[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference 7.286::sports_91

Title:CAM::SPORTS -- Digital's Daily Sports Tabloid
Notice:This file has been archived. New notes to CAM3::SPORTS.
Moderator:CAM3::WAY
Created:Fri Dec 21 1990
Last Modified:Mon Nov 01 1993
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:290
Total number of notes:84103

210.0. "The Pgh Press's Gene Collier's Columns" by CELTIK::JACOB (Bare It and Grin) Wed Nov 13 1991 23:26

    There is a sprots columnist here in Pittsburgh who is, to paraphrase
    'Saw, Dave Barry with a sports twist.  That columnist is Gene Collier.
    Some of you are familiar with his columns which I have entered in here
    at various places.  
    
    This note will be home for any future Gene Collier columns, plus any
    comments elicited by these columns.
    
    Enjoy!!
    
    JaKe
    
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
210.11st installmentCELTIK::JACOBBare It and GrinWed Nov 13 1991 23:26118
REEL IN BASEBALL'S OWNERS BEFORE THEY LOSE THEIR MINDS----AGAIN
reprinted from The Pittsburgh Press, 11-12-1991

by

Gene Collier

	Nobody has signed a free-agent yet, but it's not too early to throw out
the ceremonial first pitch of inevitable observation.
	Major-League baseball's owners have really, really, really, really, 
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really lost their minds this time.
	What's that, 15 reallys?
	PERFECT
	The original version, written in 1976 upon the opening of the first
free-agent player market, was "Major-league baseball's owners have lost their
minds."
	That was true and simple enough.  Ted Turner, who has had sporadic
success at regaining his ever since, signed pitcher Andy Messersmith to a $1
million, lifetime contract.  Obviously, he had lost his mind.
	The next year, with such flesh as Lyman Bostock, Goose Gossage, Larry
hisle, Mike Torrez, and Oscar Gamble on the market, and with Richie Zisk
signing a 10-year, $2.3 million contract with the Texas Rangers of "Crazy"
Eddie Chiles, it became obvious that "Major-league baseball's owners have
REALLY lost their minds this time."
	The next year they really, really lost their minds and the year after,
they really, really, really lost their minds.
	Today, with the opening of the 16th free-agent market and the official
addition of the 15th really to that baseball axiom, we're in a posture where
you couldn't get a pitcher the quality of Andy Messersmith to blow his nose for
$1 million.
	Bobby Bonilla, Wally Joyner, and Danny tartabull, the three prime
stallions of this winter's show, could conceivably bring $70 million in
long-term contracts among them, more than 10 percent of the money paid all
players in 1991.
	Bonilla nad agent Dennis Gilbert have every anticipation of bids such
as $25 million, unless California Angels owner Gene Autry has the final say,
then $30 million wouldn't be ridiculous, merely Autry-esque.
	The Angels, Chicago White Sox, Pilladelphia Phillies, St. Louis
Cardinals, New York Mets, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, all with
vault sized pockets, are expected to bid for Bonilla.  The Chicago Cubs might,
too.
	"Is that the price, $25 million?" said Phillies president Bill giles,
his voice rock steady.  "I don't know, but it will definitely be five years."
	Of course, obscene free-agent spending isn't restricted to the top
players, and often more compelling evidence of owner psychosis is compiled from
contracts tendered by free-agent futility infielders.
	To try and forecast the market, you need no capital, you need only be
as mindless as the owners.
	Let's get right to it:

	NOV. 16-The Yankees, desperate to grab back the majority of that city's
frothing media attention, offer Mets left-hander Frank Viola a three-year,
$16.5 million contract even though Viola's left elbow clacks like a castinet
every time he lifts it above his waist.  Viola calls it an interesting opening
offer.

	NOV. 17-The Pirates, in an unanticipated foray into the market, sign
free-agent outfielder Mitch Webster to a two year contract for $1.1 million. 
"We've always liked Mitch," says General Manager Larry Doughty.  "He's a good
guy to have in the clubhouse, especially if a hitless Jose Gonzales comes into
the trade market along about July."

	Nov. 20-Free-agent pitcher Don Robinson, whose legs and right arm
suggest wear and tear approximating two billion innings, signs a one-year, $1
million contract with the Cleveland Indians based 90 percent on incentives. 
Robinson gets the $100,000 major-league minimum, plus $100,000 if he does not
go on the disabled list in spring training, $100,000 if he is not on the
disabled list on the first day of each month April through September, $100,000
if the club does not have to replace its whirlpool more than twice and %100,000
if for the entire season he refrains from using the unusual contraction,
"m'arm", as in "M'arm feels good."

	NOV 23-The Cardinals sign Wally Joyner to a five-year contract calling
for $22 million.  Agents for Anheuser-Busch Inc., which owns the Cardinals, and
Joyner were thought to be miles apart, but a deal became makeable when the
brewery agreed to make Joyner sole heir to the Spuds MacKenzie fortune. 
MacKenzie, the affable canine now on life support, was a Budweiser pitchdog
until the 1989 accident in which he rammed his head into the back of a station
wagon.  Spuds blew a .18 on the breathalyzer.  Most states consider .10 the
level of intoxication.

	Nov. 24-Gene Autry, punching up the wrong extension on his office
phone, offers free-agent Curtis Wilkerson $28 million for the next five years
to become a California Angel.  Wilky accepts.  "Geez, and i'd have settled for
Belliard money,"  he says.  "this is a great, great game.  Maybe I'll even get
to play this year."  NAW

	NOV. 25-Choked with top-quality pitching after having signed free
agents Orel Hershiser, Jim Deshaies, Dennis Rasmussen, and Mitch Williams, the
Mets offer free-agent left-hander Bob Kipper a one-year deal worth $500,000. 
The sticking point is an unusual wrinkle on a reporting bonus.  Although the
$500,000 offer was made in good faith, the Mets will pay Kipper $700,000 NOT to
report.
	
	NOV. 26-The yankees make Tartabull the highest paid player in baseball
history with a contract calling for $36 million for the next six years. 
Additionally, the Yankees will build a center field monument in Tartabull's
honor before opening day and provide that at the end of his career, the Rizzuto
clause will kick in.  Tartabull will become a Yankee's broadcaster for 35 years
"whether he's any good at it or not."  Holy Cow!

	NOV. 28-Thanksgiving morning--Bonilla accepts a relatively modest $22.5
million deal from the Pirates, shows up at the Pitt-Penn State game with a
truckload of turkeys and stands on an Oakland sidewalk for hours saying he
couldn't leave because we're all just a great bunch o'folks.
	
	Oh, I feel really, really, really, really confident about that last
one.




JaKe




210.2JaKE, EGGZACTLY WOT IS A "SPROTS COLUMNIST"?????CSTEAM::FARLEYHave YOU seen Elvis Today?Thu Nov 14 1991 01:041
    
210.3CELTIK::JACOBBare It and GrinThu Nov 14 1991 02:0812
    
    >>         -< JaKE, EGGZACTLY WOT IS A "SPROTS COLUMNIST"????? >-
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    That, Kev is a finger graphical error.
    
    should be "spoerts columnist", smart a$$!!
    
    (8^)*
    
    JaKe
    
210.4JaKe and Gene...two great writers!SHALOT::MEDVIDNaze koor fateeriThu Nov 14 1991 12:1616
    Thanks, JaKe.  It must take time for you to type those in. Just wanted
    to let you know the columns are and will be appreciated.

    We're also going to have to occasionally define some Pittsburgh
    regionalisms to make certain things Gene writes accessible.  For
    example:

>	NOV. 28-Thanksgiving morning--Bonilla accepts a relatively modest $22.5
>million deal from the Pirates, shows up at the Pitt-Penn State game with a
>truckload of turkeys and stands on an Oakland sidewalk for hours saying he
>couldn't leave because we're all just a great bunch o'folks.

    Oakland is the university section of Pittsburgh on the other side of
    the infamous Hill District, not the city in California.

    	--dan'l
210.5good stuff Jake, keep 'em comingSTAR::YANKOWSKASAny knucklehead can scoreThu Nov 14 1991 12:201
    
210.6CELTIK::JACOBBare It and GrinThu Nov 14 1991 17:476
    Collier writes 3-5 columns a week, some on Pittsburgh sports topics,
    others on national sports topics.  I'll enter any I deem worthy of this
    notesfile.
    
    JaKe
    
210.7Gene Collier from lasted FridayCELTIK::JACOBOne of Several Possible MusiksMon Nov 18 1991 23:0684
FOR LOVE OF MONEY, THERE'S A FOUL BOWL SMELL
Reprinted from The Pittsburgh Press, 11-15-1991

By

Gene Collier

	This dictum probably came on one of his particularly grumpy mornings,
but it was Aristotle, was it not, who warned that the moral core of any society
is only as dense as the integrity of its bowl representatives.
	But perhaps I've got that wrong.
	Yes, quite possibly so.
	Come to think of it, Aristotle probably would have been laughed out of
Philosophers Local 229 for that slice of inspiration.
	"Ari, you ignorant slug," one of his contemporaries would have said
down at the union hall.  "No society will ever depend on bowl representatives
for anything beyond legitimizing the fashion police. And worse, how can you be
talking about the bowl games when nobody around here has six victories against
a Division I-A opponent, mostly because we're not sure what division is yet."
	You gotta hope that guy is right, especially with the events of this
past week.  You don't want us all going down the moral toilet just because of
one more sickening deceit, greed and betrayal by the bowl reps and the
institutions of higher learning that service them.  And I mean "service" in
just the nicest possible way.
	It's a matter of taste, I guess, but if I'm doing the eternal damnation
gig, I'd like it to be for something more compelling than sitting idly by while
Notre Dame went to the Sugar Bowl with three losses.
	Having said all that, let's just say it's a little bothersome, a little
annoying the way the whole bowl scene went down this fall.  Save your outrage
for something of real consequence, of course.  But let's admit to some
irritation, at least on some backwater moral ground.
	The bowl match-ups were not supposed to be known until 3 pm this coming
Sunday, an embargo imposed on the bowls by themselves as much in their own best
interests as anything else.  Now they could wait for a near total focus instead
of prematurely booking a team in early November only to have it show up with
two or three losses at the holidays.  Never mind that 3 pm Nov. 17th zero hour
jumps the NCAA bowl-bid date by a week.  The bowls always ignored that one . 
But this time, it was supposed to be different, a bit of enlightenment.
	Last April, 18 angry renaissance men (yeah, right), the members of the
Football Bowl Association, met in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on this very issue. 
The distinguished representatives of the 18 bowl games thereupon voted
unanimously to fine any bowl that circumvented established guidelines 10
percent of its total payout up to $250,000./
	"There's been an environment where its been OK with the bowls and with
the institutions (to ignore the guidelines)," said John Swofford, athletic
director at the University of North Carolina.  "It no longer will be
tolerated."

Uh-Huh

	Fast forward to Nov 10th, little more than 24 hours after Notre Dame
set its own 24 point lead afire, wound up losing by a point to Tennessee, and
fell out of the national championship picture.
	"What" wondered the powers at Notre Dame, "would be the absolute best
bowl we could get into with two or even three losses?"
	I'm not saying that the answer was the Sugar Bowland that someone let
someone else know exactly that, vbut as the John Hancock Bowl's John Folmer
told the Rocky Mountain News, "It's kind of hard to keep a secret when somebody
from the Notre Dame alumni association books 20,000 rooms in New Orleans for
New Years.  I suppose the alumni are coming in for a trade fair.  So the rest
of us aren't supposed to say anything until Sunday?  It's ludicrous.  It's
insulting to the intelligence of everybody, even sportswriters."
	Thank you very much.
	When Notre Dame flashed its hands, every imaginable violation of the
spirit of Lake Buena Vista quickly followed.  By yesterday, every major bowl
matchup was clearly figured and all but prearranged, and every minor bowl
pretty much set as well.  The institutions of higher learning, it was
explained, had exercised a "loophole."  Just because a bowl bid couldn't be
extended until Sunday at 3 pm, that didn't mean an institution couldn't make it
known what it coveted or elicit a positive response.
	What all this does, and again there is no great section of the nation's
moral fabvric at stake, is set a horrible example for the young people in whose
alleged behalf all of this happens.  It's sad enough the bowls can't control
themselves, but when the colleges crawl into bed with them strictly for
financial gain, it's sick.
	We hold NCAA athletes to high standards of conduct, with every
conceivable rule for every nickle they have.  And while we do that, we set this
example, find a loophole, get what you can get when you can get it, and to heck
with the rules.
	That's the true meaning of "Major Bowl Implications."


JaKe

210.8G.C. on Tony SaccaCELTIK::JACOBOne of Several Possible MusiksMon Nov 18 1991 23:3989
MEMO TO THE NFL: JUST LET SACCA PLAY
	
From The Pittsburgh Press, 11-17-1991

By

Gene Collier

	UNIVERSITY PARK--Two holiday performances are all that remain for him
now, Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh, New Year's Day in Tempe, Arizona.
	And just as experts  and the non-experts and the obsessives and the
compulsives predicted four long years ago, "he will, before he leaves Penn
State, be one great quarterback."
	Maybe Tony Sacca didn't meet that suffocating pseudo-standard with a
lot of time to spare, but the destruction he engineered here yesterday against
12th ranked Notre Dame and the fabulous senior season it underlined ate proof
enough that a lot of people knew what they were talking about when Sacca left
Delran, NJ, the bluest of blue chips in 1987.
	"He's been as tough mentally as anybody I've ever had in the sense of
being able to put up with all of the pressure he's been under the last four
years...the good and the bad," said Joe Paterno, who has had his hand on the
pressure valve now and again.  "he's matured as an athlete and as a person and
I think that's had a tremendous impact on our program."
	This very good Penn State team will fall a lap or two short in its run
at a national championship, a condition that is in no way Sacca's fault.  But
if there's to be any sense of unfulfillment for Sacca, it will come after these
two final shows.
	The NFL, which could sorely use the kind of impact Sacca can have on
somebody's program, will only screw this guy up.  He's got too much life, too
much spontaneity, too much think-on-his-feet brilliance to endure the avalanche
of coachthink that awaits him next summer.
	"I haven't thought much about it," he said.  "But you know, they're
PAYING you at the next level, so they can do what they want."
	They'll want Sacca bad; they'll draft him high and pay him big, and
then they'll persuade him to forget the kinds of things he did here yesterday,
the things he did on to of completing 14 of 20 passes for 151 yards and 2
touchdowns.
	He led O.J. McDuffie around the corner on a reverse, buckling Irish
cornerback Tom Carter like a folding table with a crunching block.

