University Daily Kansan / Thursday, October 19, 1989
Sports
9
Warming up
Steve Heffernan, cross country runner, warms up during practice. The Kansas cross country team will travel to Ames, Iowa, on Oct. 28.
World Series placed on hold
Damage to ballparks must be evaluated before play resumes
The Associated Press
OAKLAND, Calif. -The Oakland Coliseum can be seen from Interstate 880, the highway that became one of death and destruction in the nation's second-deadliest earthquake, which rocked northern California yesterday.
Even with the future of the first Bay area World Series in doubt, the home of the American League champion Athletics was in an area seemingly unaffected by the earthquake, which measured 6.9 on the Richter scale.
The roadway around the Coliseum was solid in both directions and a cruise around the parking lot showed no damage to the pavement.
By all outward appearances, the park seemed to be ready if any games in the Series with the San Francisco Giants were shifted there because of possible
structural damage to Candlestick Park,
just eight miles away.
In fact, inside the 48,219-seat stadium, groundskeepers mowed the outfield and groomed the basepaths while workers at 880 continued to look for possible survivors and bodies of those who died in the two-tiered road's collapse.
Judy Van Allen, chief spokesman for the park, said the only damage to the complex was a few broken windows in the arena, the closed hall across the parking lot where the NBA's Golden State Warriors play.
Spider-web cracks are visible in the concrete supporting the Coliseum's bleachers, but they appeared to be old and either filled with an accumulation of dirt or painted over.
As structural engineers checked the Coliseum yesterday for signs of
damage, Oakland mayor Lionel Wilson met with team officials and asked that the Series not be resumed immediately.
"I did tell them that at this time, it would be inappropriate to play baseball in this city while there are still bodies underneath the concrete," Wilson said at the Alameda Naval Air Station.
Wilson said team officials were supportive of his request. He estimated that it would take at least four to five days to recover the bodies from underneath the double-decked highway.
Across the Bay, engineers combed Candlestick Park, where a sellout crowd was rocked just 30 minutes before the scheduled start of Game 3 by the earthquake.
The news conference announcing the plan was held in a room lit by candles and remote television camera lights. The St. Francis Hotel is still without full power.
"The alternative of waiting a few days seems to be better than canceling the World Series, but this is said in light of understanding the difficulty this area is having," said Fay Vincent, baseball commissioner. "We will not be playing while this community is in the early stages of its recovery.
"We believe Tuesday is a very good working hypothesis, but it is not definite yet. I think our preferred course is to play at Candle-stick."
Bears to start Tomczak despite 2 losses
The Associated Press
LAKE FOREST, Ill. - Coach Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday by announcing that Mike Tomczak was his starting quarterback despite two losses in a row for the team.
A third loss against Cleveland on Monday night would be the first three-game losing streak for Dikta since he became coach in 1982.
Ditka also said he had no idea of the whereabouts of cornerback Vestee Jackson, who said he might skip practice after losing his starting job following Sunday's 33-28 loss to Houston.
"Mike Tomczak is my quarterback," Ditka said. "If 'he does not perform, we'll try Jim Harbaugh. We're trying to win a game. If I make a substitution."
it doesn't mean the other guy won't be back."
Jackson said Tuesday that he was upset at being replaced by Lorenzo Lynch.
Ditka said, "I have not talked to him, and I can't do anything until we talk to him. He's not here, and he's not at home."
Jackson did not show up for practice yesterday, something that surprised some of his teammates, including defensive captain Mike Singletary.
"It's something I didn't expect." Singletary said. "I hope everything works out. Vestee has always been quiet and goes about his business his own way. I didn't think this would happen."
Despite straightlosses, Torncik starting at Cleveland on Monday wouldn't have been a surprise. But Ditka planted the seeds of doubt earlier in the week.
"I'll announce my starting quarterback later in the week," he said after Tomczak was intercepted four times in the loss to the Oilers.
"Mike's play has been outstanding." Ditka said yesterday, playing down some of Tomczak's mistakes. "Two of the interceptions were meaningless, but two of them were bad choices. He threw three touchdown passes and ran the team well."
"Why worry about what you can't control?" he said. "I never take anything for granted. Quarterback is an important position, but it's only an extension of the team."
Tomczak said he expected to start all along.
Ditka talked to both Tomczak and Harbaugh yesterday in making his decision. He was upset about the turnovers and a collapse of the defense.
He said Tomczak should have done more scrambling.
