene failed in several attempts to break Donovan Bailey's 100-meter world record of 9.84, and he blamed that on trying too hard.
Greene and Harden are the favorites to return the world indoor 60-meter title to the United States for the first time since Lee McRae won in 1987.
"I was talking about the world record, but I wasn't running my race to break it," said Greene, whose best in the 100 is 9.86.
This year, he has taken, a different attitude less talking and faster running.
While the sprinters will compete for less than seven seconds, Ethiopia's Haile Gebruselassie will be running longer than anyone. He is attempting an unprecedented double in the 1,500 and 3,000 meters.
Begrselassie's races will be spread out evenly, with the 1,500 semifinals tomorrow and the final Sunday.
Despite diagnosis, Hunter's spirits high
The Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. — Hall of Famer Jim "Catfish" Hunter felt more nervous walking on the field at spring training yesterday than he ever did in a World Series game.
But he bled his jitters, as he did during his pitching career, and strode confidently, if gingerly, on and off the field in his first public appearance since a physician diagnosed him with Lou Gehrig's disease four months ago.
Once an overpowering righthander, Hunter couldn't shake hands firmly with former teammates, but he had big hugs for them as he participated in pregame ceremonies at the New York Yankees' exhibition season opener.
"That's the first time in my life I was nervous walking on the field." Hunter said.
The 52-year-old Hunter has severe weakness in both his arms and hands a year after suffering early symptoms of the progressive, neurological disease, formally called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He relies on his wife
and childhood sweetheart, Helen,
to dress him and feed him.
Hunter said he tried not to worry too much about how fast the deadly disease might progress, and about how it eventually might put him in a wheelchair and wipe out his ability to speak.
He stays busy on his farm in Hertford, N.C., 600 acres of cotton, peanut, corn and bean fields and 400 acres of woods. He also goes to Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore once a month or so for treatment and evaluation.
Hunter, a right-hander, won 224 games in a 15-year career with the Yankees and Athletics, including a perfect game in 1968. He had a string of five straight 20-win seasons and won the AL Cy Young Award in 1974.
ALS is named for Gehrig, the Yankees' Hall of Famer who died from the disease in 1941 at age 37.
An estimated 30,000 Americans have the disease, which attacks nerves in the spinal cord and brain that control muscle movement, causing progressive paralysis leading to death.
New Dodgers manager can handle job pressure
The Associated Press
VERO BEACH, Fla. — The pressure is on in Los Angeles, and Davey Johnson knows it.
Bring it on, he says.
"My first (managing) job was in New York." Johnson said Thursday from spring training. "And I played in Japan. My survival instincts are intact."
sweeping changes since the Fox Group purchased the team from the O'Malley family last March.
The Dodgers, who haven't won a postseason game since 1988, have made
Twice, they've
switched managers and general managers, and the payroll has gone from the middle of the pack in baseball to near the top.
The obvious goal? Win now.
Johnson, 56, was hired as manager,
succeeding Glenn Hoffman, last October
— after Montreal's Felipe Alou
turned down the job to remain with the
Expos.
"I know Felipe — he's a good man," Johnson said. "He doesn't need the stress that will come with this job. I'm more used to it."
Johnson had been out of baseball
since resigning as manager of the Baltimore Orioles following the 1997 season. He quit the same day he was honored as AL manager of the year.
"I loved Baltimore," he said. "I tried to do whatever the owner (Peter Angelos) wanted, and I couldn't quite please him. You want to do good for your boss. I didn't accomplish that. It was a failure on my part because I couldn't win him over."
The Orioles were the AL wild-card team in Johnson's first year, and went wire-to-wire in winning the AL East championship in his second and final year. It was Baltimore's first division crown in 14 years.
"There was more to it," Johnson said of his leaving the Orioles. "I don't want to go into it. I thought we had nothing to be ashamed about."
The Orioles reached the AL Championship Series both years before being eliminated.
The job Johnson did in Baltimore was typical of him. In his 10 seasons, none of his teams finished lower than second place. His 575 winning percentage (985-727) is the best among all active managers.
Still, Johnson was unemployed until the Dodgers hired him.
"I always say things work out for the best," he said. "Somebody's looking out for me."
Baseball return possible in D.C.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The seats at RFK Stadium have been realigned. Base paths have been carved out of fresh sod for the first time in six years, all awaiting the arrival of the Montreal Expos for a couple of days next month.
Next time,maybe they'll stay a lot longer.
"Let's just say that they'll find a much larger and warmer welcome than they have in their own home stadium for quite some time," said Mike Scanlon, member of
a group that wants to bring major league baseball to the Washington area.
It's mere
It's here coincidence that the Expos are accompanying the St. Louis Cardinals for a pair of exhibition games at RFK on April 2 and 3. When the event was arranged, the big attraction was supposed to be Mark McGwire; now the focus will be on a financially troubled team on display in an area that's been trying lure baseball back since the Senators left Washington D.C. to become the Texas Rangers 28 years ago.
"We are closer now than we ever have been," said Jim Dalrymple, who has been working on the task for 14 years as executive director of the District of Columbia Sports Commission. "I think we've got the right game plan in place. We just need a little luck."
Talk of relocation does not sit well with major league baseball — no team has moved since the Senators. But with tomorrow's deadline approaching for a financing plan for a new stadium in
Montreal and no money in sight, commissioner Bud Selig is expected to give Expos president Claude Brochu permission next week to negotiate with out-of-town bidders who could buy the team and move it elsewhere.
The leading contenders would be groups from Charlotte, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia — the generic name for the densely populated suburbs to the west of Washington.
For fans in the D.C. region, it's another hill on a roller coaster ride that has left them somewhat jaded. There have been new teams about every other year that are rumored to be on the verge of coming to the Washington area — the Astros and Pirates were the most recent.
The group from Northern Virginia, headed by telecommunications executive William Collins, has come close twice. Collins made the finals in the last round of expansion in 1994 and had a handshake agreement to buy the Astros had voters not approved a new stadium there by a narrow margin in 1996.
Real estate developer Douglas Jemal, who wants a team in the district, is also waiting for the go-ahead to negotiate with Brochu. Tim Newman, vice president of entrepreneur Don Beaver's group in Charlotte, said such talk is "all premature," but that Beaver is "monitoring the situation very closely."
The Charlotte group's biggest drawback could be its plan to have the Expos play in the Charlotte Knights' minor league stadium — expanded to seat perhaps 25,000 — during the two years it would take to build a new facility. The two D.C. area groups would use RFK, which housed the Senators, as an inter stadium.
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