(Son, we can't risk you doin' that)

	"A great block," marveled McDuffie. "I think he's been playin' guard."
	He fought off Irish Linebacker Demetrius DuBose in the backfield,
standing up until he could flip a first-down pass to Richie Anderson.

(Son, you're in the grasop don't you know?  Get down before you get hurt)

	He picked up the blitz and ran tough up the middle, once for 8 yards on
Penn State's third touchdown drive, once for 3 and a big first down.

(Son, stand in that pocket.  We want classical musicians, not jazz musicians)

	Of course, maybe before they fill his head with every last byte of
impulse-stifling data, they'll notice that Tony Sacca can just flat play.
Maybe they'll remember yesterday's 45-yard TD pass to McDuffie that flew 55
yards in the air and fel dead solid perfect.
	"I saw (the defenders) closing, but there's no way they could have
caught that ball," said McDuffie. "It was just such a perfect pass."
	"We caught them in man coverage over there," Sacca said. "I knew when I
took the snap we had a chance for a touchdown.  I pretty much just threw it up
and let him run under it."
	That came in the fourth quarter, and Sacca had long since impressed the
largest Penn State crowd ever(96,672) and further undressed a Notre Dame
defense that had started collapsing at halftime of last week's Tennessee game
and continued right thru yesterday's first quarter.
	On Penn State's first three possessions, Sacca went 7 for 9 for 77
yards and a touchdown and the Lions led 21-0.
	"I was a little suprised we scored the first three times we had the
ball," Sacca said.  "But characteristically, we've come out strong this year."
	Had they not had a September pratfall at Southern California, OPenn
State's political position might have been far better and Sacca's might be very
conspicuous.
	In a season without a compelling Heisman Trophy chase, Sacca might now
have emerged a contender had Penn State sustained national attention.  As it
is, he's a late entry.
	"I can't get uptight about that stuff," said Paterno.  "We have coaches
on our staff who think Terry Smith and O.J.McDuffie are every bit as good as
(Heisman front runner) Desmond Howard, so I just don't know about that stuff.. 
But I think Sacca's played great football this year. I've said it over and
over."
	There should be more great years for Sacca.  There certainly could be,
but it would take an NFL team with the courage to simply let him play rather
than coach the life out of him.  The risks are too great for that kind of
bravado.  Somebody might lose a game.


JaKe

210.9Collier on Joe GibbsCELTIK::JACOBOne of Several Possible MusiksTue Nov 19 1991 00:1890
GIBBS PAVES THE HIGHWAY TO SUCCESS

from The Pittsburgh Press, 11-18-1991

By

Gene Collier

	That road to the Super Bowl that used to run through Pittsburgh?  Where
was it??  Wilkinsburg??(JaKeNote:Wilkinsburg is a rough area of Pittsburgh with
horrible roads to go along with mean dispositions of it's inhabitants)
	Miles of cracked, frozen, tire-slashing blacktop, wasn't it"  Lined by
angry, driven men who wouldn't give directions.
	The point was, back there in Paleozoic, if you had to get to the Super
Bowl via Pittsburgh, you probably weren't going to get there.
	So now, guess what??
	The road to the Super bowl still goes through Pittsburgh, but it's a
huge bypass kind of deal.  yeah, that's it; the road to the Super Bowl runs by
Pittsburgh.  8 or 10 lanes of gleaming concrete.  That was the big Washington
Redskins RV highballin' by here yesterday, hardly flashing a glance at the man
waving listlessly froman upstairs window of the gutted tenement of Steelers
tradition.
	
	CHUCK???
	"He said, 'don't you worry about that,'" Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs
reported after he apologized to Chuck Noll.  APOLOGIZED for the 40-yard TD pass
that made it 41-14 58 minutes deep into the Steelers humiliation.  "I was only
throwing to get the first down.  That was not an intentional thing.  I told
him, 'I'm sorry about that' He's a great, classy guy."
	It has come to this.  Good teams are trying not to embarass the
Steelers because of their respect for Chuck Noll.  Just a guess, but that might
not be enough of a psychological advantage to turn the franchise around.
	You didn'r have to listen long yesterday to Noll and Gibbs, the NFL's
best coach now and for most of the past decade, to hear the wildly different
standards to which they hold their teams.
	On an afternoon in which his undefeated Redskins pretty much did to the
Steelers what the grill of a speeding truck does to a moth, Gibbs found
something to annoy him.
	"This could have been a tight ballgame today," he said after his team
increased its average margin of victory to more than 22 points.  "We missed a
third down conversion, we didn't block on the backside.  I was scared.  I don't
know if anybody else was, but I was scared.
	Hey Joe, don't rent "The Silence of the Lambs", OK!!
	Now for contrast.
	Noll, commenting on an offense that was virtually useless against a
defense comprised of 5 plan B acquisitions, 2 free-agents, 2 players acquired
via trades for fourth round draft picks adn 2 draft choices, said,
"Offensively, we started out very slow.  But the thing that's kind of revealing
is it looks like, part-time, we get it done."
	You don't need to wonder why the Steelers get things done part-time or
why the Redskins are 11-0 because, compared to Gibbs, noll is a part time
coach.
	Gibbs is right when he says Noll is a great guy, a classy guy, but he
might have added this: Chuck's a sane guy.
	Gibbs is not.  He brings a suitcase to work on Monday mornings and
doesn't leave until Thursday or Friday.  Noll has a life.  During the Oliver
North hearings a few years back, Noll spent part of a warm Latrobe evening
arguing rather eloquently on one tof the critical elements of the issue, the
collision of law and patriotism.  At the same time, Gibbs' comments on the
matter revealed that he didn't know Oliver North from Glinda The Good Witch of
the North.
	By almost every standard, that comparison reflects favorably on Noll. 
He ie erudite, informed, interested in a broad range of events and disciplines. 
Gibbs is narrowly obsessed by relative trivia.
	Unfortunately, this is the NFL, where in many areas, and most
especially in coaching, insanity rules.  Insanity wins.  Sad, but true.
	"I think it's our preparation," said Redskins guard Raleigh McKenzie
when asked how his team can maintain its incredible concentration and purpose.
"I think teams go into games with us realizing we have a pretty good offenseive
line, but you can see the frustration start very early.  They're trying all
kinds of stunts and games and we're able to adjust. Anyone would get
discouraged.  That's just preparation."
	That's jsut obsessive, inexhaustible, excellent coaching.
	Washington hasn't allowed a sack in its past six games.  Washington had
more sacks on Neil O'Donnell(five) yesterday than its offensive line has
allowed all season(four).
	That defense didn't allow as much as a firts down until well into the
second quarter.  That offense did not require the services of a punter until
it's eight possession, the only one on which it punted all day.
	It was all as close to perfect as anyone has a right to expect.  There
simply was no evidence why Washington cannot go 16-0.
	"i'm not thinking about that at all," Gibbs said.  "What we wanted is
the playoffs and then home-field advantage.  We want Super Bowl.  The other
stuff is not the focus at all."
	The focus in uninterrupted, methodical insanity, if you will.
	It beats great and classy and wordly every time in this game.


JaKe

210.10Collier on Bear huntingCELTIK::JACOBFork ItMon Nov 25 1991 23:3286
IF BEARS DON'T DODGE THIS BULLET, THEY'RE OUT OF THE HUNT!!
from The Pittsburgh Press, 11-24-1991

By

Gene Collier

	All THE HOOPLA, att the hype, all the talk is over, never mid that
there wasn't any.
	Tomorrow morning, people, the annual re-engagement of perhaps the
oldest rivalry in the history of the ecosystem.  
	Coupla teams that don't like each other.
	Hunters at Bears, 7:17 am EST(national anthem 7:15, Mr Vince Lascheid)
(**JakeNote: Vince Lascheid is the organist at the Pirates and Penguins games)
	As always, for the Bears, there's no tomorrow.  It's do or die. 
Considering that those are not cliches but rather the actual playing
conditions, it really doesn't matter much that if the forest had a wall, the
Bears would have their backs to it.
	And yet this year, for the first time since the development of the
sling shot, there is a tangible sense among the Bears that the momentum of this
bitter series has finally shifted, even though the Hunters have spent most of
the preseason dismissing this interpretation with the traditional chant, "Au
contraire, mon Bear."
	But the numbers don't lie.
	having carefully extrapolated the figures gleaned from years of
subscribing to the Bill James Bearstat Abstract, almost any graph you cna now
draw indicates that the Bears have turned it around.
	A total of 1,556 Bears were "harvested" in 1987, meantime they were
shot weveral times, tagged temporarily, dragged to a weigh station, tagged
permanently, and then skinned or stuffed or cooked or frozen, then had their
trademark non-retractable claws pulled out for use in the popular pastry of the
same name.
	No wonder so many Bears have practically clamored for a spot on the
injured-reserved list.
	Anyway, the harvest was 1,614 in 1988 and a record 2,213 in 1989, which
was the worst Bears team in the modern or post-Columbus era.
	But last year, after the still unbeaten Hunters took their customary
huge early lead on the first day of the three day event, the Bears roared back
to play the hunters almost dead even (sorry) for the final two periods.  At the
final gun, only 1,200 bears had been taken, ie blown away, an incredible 45.8
percent improvement.
	Oh, look out Loretta.  Somebody's been eating my porridge.
	Two legitimate theories have emerged to explain the Bears resurgence.
	
	1).  The Hunters are smellier.

	The background on this:  The Bears, and they'll admit this, simply do
not see very well, the result of centurie of evolutionary decline that comes
from trying to read the small print on those thousands of "No Trespassing"
signs that the Game Commission posts on remote trees.
	Additionally, and they'll admit this too, the Bears do not hear very
well.  This problem has been exacerbated by the widespread marketing of the
Sony Walkbear and the Bears' preference for live Metallica.
	Consequently, the Bears have had to improve their other senses and the
sense the Bears have always had plenty of is smell.  Obviously, the
diversification and proliferation of designer male fragrances has impacted the
Hunters and tipped off the Bears.  Two specific men's colognes, the wildly
popular Eau 'de Tree Stand and the borderline kinky Underbrush are responsible.

	2.)   For the second consecutive year, sources on the beleagured Bears
coaching staff who spoke only on the condition of anonymity reported that they
would come into possession of both the Hunters scouting report and game plan, a
copy of which has been obtained by the Pittsburgh Press.
	"State Game Lands 108 near Prince Gallitzin State Park and State Game
Lands 079 in Blacklick and Jackson Townships lead the list," it says.
	"With adequate hunter pressure, a high harvest is possible," it says.
	This document is on letterhead from the Pennsylvania Game Commission. 
Some ingenious Bear got himself on the mailing list.  Just plain superior
intelligence work, right there.
	Our personal handicapper, Mr. Tuesday Morning, a former assistant at
Jimmy Maroni's Las Vegas and Bear Book, puts the line on this contest at "Bears
 + 13 1/2.  That means Mr. Tuesday Morning thinks 1,350 Bears will be "taken".
(JaKeNOTE: There is a handicapper of the Monday Night Football game only in
Pgh. who calls himself "Mr. Monday Night")
	You'll have to look at the trends and make your own judgement, of
course.  Before you do, one word on the rosters.  There will be some 80,000
Hunters, the Bears will dress maybe 7,900.  The Bears will be without the
services of accomplished all-purpose Bear Teddy Ruxpin (back Surgery).  Smokey
(foot) and Yogi(groin) are listed as doubtful.
	One thing is certain.  The Bears are going to get killed.  But getting
13 1/2 as home dog, one might just be tempted.  In fact, go for it.
	Da Bears.