Tomczak said, "I'm not going to change my way of playing. I know my mistakes, and I'm going to work on them. I have to play a smarter game, especially in throwing the ball away."
Two of Tomczak's interceptions came when he was trying to throw the ball away.
"We have been putting points on the board," Tomczak said. "The other teams haven't been stopping us. We've been stopped ourselves on turnovers."
Although Ditka hasn't lost three in a row with the Bears, Tomczak said he had reached a painful personal record in the past two weeks that he didn't want to extend.
Novel outlook on life accepts baseball as important aspect
Tornczak said he had never lost two games in a row, "not in high school, college or the pros."
Kansan sportswriter
By GENE KING
"Playing ball was one of the bonds," he said. "It seemed to connect one thing to another."
For Jim Carothers, associate dean of liberal arts and sciences and professor of English, baseball is a way of life as much as being an educator.
In a speech given yesterday in the Walnut Room of the Kansas Union for the English Club, Carothers told about his love for the game and his passion for catching that love on paper. Carothers said he remembered being introduced to baseball when he was three years old.
"I was introduced to one of my cousins, and he immediately said, 'Come outside and play ball.' It seemed like such a natural part of the environment.
"The game goes on," Carothers said.
"That is the one thing I love about the game."
In many literary works, life seems to imitate fiction. Carothers said this was also true in baseball and baseball literature.
Baseball is literature for Carothers. The game produces heroes and scapegoats, he said. The game is a plot that unfolds before the spectator's eyes as does a novel for the reader.
Works of fiction about baseball have underlying elements in them that any other work of literature would have, Carothers said.
Carothers told a story he wrote about a day when he visited an old neighborhood where he used to "play ball."
The children with the bat negotiated with the youth owning the ball, and the three made a compromise. They started to play the game.
He said two children had a bat but no baseball. Later, they spotted another child bouncing a tennis ball against a wall, playing keep away with two younger children.
"The point is the game is going on,"
The talk was for the second meeting of the English Club. The club was formed last spring and usually meets in the evening.
The club's vice-president, Bill Kueser, said the club tried to present topics that would be interesting to all English majors as well as non-English majors.
At a future meeting, Kueser said he hoped that he could obtain a professor to do a fiction reading.
Carothers teaches a class every four semesters entitled "The Literature of Baseball."
Carothers ended the meeting with a moral. It was basically the way he treats his dream of one day writing a book about baseball.
"Never be ashamed of your genuine enthusiasians," he said. "Nomatter what they are, either baseball or Milton, never be ashamed."
Kansas recruits to face experienced swimmers
By ANDRES CAVELIER
Kansan staff writer
The first intrasquad meet of the Kansas swim team this Friday will show coach Gary Kempf how well conditioned the team is at this point.
For the new women swimmers, this will be their first challenge against more experienced swimmers.
Coach Kempf said that although most of the recruits were inexperienced, all of them were talented. They will compete at 7 p.m. Friday at Robinson Natatorium.
Four of the new recruits are among the fastest swimmers Kempf has recruited, he said.
Recruit Suzanne Ryan, Houston,
Texas, swam for the Aqua-Tex swim
and for Klein Forest High
School in Houston. She was a senior
All-American and an Academic All-
American, with a 4.0 grade point average throughout high school.
She was a junior Nationals finalist in the 200-meter breast stroke and in the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Her best times are 2 minutes, 23 seconds in the 200 breast stroke, 2:08 in the 200 individual medley, and 4:32 in the 400 individual medley.
Recruit Aimee Brainard is a 1988 Arizona state champion in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle from Litchfield Park, Ariz.
She said she came to Kansas because of family ties to the school. Both her father and mother went to school here, as well as two of her sisters. Her father played center for Kansas basketball from 1954 to 1956.
In the spring of 1988, Brainard was a junior Nationals and a Olympic qualifier in the 50-meter freestyle.
"She is the fastest girl we have recruited into our program," Kempf said.
Recruit Marmee Dietrich, Omaha, Neb., was a junior and senior Nationals qualifier. She swam for Westside High School, where she was a state champion in the 50 freestyle and in the 100 breast stroke.
During her junior year she made it to the Olympic trials in the 100 breast stroke.
Recruit Lauri Hill, San Jose, Calif. transferred from New Mexico State University. As a junior, she will have two years of eligibility at Kansas.
Hill was a five-time conference title holder in the 200 and 500 freestyles and in the 200 backstroke. She was a senior National qualifier in the 200 and 500 freestyles.