JaKe

210.11Collier on the "Dome Syndrome" & da oilersCELTIK::JACOBFork ItMon Nov 25 1991 23:3584
OILERS' FATE GONE WITH THE WIND CHILL
from The Pittsburgh Press, 11-25-1991

By

Gene Collier

	The houston Oilers lost to the Steelers yesterday, a bizarre slice of
non-fiction that appears to command some kind of elaborate explanation. You
won't find it here.
	The oilers lost for one overriding reason, that old familiar bugaboo,
that lament of decades old coaching laments---POOR FIELD POSITION.
	Field position is everything to the Oilers.
	If the field is positioned in a climate controlled 9 acre sunken living
room in southeast Texas, the Oilers can generally beat you comfortably. 
Yesterday's field, positioned 1,300 miles to the northeast beneath a black and
purplish snow-belching sky with chill winds and wind chills and all kinds of
annoyances, left a lot to be desired.  A roof, for one.
	Classic case of bad field position.
	"We just didn't get adjusted to the weather," said Oilers linebacker
Lamar Lathon.  "We were missing on catches I've seen our guys make with their
eyes closed.  We're a championship-caliber team; we have to find a way to
eovercome these kinds of adversities."
	One way might be actual effort, little of which was forthcoming from
the Oilers after the Steelers pulled ahead 16-7 on a 43-yard pass from Neil
O'Donnell to Dwight Stone, a play that defensive backs Bubba McDowell and Steve
Jackson, running stride for stride with Stone like an escort service, forgot to
defend.
	"We just didn't play as well as we could," said Oilers defensive end
William Fuller.  "I didn't , and I think a lot of the individuals on this team
could make the same statement."
	Why they didn't isn't too difficult to figure out.
	They got behind.  It was cold.  The wind was knocking the shoot right
out of the run and shoot.  It was snowing.  They were leading the division by
five games anyway.  No matter which way they looked at it, they were still
outdoors.  So, the heck with it.
	There's a growing pedigree of NFL teams with just this affliction, done
symdrome.
	The Oilers are a conspicuously flawless 6-0 indoors, an obviously
flawed 3-3 outdoors.  The Detroit Lions might have the worst case of it.  With
yesterdays 34-14 pasting of the Minnesota Vikings in the Metrodome, the Lions
are 8-0 indoors, 0-4 outdoors.  Outdoors they have been outscored 130-34.  All
six of Barry Sanders' 100-plus-yards rushing performances have come with a roof
over his head.
	Seattle beat Denver indoors yesterday.  The Seahawks are 4-1 with a
roof, 2-5 without one.
	From there, our premise breaks down a bit(it has been a season of
broken premises, huh?) because of the nature of the other home-dome clubs.  The
Vikings(3-5 u=inside, 3-2 outside) are sufficiently erratic in every aspect to
make a specific breakdown invalid, the New Orleans Saints are accomplished
enough that the environment shouldn't matter and the Indianapolis Colts can't
play indoors or out.
	But increasingly, your Super Bowl matchups seem to turn on the
climate-control factor.
	"It's a heartbreak, seeing that Buffalo lost to New England, because we
probably could have had home field advantage throughout the playoffs if we'd
won today," said Lathon.
	The AFC championship game still looks as if it will match Houston QB
Warren Moon (Mr. Inside) against Buffalo counterpart Jim Kelly (Mr. Outside).
Field position will be critical.
	"The weather shouldn't have been that big a factor," Moon said
yesterday after explaining in some detail how it WAS.  "I never had a
five-interception game in my career.  It happened on one of the biggest days in
franchise history(possibly clinching the AFC Central title) and that's a tough
pill to swallow."
	"The problem mainly was me.  I didn't think it was anything they(the
Steelers) did. They did the same thing and we pretty much had it figured out. 
But it was really hard to get the ball up in the air with anything on it."
	But even with the 16-mph wind largely at their backs(it swirled much of
the day), the oilers didn't manage a first down, or Moon a completion until
2:13 remained in the first quarter.  And there was no good excuse for the
complete abscence of a running game.  The bad and unspoken excuse was the
Oilers just weren't comfortable enough.  poor babies.
	"you're just not going to win in this league, I don't care if it's 85
degrees or 16 below, if you play lackadaisical," Oilers wideout Ernest Givins.
"I'm not saying we did, let's just say we didn't take advantage of the
opportunity Pittsburgh gave us.  It's no big deal."
	Perhaps not.  January 12th at Buffalo, it will be.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.12EARRTH::BROOKSToo legit ! Too legit to quit !Tue Nov 26 1991 13:221
    JaKe, tell Gene to shut up !
210.13CELTIK::JACOBFork ItTue Nov 26 1991 17:534
    Why, Midwifey, does the TRUTH HURT???????????????????
    
    JaKe
    
210.14Collier on the Pitt-Penn State seriesCELTIK::JACOBR.I.P, Badger BobWed Nov 27 1991 23:1796
PITT-PSU: ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN

From The Pittsburgh Press, 11-27-1991

By

Gene Collier

	The Pitt-Penn State series was born in Pittsburgh in 1893, so long ago
there was no Panther hotline(JaKeNOTE:Panther hotline is a local call-in radio
show on Thursday's with the Pitt coach as co-host), so far back in the
evolution process that the game was played between actual panthers and real
mountain lions, trained by a young Joe Paterno.
	Tomorrow afternoon(thanksgiving day), when the 91st meeting ends, this
city might well have lost forever a uniquely compelling swatch of the American
football fabric.
	Or, uh, not.
	Next year's game at Penn State is the last one scheduled, and though
the two schools have recently made some grunting noises about the possibility
of resuscitating it before the end of the century, tomorrow brings an annoying
sense of finality to a venue that has backlit this game so well.
	Greed and spite felled it.  I think Greed and Spite were Penn State's
starting backfield one year.  Or were they Pitt's?  Maybe not.
	But, hey, it's Thanksgiving, and let's be thankful we still have enough
broad perspective not to get maudlin about a break in a string of football
games.  You take a look around and it ain't real close to heartbreaking.
	What it is, or what it was, is just real.  On this tattered flap of the
map, Pitt-Penn State is the highest definition of football reality, because
people don't know from Super Bowl rings and winners shares and contracts for a
couple of years that bring down what most of us won't earn in a couple of
decades.  People know about pride and respect, about sometimes desperate
effort, about personal triumph and even conspicous failure, the stuff Pitt-Penn
State is played for and with and to what end.
	The Pittsburgh prism on this brought the series a certain gritty
gladiators' aura it never quite duplicated at Beaver Stadium.  It did that to
both schools.
	Penn State's 1976 team had no real business holding unbeaten Pitt to
seven points and unreal Tony dorsett to 58 yards in the first half on a mild,
damp Friday night, Nov. 27, at Three Rivers Stadium.  But it did.
	All the miracles had been worked by Pitt coach Johnny Majors and
assistant Jackie Sherrill in the four years to that point, all the pride that
had been gleaned from Pitt's No. 1 ranking and run at a national championship,
was held in abeyance during that halftime, with the score 7-7.  Pitt hadn't
beaten Penn State in 10 years, and to its earnest supporters, the next 30
minutes meant only the ultimate accomplishment or the ultimate disappointment.
	"I think our guys were just worried about where to line up against
them," said Penn State All-American linebacker Kurt Allerman 30 minutes later. 
"And Pitt just blew us off the ball."
	Majors moved Dorsett to fullback behind an unbalanced line.  A 40 yard
Dorsett blast made it 14-7, and provided the immutable image of that
night--Dorsett flying free in the Penn State secondary.  he was on his way to
224 yards, Pitt on its way to a 24-7 victory and a national championship.
	The full backlash came 5 years later, 10 years ago tomorrow to be
exact, and the enduring image was not of a gold-helmeted running back slashing
free, but of the sleek ghost white Porsche of a receiver that was Kenny
Jackson, spinning away from Dan Short at Pitt Stadium and fleeing for the
touchdown that erased the last half of a 14-0 Pitt lead.  Minutes before,
State's Roger Jackson had drilled Julius Dawkins in the Penn State secondary,
dislodging a Dan Marino pass that would have led Pitt to a 21-0 lead.  Mark
Robinson intercepted, the first of what would be seven Panthers turnovers.
	Said Pitt tight end John Brown, "I never dreamt this could happen."
	Pitt had been on its way again, to a national championship.  Pitt was
No. 1.  Penn State scored 48 consecutive points.
	To this day, there is a five-syllable retort that ends hundreds of
generic Pitt-Penn State arguments:

		"Forty-Eight, Fourteen."

	It was the cruelest episode for Pitt since the ordeal of 1975, a game
so ferociously contested that Majors said, "I've never seen two teams hit that
hard, especially on defense."  Carson Long didn't remember it for that.  He
called it "a horrible thing."  Long, the Panthers superb placekicker, missed
from 45 yards and 23 yards in the final minute and a half, missed from 51
earlier, and had an extra point blocked as Penn State won, 7-6.
	But if there's no lasting image from tomorrow's game, and none from the
next, there will always be one that will illuminate and symbolize the entire
phenomenon.
	It will be of Matt Millen, his classic all white night-nurse uniform
nearly invisible on the snow covered Pitt Stadium turf.  You had to look very
hard, but you could see Millen curled around the legs of Pitt's Elliot Walker
like some giant python, holding Walker inches short of a two point conversion,
holding a 15-13 Penn State victory in his frozen, muscular, 19-year old's arms
as the wind chill hit 15 below Nov. 27, 1977.
	That moment had all you want from 90 years of Pitt-Penn state.  It was
symbolic of how close they were, and their desperation showed how much they
meant to each other.
	"He told me, 'I didn't score,'" Millen said about the pileup near the
Penn State goal line.  "I didn't know.  I had my eyes closed."
	Closed his eyes and held on, Millen did.
	The rest of us will have our eyes closed for us on this series, and we
don't have the muscle he did.
						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.15Collier on Noll possibly leaving after this yearCELTIK::JACOBR.I.P, Badger BobWed Dec 04 1991 23:3678
AN OBSERVATION:  NOLL WANTS OUT!!
from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-3-1991

by 

Gene Collier

	Serious students of the Reign of the Emperor are merely aghast today
after a once nearly inconceivable threshold was crossed in the usually benign
setting of the weekly Chuck Noll Monday press conference.
	For the first time, Noll actually entertained pointed questions as to
his job stability, a line of questioning that had bubbled up only one other
time in his 23 seasons.  On that occasion, after the 1-6 start in 1988, the Emp
rejected it like Patrick Ewing swatting away a timid baseline jumper and
stalked from the room.
	This time, the Emp gave the questions his standard, uninspired
treatment, but treatment nonetheless.
	"If they want me to move aside, you know, it's that way.  I've never
had a big deal one way or the other with that."
	There's nothing terribly significant in those words, just as there
hasn't been in 90 percent of what Noll has offered the media for much of the
past quarter century.  The significance is that the issue met Noll's ears with
the ring of legitimacy.
	Was that a front blowing through yesterday or was it a gargantuan sigh
of relief from Dan Rooney's office down the hall?
	In any case, it says here that Noll's career entered a new phase,
perhaps the final phase.  Moreover, Noll is worlds too smart to have let it
slide there inadvertently.
	I think Noll wants it to be over.
	Surely you've noticed the number of times Noll returns to dubious
themes, such as that this Steelers team is very talented, or that this Steelers
team is very deep, or that this Steelers team has championship potential.
	Were any of that true, you would have to think a 5-8 record at this
point represents nothing more complicated than a colossal coaching failure. 
Doesn't that almost sound as if Noll is trying to convince someone there has
been one??
	There was, furthermore, a distinct difference, I think, in the kind of
self-indictment Noll indulged in yesterday compared to obviously insincere
episodes in the past.
	"When you've lost as many games as we've lost, the blame comes right
here, on me," Noll said, deflecting a question on his assistants.  "And I'm the
only one that has to answer for it."
	AND.......
	"I had real high aspirations for this team.  I thought we could get
done what we had to and overcome the problems you would have through a year."
	The message is clear,  BLAME ME, I've got good players, lots of good
players, good coaches, and we should have had a good season but we didn't,
BLAME ME, PLEASE--but the interpretations are just beginning.
	If Noll were intent on coaching into his 60's, wouldn't he have a much
better chance by casting a much harsher light on his environment, and wouldn't
he, in all his eloquence, have a more easier time convincing Dan Rooney that he
is the coach of a young, undisciplined team with the attention span of Spam???
	"Youbetcha," as the Emp would say, but I don't think he wants to.
	WHO NEEDS IT??
	The guy's a Hall of Famer with four Super Bowl victories and more than
200 victories, and he's spending his golden years waithing to see if Aaron
Jones can invent methods 30 through 35 for committing unsportsmanlike conduct?
	The guy's a legend-in-waiting and his day-to-day existence turns in
part on the legal/financial/chemical/physical status of Tim Worley??
	None of this is to absolve the Emperor for the nowhere status of this
franchise.  That would be wrong, if not impossible.  I only mean that it's very
possible the Emp has finally taken a serious inventory of his predicament and
decided he would like to be without it.
	The silence of Dan Rooney yesterday was equally instructive.
	Rooney can match Noll shrewd-for-shrewd, so it is possible his silence
was meant to scuttle any legitimacy Noll had lent the questions.  But Rooney
has never been in the habit of digesting any of his words, and the fact that he
didn't come forward with a "Why, this is a prepostorous line of
questioning--Chuck Noll's coaching future is not in jeopardy" shouldn't be
underestimated by Noll historians.
	Noll will be 60 on Jan 5.  Me's a man with the wherewithal to fill his
days a lot of ways.  I think he wants that latitude, and that sometime after
the first of the year, Rooney will give him what he wants.



JaKe

210.16Collier on Baseball, The Mets, and BonillaPTOVAX::JACOBFat, Dumb, and Happy!!!Sat Dec 07 1991 00:27114
29 MILLION REASONS WHY BASEBALL'S A FUNNY GAME
	
from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-4-1991

By

Gene Collier

	What would you say, in terms of your money situation, would be a fairly
nast car repair bill??
	Say your car needed a tune-up, oil change, state inspection, a new
catalytic convertor, shocks, brakes, a muffler, and you inadvertently ripped
off the sideview mirror backing out of the garage one morning and need that
replaced, too.  Not the garage, the mirror.
	Say that with the parts and labor and the lovely and talented state
sales tax, it all came to $662.10.  Would that be pretty stiff??
	I think most of us would say, yeah, that's ugly.
	Now let's turn that around.  Let's say the Internal Revenue Service
called you on the telephone and said, "Pal, (they're taught to say "Pal) we've
been looking at your returns for the last five years and found you've overpaid
the government by exactly $662.10.  We're sorry for the error and a check is on
its way to you right now.  We're sorry for the inconvenience."
	Calmly, you say, "I see, well, thank you for calling.  Good day."  Just
as calmly, you hang up the phone, turn, and go straight into the Michael
Jackson MOONWALK, high-five the DOG, throw open the window and scream,
"PAAARTAY! YEAH! WOO WOO WOO!!"
	Imagine, $662.10 comin' to a mailbox very near you.  Cooler than U2,
man.	
	Now, imagine if you will (c'mon, stay with me on this; have I ever
misled you more than 1000 times, or so!!), imagine if you will $662.10 comin'
to you at every hour of every day for the next five years.  That's $662.10 for
you, EVERY SINGLE HOUR OF EVERY SINGLE DAY for the next five years.
	You know what that is, friends????
	That's tewnty-nine million dollars.  That's Bobby Bo.
	Thats what his new contract with the New York Mets means.
	Sure, its the biggest contract in baseball, more than even Roger
Clemens', but what does that have to do with anything??
	Let's check our sensibilities at the door and look further at waht $29
million, and its annual increments, relly mean.
	In New York, where Bobby's heart is, the natives have seen the $29
million figure often this year, and I mean even before Bobby agreed to follow
his heart.
	Twenty-Nine million dollars is:

	1).  Nearly the exact amount in extra welfare costs contributing to New
York State's budget deficit of $689 million./  Uncomfortable little coincidence
right there, but hey, you know what they say, "Baseball's a funny game.
	
	2). The amount the Suffolk County Department of Social Services is in
the red because of worsening costs of educating handicapped children, Aid to
Families of Dependent Children, home relief and Medicaid.

	3).  The amount New York City had been trying to save by closing 16
city-run pharmacies in a budget cutting move Manhattan Borough Council
President Ruth Messinger called, "a threat to public health."

	This is no attempt to blame Bobby or the Mets for random social
problems--it would be a poor one if it were--merely an effort to put $29
million in other contexts.
	You may find the juxtapositions a little unsettling if not disgusting,
as I do, but the fact remains that Bonilla is essentially blameless in this
thing except for one small tangent of it, that being the constant invocation of
that incredibly irritating free agent cliche: "I'll do what's best for me and
my family."
	The blaring implication of that line is: "It's not the Money."
	Funny how the best place for Bobby and his family seemed to change 3
times in the final 36 hours of the Sunday-Monday negotiations, and each change
just happened to coincide with a raising of the ante.
	The best place for Bobby and his family was clearly Philadelphia when
agent Dennis gilbert told Phillies General Manager Lee Thomas he could have
Bonilla for $28 million and an escape clause after three of the 5 years.  When
Thomas told Gilbert $26.5 million and no on the other thing, New York suddenly
looked like a better place for Bobby and the family.
	I've spent a lot of time in New York and it generally doesn't improve
THAT much in 6 hours.
	But just for the record on this family business, according to the
1990-91 Almanac of Consumer Markets, median family income when the principle
wage earner falls into the 25-34 age category, as Bobby does, is about $31,111. 
This means that with an average annual salary of $5.8 million, Bonilla could
not only support his family, but another 185 families as well in 1992, another
931 families for the lenght of his contract.
	I'm just tellin' ya.
	This contract stuff isn't for the squeamish.  Major league baseball
players were paid $662 million in 1991, a figure that will swell to
approximately $700 million in 1992.
	You can find that $700 million kicking around out there, too.
	The united Nations, as it happens, has nine internationla peace-keeping
missions cooking around the globe.  Total annual cost: Oh, 'bout $700 million.
	Makes you wonder who's on duty at the Ultimate Budget Office, doesn't
it.
	"Let's see, stability of the world, $700 million.  Right. Baseball
players, $700 million. Looks good to me."
	But hey, this is getting depressing.  Let's talk some ball.
	The Mets, in paying Bobby $5.8 million next summer, will be paying him:

		--$35,802.47 per game if he plays all 162.
		--$252,173.90 per home run if he averages the 23 he did the
			past five years
		--$322,222.20 per home run if he hits 18 as he did last year
		--#3,978.05 per inning if he plays them all.
		--$10,104.53 per at bat if he averages the 574 he has the past
		        five years.
	

	That makes you feel better, doesn't it.  Yeah.

	Now, about the meal money.......

						Gene Collier


JaKe


210.17FDCV06::KINGBe nice to me, I'm a Pheresis Donor!!Sat Dec 07 1991 23:424
    Some mean stats... I don't blame the players for signing the contracts.
    I blame the PEOPLE who offer them the contracts.

    REK
210.18lets blame the right peopleHERIAM::CORBETTDo you think people will ever learn?Mon Dec 09 1991 12:2517
> Some mean stats... I don't blame the players for signing the contracts.
>    I blame the PEOPLE who offer them the contracts.
>
>    REK


	one more time.  The blame belongs to the fans and/or society.  We're
the ones paying for the tickets; buying MLB licenesed hats, jerseys, and 
posters;  buying products from the sponsors.  The people who offered the
contract arn't printing the money up themselves.  The fans are the ones that
make it possible for bobby Bo to get $5,000,000 a year, New Kids on the 
Block $121,000,000 a year, Bill Cosby $100,000,000 a year, Oprah
$75,000,000, and  teachers $25,000.  



mc
210.19CNTROL::MACNEALruck `n' rollMon Dec 09 1991 13:362
    The income tax on Bobby's money will go a ways to helping New York
    reduce the deficits mentioned in Collier's article.
210.20Touch of reality/cynicismANGLIN::KIRKMANBack to shoveling snow again (Uugh)Mon Dec 09 1991 15:395
    re: income tax
    
    It's already included in the buget.
    
    Scott
210.21CNTROL::MACNEALruck `n' rollMon Dec 09 1991 16:006
210.22CNTROL::CHILDSHit &amp; Run Noter at LargeMon Dec 09 1991 18:203
 The line about he's been in New York before and it don't change that much
 in 6 hours was priceless...
210.23Collier on why Bonds is needed in PGH next yearPTOVAX::JACOBFat, Dumb, and Happy!!!Mon Dec 09 1991 23:14126
BONDS A TRADE THAT CAN'T AND WON'T BE MADE!!!
	From The Pittsburgh Press, 12-6-1991

By

Gene Collier

	In a series of presumably thunderous brainstorms that began yesterday
and were to continue today and well into the annual winter meetings this
weekend in Miami, the Pirates' front office hopes to hot-wire its daring plan
to trade Barry Bonds.
	Unable to pay him satisfactorily in a market convulsed by the signing
Monday of Bobby Bonilla by the New York Mets, and scared to get nothing for him
but the draft choices given the teams who lose free agents (draft choices are a
lot like lottery tickets, but a lot more expensive), Pirates General Manager
Larry Doughty said yesterday he plans to discuss matters with Bonds' California
agent, Rod "Mister" Wright, before proceeding.
	But regardless of how this final strategy shakes down, i'm sure
Operation Swap The Bondster will make perfect sense except for two small
factors.

	--It probably can't be done.	

	--An the odd chance that it could, it would be a collosal mistake.

	Other than that, I'm sure I'll like it.
	Let's address the first of these problems first.
	In the current market and at his current contract status, who in their
right mind would want Barry Bonds???
	True, baseball people aren't in their right minds, but is there a front
office decision maker stupid enough to think like this??
	"Let's see now, I can have Barry Bonds, but I'd have to give up an
everyday player and a good pitcher, or two everyday players, and then I'll have
to give him a contract for $35 million or more by next December or lose him,
and if I jkeep him at that rate, i might not be able to afford to build or keep
a team around him, and if I lose him, he'll probably call me a rascist.  In
public.
	"Hmmmm. Yeah, I'm interested."
	Now a couple of teams have said publicly they'd be interested, but
saying in public you're not interested in Barry bonds is simply bad public
relations.  Internally, genuine interest in trading for Bonds will be very
light.
	Note that Doughty put him on the market about noon Tuesday, and that as
of close of business yesterday, no team had asked Doughty to talk with bonds
about the possibility of reaching agreement with him on a long term contract.	
	The profile of a team who could even think of getting involved in the
operation is very specific: tons and tons of money (only five joined the
bonilla hunt), quality players to trade, and thinks it can win by adding Bonds. 
Only the San Diego Padres and the California Angels meet all three criteria,
and just barely on the second.
	Who do you want for Barry??  California's ace lefty Chuck finley, he of
the consecutive 18-victory seasons??  No thanks.  He's having surgery on his
big toe today, the Pirates don't need pitching, and worst, he'll be a free
agent at the end of next season.  Maybe they'll throw in Luis Polonia.  No
thanks.
	And from the Padres?  Bip Roberst?  And what and what??  Benito
Santiago?  Nope.  he's a free agent end of next year, too.
	But the list of reasons that the Pirates will find Bonds hard to trade
is dwarfed by the list of reasons to keep him.
	Jim Leyland has said many times that Bonds wants--perhaps more than
anything-- to be the highest paid player in the game.  In the season that
approaches, Bonds will be trying to perform in such a way as to justify the
doubling or tripling of his salary.  Tha manager has also predicted publicly
that Bonds will win the National League's Most Valuable Player in the 1992
season precisely for this reason, and who would seriously doubt it??
	The Pirates would be foolish--and in the minds of the fans
criminal--not to make sure bonds has that kind of season in Pittsburgh.
	Let's assume that with the nearly $24 million they have from the failed
Bonilla negotiations, the Pirates sign free agents Steve Bueschele and Mike
LaValliere, and let's look at a projected 1992 lineup:

	Orlando Merced			RF
	Jay Bell			SS
	Andy Van Slyke			CF
	Barry Bonds			LF
	Steve Buechele			3B
	Jeff King (or) John Wehner      1B
	Mike LaValliere			C
	Jose Lind			2B

	Put on top of that a rotation built with Doug Drabek, John Smiley,
Zane Smith and Randy Tomlin, and you still have one of the best teams in the
National League.
	Can that team win the division a third consecutive time??
	"I think we can," Leyland said.
	Now, subtract Bonds.  there is no equal return on Bonds.  he's the best
player in the league.  No way Leyland could make the same statement without
him.
	Furthermore, if you subtract bonds on to of Bonilla's departure, you 
can subtract a lot of attendance as well.
	Subtract Bonds and the players you'll get in return will be unhappy to
be playing in Pittsburgh, which will obviously, at that point, be into some
major rebuilding.
	By keeping Bonds, the Pirates also buy a year of negotiating time in
which a lot can happen.
	Although it certainly appears that Bonds will be worth a prohibitive
price in the open market, there are factors that could combine to keep his
price reasonable.
	One is the opulent list of eligible free agents next year: Wade Boggs,
Joe Carter, David Cone, Kal Daniels, Eric Davis, Doug Drabek, Dennis Eckersley,
Chuck Finley, John Franco, Barry Larkin, Randy Myers, Kirby Puckett, Harold
Reynolds, Cal Ripken, Benito Santiago, Ruben Sierra, John Smiley, Dave Stewart,
Greg Swindell, Ryne Sandberg, Greg Maddux, and Andre Dawson.
	Most of those players are as good as Bonilla or better and it's
doubtful baseball is in a position to give every wingle one of them between $30
million and $40 million in the year its television contract runs out.
	Second, there is stated sentiment among some baseball owners that Bonds
will not perform well with a monster contract.
	Third, Bonds might take a hard look at Bonilla's summer and, if Bobby
struggles under the enormous pressure of his contract and environment, actually
consider staying put.  Bonilla didn't even make it to New York before the New
York Times carried a front page article in which he was blamed for not sending
money to his old high school.
	Lastly, Bonds is a Pirate.  He's Pirate scouted, Piratesdrafted,
Pirates schooled, Pirates developed, and Pirates indulged.  If I were the
Pirates, I'd be darned if I'd give him the satisfaction of forcing my hand when
I have a chance to win.  Make him stand and deliver.

						Gene Collier


JaKe




210.24Collier, hilariously on cliches!!PTOVAX::JACOBFat, Dumb, and Happy!!!Tue Dec 10 1991 00:20183
TRITE BUT TRUE: NONSENSE CAN VBE ITS OWN REWARD
from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-8-1991

By

Gene Collier
JaKenote: Assume italics for phrases in quotes and capitals!!


	Today, "OOZING WITH CONFIDENCE", we "PIN OUR EARS BACK" and try to
"BREAK CONTAIN" in the hope that we can "SURVIVE A SCARE".  Assured by the
knowledge that the "GROUND CAN'T CAUSE A FUMBLE", we'll come with some
"SMASH-MOUTH FOOTBALL" in the "RED ZONE" in order to "PUT POINTS ON THE
SCOREBOARD".  should we fail, "WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR".	
       Why am I blathering on like this. and in annoying on and off bold italic
type as well?  Because I'm sort of hysterical with anticipation.  it's time for
awarding the eighth annual Trite Trophy, conferred each December by this column
in the abscence of a legitimate topic to the absolute worst Cliche of the Year
in sports.
	Once so marginal a post season award that the Tums Neutralizer of the
Week was a comparative industry giant, the Trite Trophy now enjoys a sphere of
influence and popularity rivaled perhaps only by John Sununu.
	The purpose of the Trite is to embarrass from the language a
patricularly offensive slice of nonsense among the dozens and dozens of
particularly offensive slices that sports gives us every year to heap upon the
giant, festering toxic waste dump of dumb language we've been left with over
it's history.
	Stuff like:  "THEY GOTTA KEEP IT CLOSE"
	Really??  That, I guess is for spectators who thought their team's best
strategy was to see how far they could let the other team get, then have a "GUT
CHECK."  Furthermore, you've gotta more than keep it close.  Ultimately, you've
got to do what Groucho Marx warned Margaret Dumont about in "Duck Soup," I
think.  When she said, "Oh hold me closer, closer!"  he said something like,
"If I hold you any closer you'll be behind me."
	But not just any ridiculous cliche can win the shallowed Trite Trophy. 
Here at sinfull furnished Trite Headquarters, we are proud of holding the
winner to the lowest possible standards.  Our three criteria, from which we
have never wavered in our entire eight year history; candidates must be
shamefully, excessively abused, candidates must have been pretty useless to
begin with, and most important, I have to really, really hate them.
	I mean the way I hated former winners like "SMASH-MOUTH FOOTBALL" (did
anyone ever go on injured reserve with a smashed mouth?), like "HE COUGHS IT
UP!(defenders prefer the common fumble, because if he really coughs it up, no
one wants to jump on it), like "GUT CHECK" and "CRUNCH TIME" and "THROWBACK"
and "THEY WENT TO THE WELL ONCE TOO OFTEN (isn't it amazing that no team ever
goes to the well exactly the right amount of times?), like "WE'RE PLAYING 'EM
ON AT A TIME" (as though there's some other way, even against William & Mary).
	It is possible--and what a tribute to the Trite Commitee(myself and an
eclectic handful of professional journalists who really care, because, like me,
they have way too much time on their hands)--to use every Trite winner in a
single sentence without even a hint of contrivance.  And the beauty is that the
sentence would mean absolutely nothing.
	But enough of this confessional lurch down memory lane.  On with our
show.  Within minutes, ladies and gentlemen, right here in this auditorium, the
awarding of the eighth annual Trite Trophy.  First, a look at the field.
	It is, again, huge, and stunningly terrible.
	A monstrous annoyiung autumn was turned in by this highly abused
football term, "ALL-PURPOSE YARDS".  Oh, please.  When I was a kid, we had an
all-purpose yard.  Whiffle ball, football, dog-chasing, etc., but imagine
somebody with, say, 217 all-purpose yards.  Maybe that's what they refer to in
the broadcasts as "A LOT OF REAL ESTATE".
	This was also the autumn in which something happened to timeouts.  They
somehow became less desirable, even dangerous, because instead of merely taking
timeouts, or using timeouts, every team began wringing its hands over whether
to "BURN A TIMEOUT".  Neil O'Donnell turned into a pyromaniac.
	Another such metamorphisis began last winter and continues, this in
basketball.  Foul shots were liquefied.  The shooter no longer merely made a
foul shot.  "HE DRAINED IT".
	The fall of 1991 also gave us too much of "THE HOT RECEIVER",
apparently the receiver to whom a quarterback should throw in the event of the
defense coming "RIGHT UP THE GUT" with its "EARS PINNED BACK".  Other receivers
in that situation presumably are either cold or actually frozen.
	However, should the "HOT RECEIVER" correctly "ADJUST TO THE BALL"(catch
it), and score a touchdown after breaking a tackle, it could be because the
defender "FAILED TO WRAP UP".  While failure to wrap up(poor tackling) got a
lot of play this year, I'd better get quickly to our 1991 finalists lest this
column be charged with failing to wrap up.
	These are cliches that "TURNED IT UP A NOTCH" when it counted, cliches
that didn't "SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT", and are thus "IN THE HUNT" for the
most prestigiously disgraceful bad language award conferred anywhere this side
of that side of this desk.
	(The tension is brutal, YES-NO?)

	OUR FOURTH RUNNER-UP:

	"TRUE FRESHMAN"
	Now what the HECK is that supposed to mean????  True to his girl?? 
True to his school??  True to his word?? "And to think," the broadcasters say
breathlessly, "he's a true freshman!"    Yeah,it's heartwarming, al right.
	Presumably, this awful cliche is an attempt to distinguish what used to
be a regular, standard issue college freshman from a player who was redshirted
as a freshman but retains freshman eligibility.  Redshirt freshman was a clumsy
construction possibly, but not an annoying cliche like this.
	What does it say about us that we almost can't accept that an eighteen
year old could be playing football in college without having been delayed by
academic defiency or having bought time to bulk up to the necessary 295 pounds? 
It's true! It's true! He's a true freshman.
	The key right now, I guess, for all "TRUE FRESHMAN", is to keep from
turning into a "DUBIOUS SOPHOMORE", a "HIGHLY SUSPECT JUNIOR", or a "TOTALLY
BOGUS SENIOR".

	OUR THIRD RUNNER-UP

	"HEY!"
	Yeah, "HEY!", the one word percussive shout that pulses through Gary
Glitter's "Rock & Roll Part II", the song they not only played at the Civic
Arena throughout last season and the Stanley Cup playoffs, but also in just
about every stadium and arena in America.  The "HEY!" in the what is sometimes
ingeniously called "The Hey Song", ascended to excrutiartingly annoying status,
even to the extent that I must quote the bimbette owner of the Cleveland
Indians in the classic film "Major League", who upon excessive exposure to the
song "Wild Thing", eloquently deadpanned, "I hate this *&%$#@* song."

	OUR SECOND RUNNER-UP

	"STRETCH THE DEFENSE VERTICALLY"
	This is inexcusable football jargon for "move the ball".  By stretching
the defense vertically, the offense hopes to open other areas into which it can
move the ball and perhaps stretch the defense vertically. Total coachspeak
nonsense.  If the offense really succeeded in stretching the defense vertically,
that defensive unit would be a bunch of guys with sore necks who are taller
this week than last, having been stretched vertically.  Didn't they try that
once with Barney Fife??????

	OUR FIRST RUNNER-UP

	"ON A ROLL"
	In 1991, whenever a team or an individual did as many as two things
correctly in succession, he/she/it was immediately pronounced "ON A ROLL", and
never on a biscuit or a bun, and never, ever on a croissant.
	Sports has always had strict rules for food references.  This is why
relief pitcher Rollie Fingers is on record saying that election to the Hall of
Fame would be "ICING ON THE CAKE", not ice cream on the pie, and never, ever,
whipped cream on the strawberries or, for that matter, ketchup on the
doughnuts.  Hey, it's easier on the ears than icing on the cake.
	Furthermore, many teams who were on a roll actually stayed that way,
and were pronounced to be "on fire."  This is what happens when you leave your
rolls in the oven.
	

	THE ENVELOPE PLEASE......
	
	And now, the announcement of the 1991 winner of the Trite Trophy for
the absolute worst Cliche of the Year in sports (no flash photography, no
recording devices, please).  

	Ladies and Gentlemen:

	"YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO....."

	Yeah, you fill in the blank, like so many sports stars, sportswriters,
and sportscasters did with incredible frequency during the last year.  In fact,
this cliche was so pervasive it extended from every level of every sport into
just about every journalistic crevice.
	It's a great, great choice for the Trite.
	It was everywhere, it was meaningless, it was grotesquely irksome.  You
don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that this cliche has applications
almost everywhere; the problem is that none of them make sense.
	As key Trite Committee member Tom Jolly of The Pittsburgh Press points
out, "The implication is that if you weree a rocket scientist, you'd be able to
accomplish the act in question."
	Bingo.  for example, twice during the baseball season, Cincinnati Reds
Manager Lou Piniella and Minnesota Twins Manager Tom Kelly noted, "You don't
have to be a rocket scientist to make a double switch."
	Well, perhaps not, but if you were, it wouldn't gaurantee anything
either.  To prove this, I spoke with Dr. Warren Strahle, regents professor of
Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech to
all of you non-rocket Scientists).
	"Sre you sir, or have you ever been, what would be generically called a
rocket scientict??"
	"Yes," Dr. Strahle said.
	"And would you know how to make the double switch??"
	"I don't," he said.  "It's a switching of players, but I don't know the
actual procedure."
	Thank you very much.
	We now join "Nightline" already in progress.
			
						Gene Collier



JaKe

210.25Collier on the Steelers being horriblePTOVAX::JACOBFat, Dumb, and Happy!!!Tue Dec 10 1991 00:59106
COACHES WEAR A LOOK OF INEPTITUDE IN PHILOSOPHY, EXECUTION, FASHION
	
from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-9-1991

By

Gene Collier

	Houston--All techinical and strategical questions having to do with the
Steelers shrivel at the approach of The Big One, of course.
	How to phrase it?  That changes day to day, doesn't it.
	Yesterday, it looked something like this:

	Was this the final appearance by a Chuck Noll-coached Steelers team
outside the city limits??
	The whole proposition of a coaching change used to be--in the game's
silly vernacular--a bit of a reach.  No more.
	Noll and his coaching staff have deflated this team to such a degree
that they are susceptible to the second guess in every aspect from philosophy
to fashion.
	For this Astrodome affair, Chuck and the fellas chose waist-length
Starter jackets in basic black.  Chic, but c'mon guys.  You cold down there?
Should we turn the air conditioning down??  Perhaps a psychological ploy. 
Steelers coaches were trying to make the Oilers THINK it was cold.  When it's
cold, the Oilers usually lose.  One problem: you just can't hide that dome up
there.  It's pretty obvious.
	Beyond that, nothing was going to keep the Steelers from playing to
expectations yesterday.  And they played right down to them.  They played so
badly that Bubby Brister, who spent the game's first three hours in obscurity,
declined an invitation to become even remotely conspicious.
	"There were about six minutes left," Brister said.  "They asked me to
warm up."
	And did you?
	"No."
	And why, as if we don't know?
	"It would have been pretty humiliating to go in right there(Houston
led, 24-6).  I'm not a rookie needing work.  If Neil had been hurt, I'd have
been glad to go on.  (but) if I'm in the game, i want it to be 0-0."
	When you think hard about it, it's pretty humiliating to be anywhere
with this team right now, especially when you flash back to where it was a year
ago.  Last December, the Steelers came into this building with a chance to win
the American Football Conference's central Division championship and put
Brister on the field with the score 0-0.  Houston put backup QB Cody Carlson on
the field at the same time, and he ripped the league's best defense, and
ripped, and ripped, and ripped until it was 34-14.
	That was positively stunning.
	Yesterday was not stunning at all, and that's how far this organization
has back-tracked in less than 12 months.
	"I don't think we've gone backward," said running back Merrill Hoge,
sounding like a fifth term congressman.  "We jsut haven't progressed.  I know
some people would say you're regressing if you're not progressing."
	Yeah, we would.
	Steelers President Dan Rooney back in the cramped, steamy Astrodome
underground after another totally vacuous performance, wasn't much into
progress assessment.
	"I want to look at this whole thing after the season is over.  I don't
think I should talk about specific areas right now, but i think there's been
some progress.
	OH!
	Rooney puts enormous stock in the fact that the Steelers are a young
team and probably not enough in the fact they are a bad young team in a sport
that generally doesn't take 5 or 10 years to figure out how to play.  Football
is more akin to basketball.  After a year or two at this level, you can play or
you can't.
	Regardless of this season's final arithmetic--9 or 10 or 11
losses--there will be one element of relative certainty, that being that this
was a total team effort, the Steelers' offense stunk, their defense stunk,
their special teams stunk and theri coaching stunk, the big analytical grand
slam, if you will.
	"It's hard to find any good spots when you have the record we have,"
said kicker Gary Anderson, who banged a 54 yard field goal on the last oplay of
the first half to make the Steelers think the actually had a chance in this
game.  "When you're winning, some of your weaknesses are glossed over, and when
you're losing, they're magnified.  We have some obvious weaknesses, but what
they are, I not going to touch on that one."
	Well, you can pretty much just put your finger anywhere.
	It's almost too easy to finger the Joe Walton offense, but let's give
it a poke, shall we?
	No poor sister in the NFL--not the awful Green Bay Packers, not the
attrocious Indianapolis Colts--can match the Steelers string of 10 consecutive
games without a 100 yard rushing performance or a 100 yard receiving
performance by a receiver.
	The Steelers have scored two touchdowns or fewer 11 times in 14 games
and no TD's yesterday.  In the past ten games, they have scored 3 first quarter
TDs.
	Defensively, the Steelers came out in a 4-1-6 alignment that was really
a 2-3-6 because it included two linebackers as down lineman, and that was as
disastrous as their offense.
	Houston had practically faxed them their intention to run more this
week, having been unable to use Allen Pinkett effectively and having lost two
in a row.  Pinkett gained 98 yards on 16 carries against a passes only defense
and scored twice, the second time standing up from 11 yards.
	But forget yesterday's footnotes.
	 This team has been going backward for a year and, in a roundabout way,
for a decade.  
	"The effort was there," Noll said.  "We just didn't get the execution."
	Something could happen here soon enough, but whether they'll call it an
execution is another matter.

						Gene Collier



JaKe


210.26TNPUBS::MCCULLOUGHDr. Seuss - RIPTue Dec 10 1991 18:093
re .24

I guess Gene Collier is the GO TO GUY for sport columns.
210.27Collier on the Mets Winter MovesPTOVAX::JACOBPlayin with the box the kids came inTue Dec 17 1991 00:5091
METS' MOVES MORE HYPE THAN HELP
from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-13-1991

By

Gene Collier

	Judging from some of the screechy exclamations blowing out of Miami
Beach this week, the entire purpose fo the 1992 baseball season has been
reduced to determining a World Series opponent for the New Work Mets.
	And that team, of course, will go down in four unless they display some
creative prudence and, oh, concede during batting practice or something.
	Al Harazin, a reformed Wrigley Field bleacher bum who is in this
incarnation the general manager of the Mets, modestly assessed a Wednesday
night trade that brought New York two-time American League Cy young Award
winner Bret Saberhagen as "one that could win us two pennants, 1992, and 1993."
	Gee, Al, why don't you take 1994 while you're at it??  Isn't there some
kind of buy two, get the third one free type deal??  Maybe, but some
restrictions apply, right?
	Not on rhetoric apparently.
	"I don't think too many people are going to look forward to the New
York Mets coming to town," Harazin said.
	I'm sure there's some truth in that, if only because some cities have
ordinances against gratuitous bombast.
	If the season were to begin tomorrow, (and the thought of leap-frogging
Christmas AND the bowl games has a certain allure, doesn't it?) I wouldn't be
picking the Mets to win the NL East, let alone the next two or three pennants
and a dynasty license.
	The Mets, in case everyone has forgotten, didn't lose the division on
the final weekend last year.  They pretty much lost it by the end of July. 
They finished 20-1/2 games out of first with a record of 77-84.  If everything
goes well for them, they have a chance to turn that record around, but little
more.
	Certainly Harazin deserves credit for a swashbuckling attempt.  With
the Saberhagen trade and his free agent seccesses with Bobby bonilla and Eddie
Murray, Harazin was the hottest thing in Miami Beach since the June Taylor
Dancers.
	But none of those strokes was as critical as his first, the one that
got far less publicity, the hiring of Manager Jeff Torborg away from the
Chicago White Sox.  Torborg is a talented, purposeful manager who will bring
the Mets the kind of focus and pitch-to-pitch discipline they have lacked since
the early days of Davey Johnson.
	How far that will go toward overcoming shaky pitching, shakier defense
and poor overall team speed is pretty much the theme of 1992, except for the
pennant stuff, of course.
	Yeah.  I said shaky pitching.  Ya gotta problem with that??
	With Frank Viola all but lost to free agency, the Mets rotation is
basically Dwight Gooden, Saberhagen, David Cone and Syd Fernandez.  Gooden is
coming off a 13 victory season and shoulder surgery, Saberhagen missed a month
with tendinitis of the rotator cuff last year and got only 14 decisions because
of baried ailments the year before that.  Since winning his second Cy Young in
1989, he's 18-17.  Cone, who won 20 games in 1988, failed to win 15 for a third
consecutive year in 1991 and lost as many as he won(14).  Fernandez, who used
to wear no. 50 because he is from Hawaii, our 50th state, and now wears it
because he is as big as Hawaii, missed most of last year with a broken bone in
his wrist.  He returned just in time to hear outgoing general manager Frank
Cashen grouse, "We've spent nearly $6 million on him and he's yet to win 10
games (in a season).
	Someone wrote flatly that the Saberhagen trade gives the Mets the best
rotation in baseball.  That's fascinating, because when I add up what those
four guys have done over the past two years, I get 88 victories and 72 losses. 
When i add up what Doug Drabek, John Smiley, Zane Smith and Randy Tomlin have
done over the same period, I get 106 victories and 68 losses.  In case you were
wondering, the New York rotation averaged 10 victories per man last year.
	Even if the Mets got very solid pitching, they're not going to strike
everybody out, and opponents needn't be very selective about where to put the
ball in play against this defense.  As I understand it, Torborg plans to play
Bonilla in left, Vince Coleman in center, howard Johnson in right, Murray at
first, Dave Magadan at third, Kevin Elster at short, Bill Pecota, who was
acquired in the Saberhagen deal, at second, and 22-year old Todd Hundley behind
the plate.  That means the Mets will be playing a right fielder in left, a left
fielder in center, a third baseman in right, a first baseman at third, and a
third baseman at second.  Murray and Magadan on the corners share basically the
same range as an electric range.
	What you would suppose puts the Mets in the World Series is "that
powerful lineup behind the rotation" as Saberhagen called it.  Thats
fascinating, too, because when I add up the homers that lineup hit last year, I
get 93, and when I add up the homers the Pirates' projected starting lineup hit
last year, I get 97, and the Pirates were only a middle of the pack team in
homers.
	Essentially what all this means is that even though what appeared to
hallen at the winter meeting was that everyone agreed the Mets would become the
Harlem Globetrotters of baseball and everyone else would be the Washington
Generals, the way things play out might just vary a little.
					
                                             Gene Collier



JaKe

210.28RIPPLE::DEVLIN_JOOnly a few hours til vacation!Tue Dec 17 1991 18:3218
    Geez, one you think Collier isn't a little unbiased?  He covers
    Pittsburgh, no doubt is a little miffed at Bonilla, and probably isn't
    a big fan of the Mets anyway.  Given that I haven't seen folks in the
    Mets notes file proclaiming dynasties (most are cautiously optomistic),
    and Collier takes one sentence by Harazin, and twists it around, what
    we have in this column is jealousy.  
    
    The Pirates have choked away two straight Eastern Division wins, have
    lost Bonilla for nothing, and most likely will lose Bonds for nothing.
    
    I agree that the Mets aren't world-beaters, and have lots of question
    marks - but they have to be figured as at least solid contenders for
    the eastern crown - and I think the east will be weak this year.  
    
    Of course, if the Mets don't win the pennant - and there's a damn great
    chance they won't, Collier can brag about how he predicted it.  
    
    JD
210.29I don't see him proclaiming a Pirate dynasty eitherCNTROL::MACNEALruck `n' rollTue Dec 17 1991 18:465
    JD, there is at least one Mets fan in the Baseball conference calling
    the Mets front runners for the Eastern title.
    
    Instead of bashing Collier because he's a Pirates fan, why not refute
    some of the numbers he's based his conclusion on.
210.30RIPPLE::DEVLIN_JOOnly a few hours til vacation!Tue Dec 17 1991 20:0531
    
    
    Mac -
    
    The whole premise of his column is centered around Harazin.  The media
    - the national media - has proclaimed the Mets as winners coming out of
    this winter meeting.  Along with some other teams.  Collier makes it
    sound like everyone is handing the Mets a dynasty - yet Collier is the
    FIRST person I've seen use that word when talking about this current
    Mets team.    
    
    And Mac, calling a team 'front runners' is no where near the hysteria
    that Collier would like his readers (in Pitts) believe.  I talked at
    lenght with my father (in New York) over the weekend, and he said folks
    are optomistic - but not proclaiming automatic champeenships.  Too many
    worries over Doc's health, and the loss of Viola.
    
    Collier did a good job of writing a story that Pirate fans/Mets haters
    want to read - that the Mets and the media are crowing the Mets kings.
    
    The Pirates should still be considered the team to beat, IMO.  THe
    MEts, Phillies, Cards, and Cubs all have a shot at making serious runs. 
    Should be a fun division.
    
    I just don't want Collier's article to magically transform to "New York
    Hype" as next season wears on.
    
    For the record, I've stated my concerns about this Mets team in the
    Baseball and the Mets conference.  
    
    JD
210.31RIPPLE::DEVLIN_JOOnly a few hours til vacation!Tue Dec 17 1991 20:1015
    BTW, Harazin said, according to Collier, that picking up Saberhagen 
    ...COULD win the Mets pennants in 1992 and 1993.  Collier should have
    looked up the word "COULD" in his dictionary before writing his trahs
    about the Harazin talking dynasty.   Could is not proclaiming anything. 
    If he said "Saberhagen's signing will win us the pennant" or
    "Saberhagaen's signing guarentees us the pennant.."  then Collier would
    have the premise for his poorly written article.  But Harazin didn't
    say those things.  Collier says them.  Like I said, an article by
    someone searching for something to write about.  ANd instead of
    focusing on the Pirates signing of Buchele, and what it means to Jeff
    King and John Bubba Wehner, or what the Buccos will do with Barry
    Bonds, or the negotiations wiht Mike Spanky Lavalliere  - he choses an
    easy subject and bashes the Mets.  
    
    JD
210.32AXIS::ROBICHAUDHomer,Plato,Voltaire,SmithWed Dec 18 1991 10:3510
    	Hey JD, what's good for the Red Sox is good for the Mets.  8^)
    Pittsburgh fans should stop blaming the Mets, Bobby Bonilla, Barry
    Bonds and teams with money.  They should blame their own management.
    They could've had Bonilla for a little over 4 million but chose
    to give the money to the white guy instead.  The Pittsburgh press
    should be ashamed of themselves for going along with this scam instead
    of pointing out the obvious fact that Bonilla could be playing for
    the Pirates.
    
    				/Don
210.33Quiz: Which teams always get the lead-in on ESPN SportsCenter?GUSHER::WAUGAMANWed Dec 18 1991 11:2517
    
    JD's just trying to get off a pre-emptive strike before the real
    New York hype does roll in.  It's a given that it will.  Was there
    ever a more overly-ballyhooed team in baseball than the New York 
    Mets, 1985-1990?
    
    Collier is a "feature columnist", barely literate in any given
    sport as are most feature columnists.  He's not a baseball analyst,
    and when he reacts to a news item it'll be strictly from the hip,
    with some humor mixed in.  I wouldn't take what he writes as an
    indictment against Pittsburgh.  The guy's out to catch the attention
    of the casual reader, mostly with warmed-over bull but very little
    hard news or substance, much as Dan Shaughnessy (of undeserved 
    award-winning sportswriting fame) does in Boston...
    
    glenn
    
210.34CNTROL::MACNEALruck `n' rollWed Dec 18 1991 11:592
    Look back over Collier's past columns.  He's not afraid to pull any
    punches when it comes to the home town teams.
210.35One of the most humorous Collier Columns I've readPTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementThu Dec 19 1991 00:2586
ATHLETICS CONGRESS RUNS FROM DESTINY

from The Pittsburgh Press, 12-17-1991

By

Gene Collier


	Wary at being beckoned by destiny (or is it destined by beckony?), the
Three Rivers Athletic Congress met Sunday and just simply passedon the
opportunity to make running history.
	Asked for a ruling by female runners who haven't had sex change
operations but who contend that April Capwill has an unfair competitive
advantage ovewr them because she HAS had one, the congress threw up its hands
and said that, unless someone with more authority says she can't, April can
continue to compete with females.
	It has been 15 years since she was a he.
	Now a lot of people who have heard or read this story have had the same
reaction.
	Obvious solution:  All future races are to have winners in the men's,
women's, men's masters, women's masters, wheelchair and transsexual divisions.
	A little more paperwork maybe, but worth the trouble.
	Why this didn't occur to the Three Rivers AC doesn't much matter,
although I suspect it was just one of those little brain cramp deals like when
you used to get that Trivial Pursuit question about who was Gerald Ford's vice
president and although you CERTAINLY KNEW it was Nelson Rockefeller, you just
couldn't come up with it that weekend.
	The chance for innovation, then, escaped the Three Rivers AC, and the
likelihood that Pittsburgh willone day play host to the first Sexual
Identity-ChallengedOlympics is probably out the window.
	Someone, somewhere, is going to take that bold first step, but it will
be only that, a first step.
	Patti Hoffman, one of the contestants in the Sept. 29 Great Race who
complained about April Capwill, as much as outlined the future with the
specifics of her complaint.
	"We feel she has some advantages," Hoffman told the Associated Press,
"the heart structure, the narrow hips that this individual has, and the
original oxygen-carrying capacity, as well as the X-Y chromosome plays a major
role.

	Just what I was thinking.
	
	But just as the basic wheelchair division has expanded into several
categories based on the specific nature of the individual competitor's
disability, as it should, the transsexual division will likely expand based on
the individual competitor's, uh, history.
	Ms. Hoffman, for example, has raised an objection to having to compete
with a woman who was a man.  What about men who must compete with a man who was
a woman??  In the transsexual division, should a man who was a woman have to
compete with a woman who was a man??
	And you thought Bubby .vs. Neil was a real brain-teaser, didn't you?? 
You don't know the half of it.
	What about a hormonally dependent man who was a woman running against a
woman who was a man with diminished oxygen-carrying capacity??  Huh?? What
about that??
	What about a man who is again a man after having been a woman(the docs
call it "running the double reverse") competing against a man who was a woman
but never a man??
	and those are merely a small sample of the potential physiological
divisions of the 2001 Pittsburgh Marathon.  We haven't even touched on the
impast of psycho-emotional conditions.  We know that how an athlete FEELS when
he or she competes has a direct effect on the outcome of races, and thus the
probability of an Oprah Winfrey International Victims Olympics is not so remote
as you might think.
	Just yesterday, for example, Oprah spoke with women whose fathers had
married their housekeepers.  Presuming some of these women are competitive
runners, can we really expect any of them to compete on a level track against,
say, housekeepers who have battered their stepdaughters??
	I should say not, although I suspect such a race would get extensive
coverage.
	In a sense, the sum of all angst over this is rooted in the history of
competitive running.  Not long after the first time that a man said to a
woman, "See that steaming triceratops carcass over there?  I'll race ya," the
woman surely told him that unless he started doing this against somebody with
narrower hips and the X-Y chromosome, she was going to complain to the
Prehistoric Athletics Congress.  That was the start of where running is headed.
	Fortunately, an inspired group of forward-thinkers foresaw this early
in this century and almost suceeded in heading it off.  They invented auto
racing.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.36More please JAKETEMPE::BATTAGLIAWed Jan 08 1992 18:555
    Jake
        How about somemore on them Gene Collier columns!!!
    
                                  Bruce
                           Born N raised in Squeeler country
210.37PTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementWed Jan 08 1992 18:5910
    Whilst on vacation, I didn't get to see the paper much, and when I did,
    the columns were on very localized subjects.  I been waiting for a
    column on Noll leaving the Steelers, but he ain't come forth with one.
    I gotta check out the one from lasted night's paper on the Pirates
    firing of Doughty and see if it's worthy.
    
    More WILL be forthcoming, though.
    
    JaKe
    
210.38CNTROL::MACNEALruck `n' rollWed Jan 08 1992 19:003
    Is it true that if you order surf and turf in Pittsburgh that you'll
    get a plate of carp and keilbasa?  This is straight from one of
    Pittsburgh's food critics, honest.
210.39PTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementWed Jan 08 1992 19:2413
    Mac
    
    You have to specify "Pittsburgh Surf & Turf" to get the carp and
    kielbasa.
    
    Order just Surf and Turf and you get steak and lobster or shrimp or
    whatever the place wants to give ya.
    
    BTW, I had a P-Name stating Pittsburgh Surf and Turf was carp and
    kielbasa some time back.
    
    JaKe
    
210.40Collier on Doughty's firingCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementThu Jan 09 1992 00:1599
PIRATES DECK DOUGHTY AND TURN OVER THE CARDS

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-7-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Alan Meersand, a Los Angeles based agent, phoned Larry Doughty's office
around noon eastern time yesterday to finalize some very minor portions of the
Steve Buechele contract.
	"his secretary burst into tears," Meersand said.
	He found out in the next few minutes it wasn't because Jeannie always
cries at contract closings.  They had just fired her boss.
	Two hours later, Doughty was sitting at a table in the Pirates board
room/departure lounge looking as though he'd had a very, very, bad day, but at
the same time looking remarkably well for a guy with a hatchet in his back.
	Mark Sauer, the Pirates' chief operating officer and the man who
claimed responsibility for Doughty's new employment status, had just used the
same table to explain, in incredibly elaborate managerial rhetoric, absolutely
nothing.
	He was firing the general manager of your two time division champions,
and he wasn't going to tell you why, and if you didn't like it, well tough
you-know-whatty.
	So we go hard to the speculation.
	I'll open with a conservative theory.  Doughty, kidnapped by aliens on
a November hunting trip, had been replaced by a mischevious clone general
manager who delighted in cutting off the neckties of senior management and
spitting tobacco juice from the hallway onto their legal pads.  Rather than
panic the world, Sauer is bravely unforthcoming.
	
	What a stud.
	
	"I'd really not talk about specific reasons," Sauer said.
	
	Way ta go, Mark.
	
	What about this stuff about Meersand himself, author of yesterday's
ill-timed phone call?
	Meersand, this theory goes, talked Doughty into putting a clause in the
Buechele contract that would have forced the Pirates to pay Buechele even if
there were a 1994 players strike or a management lockout, and that Pirates
senior management is sorely ticked off about it.
	"Bad rumor," Meersand said.  "There is no such clause.  Steve won't get
paid in that event. We didn't even ask for it.  We felt it would be worthless
to ask."
	Meersand said there was no indication in the Buechele negotiations that
Doughty was having difficulty with senior management.
	"Absolutely none," Meersain said.  "Larry was free and easy through the
whole negotiations, up front and honest like he always is, a total gentleman.
He was careful not to bid against himself.  He was totally professional.
       "If more clubs had general managers like Larry Doughty, there'd be a lot
less acrimony between management and labor."
	Closer to the target is the Bob Walk scenario.  Walk signed a two year
contract a week ago that gaurantees $2.8 million and could bring close to $4
million if enough incentives are met.  That was way too much for management's
tastes.
	Doug Danforth, Sauer's boss and the Pirates' chairman of the board,
didn't like Walk.  You can take that to the bank.  Danforth wouldn't have paid
Walk $2.80 for the next two years.  Thought him too brittle.  Danforth didn't
return a phone call yesterday.
	It didn't matter to Danforth, or perhaps to Sauer, that Dought and
Manager Jim Leyland had Walk ahead of Mike LaValliere and Buechele when they
lined up their free-agent priorities.  That was just one of what Doughty
referred to yesterday as his "inconsistencies" with senior management.
	"What do they know about baseball?" Meersand asked, rhetorically, of
course.  "What those guys know about baseball couldn't fill a thimble compared
to what Larry Doughty knows."
	What we all know about Doughty is that if you sat down with the express
purpose of lining up reasons why you might fire him, you wouldn't have to sit
all that long.  Yeah, it wasn't too good that he was so willing to have the
Chicago White Sox talk to Jim Leyland about a job.  Yeah, it wasn't too good he
said that Bobby Bonilla should have been signed by the pirates.  Yeah, it
wasn't too good when he misinterpreted the waiver wire and let Wes Chamberlain
go the the Philadelphia Phillies, and yeah, it wasn't too good when he blurted
out the name of Moises Alou as one of the players to be exchanged for Zane
Smith--the incomparable Doughty-ism: the player to be named sooner.
	But Doughty's contributions somehow outstripped all that.  He gave the
organization a quiet dignity and a kind of unique confidence.  He brought Smith
and Buechele in the clamor of consecutive pennant races.  He generally managed
this club to consecutive titles, something that hadn't been done in the
National League in 13 years.  He was the person most responsible for filling
the gaps that players such as Wally Backman, Sid Bream, and R.J. Reynolds
created.
	But Sauer, almost from the minute he walked in nine weeks ago to
succeed Carl Barger, had a chilling effect on Doughty.  Once so candid he was
nearly alarming, Doughty became guarded and distant once Sauer came on. 
Doughty's successor will have to be more like sauer, more management friendly,
more publicly aloof.
	With Doughty, the organization's cards were pretty much always turned
over.  With sauer, the game will be exclusive backroom stuff.
	With Doughty, they were YOUR Pirates.
	With the others, the will be THEIR Pirates.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.41CAMONE::WAYNude up and NoteThu Jan 09 1992 09:4613
Smelts.  That's what I like.

Had them at this restaurant called Madure's up in Newcastle one time.
I've never forgotten that meal.  I'd never had smelts, and my folks
had been out visiting my brother at college (Westminster College in
New Wilmington) and they raved about the restaurant.

So next time we was out there, I went...   


(Jake, what's Pittsburgh, about an hour or so away from Newcastle?)

'Saw
210.42PTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementThu Jan 09 1992 17:579
>>(Jake, what's Pittsburgh, about an hour or so away from Newcastle?)
    
    Yeah, 'Saw, New Castle is almost precisely 1 hour from Pittsburgh.
    Spent msot of an evening up there fixing a system one night and the 
    co-system manager was a candidate fo --dan'l's walk of fame.  Was a
    truly heavenly evening.
    
    JaKe
    
210.43CAMONE::WAYNude up and NoteThu Jan 09 1992 18:237
Didja ever hear of Medores?  (Sounds like Ma-dures).

My mom heard that they moved into Downtown Newcastle.  Great place to
eat...sincerely.


'Saw
210.44PTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementThu Jan 09 1992 18:316
    Never heard of the place, 'Saw.
    
    Gotta try the place if I get up there again, though.
    
    JaKe
    
210.45Collier on the coaching searchCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementFri Jan 10 1992 00:23104
ARE STEELERS SHOPPING FOR GREENE'S ASSISTANTS???

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-8-1992

By

Gene Collier

	The process of selecting Chuck Noll's successor has begun to absorb
momentum, it appears, or at least it's giving off the same vibes Ed McMahon
does when "Star Search" finally lurches out of neutral and rolls towards the
finals.
	Under the direction of head spokesmodel Tom Donahoe, the candidates
list is roughly the length of the training camp roster.  Dan Rooney, out of his
office to clarify some things for us the other day, emphasized that Donahoe is
"responsible for the total area of the football."
	I don't even know how to figure the total area of the football. Geez,
long axis of 11 1/8 inches, circumference of 28 1/4 inches, uh---nah, ya gotta
get somebody at Carnegie Mellon to do that.
	In the meantime, Donahoe interviews across America for a guy Rooney
hopes can identify with Pittsburgh and have it darned straight that the
Steelers are, well, special.
	
	Have they talked with Mr. Rogers?????
	"Can you say, 'backside contain'"  Sure ya can.
	
	When you look hard at it though, the more Rooney talks and the more
Donahoe doesn't, you have to wonder why they don't just hand the job to Joe
Greene and show him the results of the Donahoe interviews so he can select his
assistants.
	I'd tell you flatly that is the sum and purpose of this whole exercise,
but I merely suspect it.
	Rooney clearly doesn't want the total coaching housecleaning.  He would
apparently have kept Noll, certain conditions being met.  But Noll did him a
great favor--and afforded him a critical opportunity--by retiring.
	Dan has hardly seized it.  He appears adamant that there must be some
kind of continuum from what is to what will be. The Steelers tradition must be
upheld.  I'd imagine this concept hits a few ruts on the interview circuit.
	
	Donahoe:  would you promise to preserve, protect and defend the
Steelers tradition??
	Crackerjack young coaching candidate: Sure....what is it??

	Steelers tradition, at least what Dan would infer from that term, is
hjistory that predates the Nancy Reagan administration.  It has no relevance
to where this team is going, and even if it did you can't seance it back by
having coaches join hands with an icon such as Greene.
	If it were that simple, the selection process would be over and the
staff in place.
	We'd have coach Mean Joe, offensive coordinator Terry, running backs
coach Franco, wideouts coach Swanny, offensive line coach Webby, assistant
offensive line coach The Old Ranger, defensive line coach Hollywood Bags,
linebackers coach Jack Splat, secondary coach Supe and, of course,
long-snappers coach Fats Holmes, with his long history of snapping.
	At first, I thought Rooney was laying down the Pittsburgh appreciation
requirements because he didn't want some young upstart blowing through this
special place as though it were just another line on his resume.  He was trying
to say that he didn't want womebody who would come in, have some success,
perhaps win Super Bowl XXIX, then head for Tampa Bay or NBC.
	"The last coach was here 23 years," he pointed out the other day.
	He would like the next one to be, too, which kind of nudges 63-year-old
Rod Rust into the dark horse column, doesn't it??
	But Rooney actually wants a positive sentiment, perhaps at least as
much as he wants the best available candidate.
	"If somebody comes in and says they don't like the area or they don't
like the East or whatever, that doesn't necessarily eliminate him," he said.
	"And it doesn't mean we'd only consider candidates from Western
Pennsylvania.  But I want somebody who is right for Pittsburgh and who
appreciates the Steelers."
	Somebody better get an appreciation of the current Steelers tradition:
dignity in mediocrity.
	The candidates themselves, in our working premise, look something like
this:
	--Rod Rust--Good candidate for defensive coordinator or assistant head
coach.  Moderate to good PAF (Pittsburgh appreciation factor). Steady hand that
could be valuable to a novice head coach such as, oh, Joe Greene.

	--Mike Riley--Possible candidate for coordinator job.  Poor PAF.

	--Mike Holmgren--Proven offensive coordinator.  Good head coaching
candidate, but poor PAF and probably too pricey.
	
	--Vince Tobin--Proven defensive coordinator.  PAF unknown.

	--Greg Landry--Decent candidate for offensive coordinator.  Moderate to
good PAF.  Might enjoy working for a novice coach such as, oh, Joe Greene
rather than for the manic Mike Ditka.

	--Woody Widenhofer--decent head coaching candidate.  Excellent PAF.

	--Dave Wannstedt--good defensive coordinator.  Excellent PAF.

	"We're not looking for a savior," Rooney said.  "We don't think we need
to be saved."
	That sounds like Rooney foresees the whole process as a relatively
minor adjustment.  Perhaps the Joe Greene hiring will prove more than that.  He
should hope it does.

						Gene Collier



JaKe

210.46PTOVAX::JACOBIntrospective....Make A StatementMon Jan 13 1992 17:587
    I have a pretty good Gene Collier column from Sunday's paper, written
    about the AFC & NFC Championship games BEFORE they were played.  I hope
    to get it in here  tonite.  It had me seriously rollward with some
    comments about the Donks maybe making it to the Super Bowl.
    
    JaKe
    
210.47from BEFORE the Conference ChampionshipsCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementMon Jan 13 1992 21:5893
QUICK, GET A LIFE, STUPOR BOWL V IS COMING SOON

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-12-1992

By 

Gene Collier

	As payment in the standard and silly anything-for-a-little-benign
publicity wager between politicos, Denver Mayor Wellington Webb will get 100
Buffalo wings should the Broncos beat the Bills in today's AFC Championship
game.
	Not to prejudge or anything, but I just can't see a guy named
Wellington doin' 100 wings.  Even with 3 or 4 pitchers of Coors and enough
juke-box change for a long session with the gang in some basement peanut bar,
Welly wouldn't do more than, I'd guess, four dozen.
	And you know, even if he did, it'd be the rest of us who'd ultimately
get the four-alarm heartburn, bacause nothing in American sport curdles a
spectacle with stomach acid like the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
	The Super Bowl is ostensibly the most competitive football game that
can be arranged, but Denver's teams have consistently gone below and beyond the
call of duty to ensure that it is not.
	The Broncos have lost four of 'em, the average arithmetic being 41-14. 
Last time it was 55-10, inspiring a cadre of Colorado motorists to re-write
highway signs with spray paint: Speed Limit 55, Broncos 10.
	Personally, if the Broncos are in the Super Bowl Jan. 26, I'm just
going to ask WTAE-TV(JaKeNOTE: WTAE is the local ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh)
to mail me some video of that tape they shoot every year the week before
Thanksgiving--you know, the one where they show all the turkeys pacing around
and bumping into each other (acting like turkeys) waitning to be decapitated,
boiled, plucked, stuffed, basted, roasted, sliced, and devoured.  Then, on
Super Sunday, I'm just going to pop that tape in, envision a similar slaughter,
drink some dip and go to bed.
	
	Same difference.
	
	Now today's other game, the NFC Championship game between the
Washington Redskins and the Detroit Lions, is the superior game if for only one
reason: no matter what happens in it, it cannot send the Borncos to the Super
Bowl.
	It can, however, send the Lions, which might be worse.
	Fortunately, it won't.
	The Lions are the shrieking example of one of the NFL's worst
creations, the team that almost has to be indoors to win.  They are like the
Oilers, who smoked the Broncos 42-14 in the Astrodome, but lost in the Colorado
twilight last week, 26-24.  
	The Lions are 11-0 indoors, 2-4 outdoors, where they have been
outscored 161-72.
	Today, they play at noisy, chilly, windy, rainy, snowy, muddy,
slippery, mucky, or perhaps worst of all--sunlit Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in
Washington.
	That as much as anything will keep them out of the Super Bowl, but if
you need a few further factors, they exist.
	The Lions deploy the run-and-shoot offense, against which Redskins'
coach Joe Gibbs and defensive coordinator Richie petitbon are 4-0 this year,
having outscored it 131-37.  Washington corners Darrell Green and Martin Mayhew
are precisely the defensive prescription for the run-and-shoot passing game
directed by relatively inexperienced Erik Kramer, and Washington's defense has
allowed an average of 9.5 points per game at home regardless of the opponent's
style of play.
	The Skins didn't have to deal with Barry Sanders in a 45-0 opening day
waxing of the Lions(Sanders didn't play because of injury) and although Sanders
has electrified the league this year with TD runs of 45, 47, 51, and 69 yards
and gained more than 100 yards in eight games, 220 in one, most of that too was
accomplished indoors.  Six of Barry's eight 100-yard games were indoors, and
the other two were against Tampa Bay and a Buffalo team just trying not to get
hurt on the final weekend of the regular season.
	Two scary thing about the Lions: they have not been beaten this year
when they score first(7-0) and they've gotten critical touchdowns from either
their defense or special teams in four consecutive games.
	All that will add up to something like Washington 28, Detroit 20.
	But in Buffalo, I detect the presence of much more ominous stuff.
	Denver is a good road team and has recently played well in Buffalo,
winning 28-14 there in '89 and losing by only a point there, 29-28, last year. 
With quarterback John Elway, Denver has not only a player coming off one of the
best clutch performances of his or anyone alse's career (he converted two
fourth-and-longs on a game-winning 87 yard drive that started at his own 2 with
2:07 and no timeouts left), but the arm best capable of throwing the ball
through wind and/or foul weather.
	Don't be suprised if Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly continually tries to
force the long ball and eventually gets scalded.  Further, in the sense of
cosmic karma or just plain indigesttion, I don't see a team that lost the Super
Bowl by one point last year, as Buffalo did, getting to go back right away.  I
don't think things work that way.
	I think it's Denver, 27-22.
	Yep, I fear it's wings for Welly Webb.  If only that were all it is.

							Gene Collier


JaKe

	
210.48Collier is so igKnorrant!!!SHALOT::MEDVIDnot one ounce or inch of controlTue Jan 14 1992 11:378
>	All that will add up to something like Washington 28, Detroit 20.
>	I think it's Denver, 27-22.
    
    Boy, that Gene Collier.  What a boob.  His employment with the
    Pittsburgh Press would be much less in jeopardy if he let Chris Knorr
    do his predicting for him.
    
    	--dan'l
210.49CELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementTue Jan 14 1992 17:4116
    Ah, --dan'l, give the guy a break, the Donks don't CHOKE in the AFC
    Championship game very often, and the Lions just laid down and played
    dead.
    
    Now the paragraph in that column where he hit the nail on the head
    follows:
    
>>	And you know, even if he did, it'd be the rest of us who'd ultimately
>>get the four-alarm heartburn, bacause nothing in American sport curdles a
>>spectacle with stomach acid like the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
    
    At least we'll get to see a team who played their lasted SB close to
    the final seconds.
    
    JaKe
    
210.50Collier on requirements for the new coachCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementFri Jan 17 1992 00:0485
A COACH WITH A WINNING RESUME WOULD HELP, TOO

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-15-1992

By

Gene Collier


	Unless the search expands to other continents, the Steelers will be
naming a head coach well before Groundhog Day.  When it happens, we'll be
buried in information about the wonderful qualities of the man who would be
emperor, but we will not see or hear any specific treatment of the original job
requirements.
	I have them right here.  So let's go over them before it's too late.
	In weekly briefings and interviews throughout the process, Steelers
President Dan Rooney and director of football operations Tom Donahoe have
discussed the requirements more in terms of platitudes than attitudes.
	Rooney sees the head coach as an administrator and teacher.
	Donahoe sees the head coach as communicator, people person(which is
always preferable to the other thing: the non-people person) and a person loyal
to the organizational theme of decision making.
	All of that is nifty, even as none of it comes within a pragmatic mile
of what the coach must actually be to suceed in today's NFL and with today's
Steelers.
	First, and paramount, he must be crazy.
	I don't know where exactly he should be in clinical terms, but as a
general equivalent guideline, obsessive would be the minimum. 
Obsessive-compulsive preferred.  A paranoid borderline sociopath, with
coordinator's experience, now that's book-the-rooms-at-the-Super-Bowl stuff: It
might not have to be defined clinically at all.  Perhaps several letters of
reference from close personal friends, each to the effect that, "HEY--I'm
tellin ya; this guy's crazy!"
	Bill Parcells was good at the job and wouldn't take it again--even in
the relatively depressurized atmosphere of Tampa--for $6.5 million.  The
problem?  He's not crazy anymore.  Ha has been mainstreamed.
	Smart candidates play the insanity card early.  Bill Cowher, who
interviewed for the second time Monday, came away talking about how the
Steelers had a "great corps of players here."  Cowher thus meets the first
requirement.
	Second, and almost as important as functional insanity, he must be so
incredibly focused as to be a parody of himself.
	Basically, if the guy can name two U.S. Presidents after Nixon or
identify a photo of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings, show him the
door.  What you're looking for is a guy who thinks Alann Steen is a
mid-to-late-round placekicker prospect at Texas A&M, who thinks Clarence Thomas
is someone he heard might be left unprotected under Plan B and that reverse
discrimination is the ability of the defense to recognize a trick play.
	You're looking for a guy, in other words, with his end zones close
together.
	Third, you need somebody without much curiosity about why it is there
are so many excitable 300-pound people in the league with muscles up to the
ceiling.  A guy like Joe Gibbs, the coach of the Super Bowl-bound Washington
Redskins, who remarked back in the summer that he thought the sterooids problem
was pretty much licked in the NFL.  Even if that were true--and it isn't--it
would be only because a considerable number of players have moved on to human
growth hormone, a natural element taken from the pituitary glands of cadavers,
easily obtained on the black market and impossible to detect via drug testing.
	Fourth, you need a guy with the Sid Gillman video philosophy.
	To borrow from the lore of the game, Sid Gillman, the veteran coach,
and a young Bum Phillips were reviewing film one long workday when Gillman
said, "Bum, I love watching film."
	"Uh-huh,"  Bum said.
	"No, I mean I LOVE watching film."
	"Right,"  Bum said.
	"Ya know, Bum," Sid said, "watching film is better than sex."
	"Coach," Bum said, "either I ain't doin' it right or I'm watchin' the
wroooong films."
	If you tell your candidate this story and he laughs, he's eliminated.
	Finally, in term of specific requirements for the situation, you need a
guy who isn't so impressed by the Steelers' tradition that he'll be afraid to
insist they raise their standards. You need a guy who won't be stunned by the
feckless attitude of many of the athletes and will instead accept that as
perhaps his biggest challenge.  You need a guy who can restore a sense of
urgency to the organization and sustain it.  And you need a guy who appreciates
Latrobe.
	It is, of course, entirely possible that you could hire a successful
coach who meets few or none of these requirements.  It's just that I doubt it.

						Gene Collier



JaKe

210.51Collier on ArbitrationCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementTue Jan 21 1992 00:2890
ARBITRATION A NEW BASEBALL FIGURE OF SCREECH!

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-19-1992

By

Gene Collier

	While there is nothing inherently wrong with baseball's system of
arbitrating salaries--at least nothing that a blue ribbon panel of mental
health professionals working 'round the clock for the next 20 years couldn't
fix--I have one small media-age objection: It gets no live TV.
	The NBA's draft lottery gets live TV. The Heisman Trophy announcement
gets live TV.  The National Football league draft gets almost Gulf War
treatment, with Chris Berman as Tom Brokaw, Paul Zimmerman as Wolf Blitzer, and
Mel Kiper as The Beaver.
	If we can't have the actual arbitration hearings live, I say we push
for live coverage of the exchange of figures.  Friday was national exchange of
figures day, which doesn't have the same ring as national letter-of-intent day,
but it's got potential.  I'd like to see the players and their clubs announce
their bids live and have the carrier provide instantaneous social
cross-references to offend the greatest number of people possible.
	For example, while Rod Wright, agent for Barry Bonds, announces that
the figure he will submit to an arbitrator is $5 million for Barry's services
in 1992, we could be alerted that $5 million is also the amount New York Gov.
Mario Cuomo is trying to make available for low-cost mortgages to first-time
home buyers in Suffolk County.
	The Pirates would then counter by saying they will not pay the left
fielder one penny more than it cost to feed all U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf
on any day last January: $4 million.
	Bonds looks like a winner there.
	Then we'll see the hendricks brothers, Alan and Randy, agents for John
Smiley, present their figure of $4.1 million for 1992, a number so
hallucinogenic for Smiley it suggests the influence of another Hendrix brother,
Jimi.
	The Pirates will say they will pay Smiley no more than $1 for every
person in Los Angeles County without health insurance, or $2.7 million.
	The Bucs will win that one.
	In the show's climax, Cecil Fielder could announce the largest
arbitration request ever, $5.4 million from the Detroit Tigers, or roughly what
New York city paid to reach agreement on a new contract with the transit
police.  And that's all of 'em, not just the big hitters.
	With bobby Bonilla getting $5.8 million from the New York Mets for
hitting 50 homers and driving in 220 runs the past two years, Fielder looks
like a lock to get $400,000 less for hitting nearly twice as many homers(95)
and driving in 45 more runs than Bonilla over the same period.  Detroit's offer
to Fielder($3.2 million) is, incredibly enough, unrealistic.
	But if you can't get an accurate indication of where the game is headed
financially from the figures at the front end of the arbitration abscenity, try
the other side, where things are even more psychotic.
	The Chicago Cubs, for example, have been taken to arbitration by
catcher Joe Girardi, whom they paid $225,000 last year, and who responded with
nine--yeah, nine--hits.  they paid him $25,000 per hit.  For 1992, he wants
$325,000.
	That's going to be some hearing.

	AGENT:  "Well, if you'll look at this chart of Joe's nine hits, you'll
notice that two of them were doubles."
	ARBITRATOR: "Wow! Stop right there, Take $1 million!!"

	Three players at the arbitration trough--one with nine RBI a year ago,
ine with 12 RBI and one with 2 RBI--have amazingly different production vantage
points.  John Marzano of the Boston Red Sox, he of the nine RBI, figures each
was worth about $48,000, and thus wants $430,000. Bob Geren, who had 12 RBI
for the NY Yankees last year, has the cincinati Reds in arbitration trying to
get a relatively reasonable $25,000 per RBI, or $300,000.  The guy you want to
stay away from is the feared Junior Noboa, who had 2 RBI last year and wants
$325,000 from the Mets-$162,500 per ribbie.
	Hey Junior, you the man!
	In almost stunning contrast, you've got the Pirates' Jay Bell asking a
mere $1,450,000, fueling speculation that his agent is, indeed, Crazy Eddie.
	Bell averaged 12 homers and 60 RBI at a critical defensive position for
a division champion the past two years, and yet asked to make only $1 for every
$3 asked for by Cincinnati shortstop Barry Larkin.  Larkin averaged 13 homers
and 68 RBI in the same period.
	The Pirates offered $875,000, or hearly $600,000 less than they
guaranteed Bob Walk for each of the next two years.  That's weak.
	And just in case you missed it, Bill Swift asked for $2.3 million.
	I think your question on that is pretty much mine, Who's Bill Swift??
	Oh. Saved 17 games for Seattle last year, I musta missed that.  OK,
make it $3 million.

					Gene Collier



JaKe

	

210.52Collier on CowherCELTIK::JACOBIntrospective...Make a StatementTue Jan 21 1992 00:5684
COWHER CHECKS IN WITHOUT BAGGAGE!!

from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-20-1992.

By

Gene Collier

	Bill Cowher will be better than Chuck Noll.

	What's more, that statement comes with a 12-month, 12,000-headache
guarantee.                
	Stunning, isn't it?  I know you must be wondering how we here at
Oversimplification Headquarters can have so much confidence in such an exotic
and revolutionary declarative sentence.  Well, it's simple friends.
	Ya see, among the thousands of contributions Noll made to the Steelers
in his 23 seasons was a custom cushion for the next coach, the one Chuck
handcrafted with his first year record of 1-13.
	Bill cowher will do better than that.
	Who says this isn't a great job??
	Cowher probably won't be named officially until noon tomorrow, but the
urge to thro out the ceremonial first Inevitable Comparison or two is
apparently too strong.  Cowher was hired yesterday, at age 34.  He'll be 35
when he coaches his first Steelers game.  Noll turned 37 before coaching his
first Steelers game.
	There's meaning in there somewhere, but I wouldn't look too hard for
it.  These inevitable Comparisons, when they don't miss the point altogether,
tend to be oblique.
	The only comparison necessary, the only comparison that really matters,
is the one between Cowher's active coaching karma and the Steelers' passive
decade of stagnation.  Bill Cowher is an excellent choice to be the head coach
because Bill Cowher allows such comparison.
	Joe Greene, for one, would not have.  Greene, for all his motivational
potential and for all his symbolic presence, could not have driven this
franchise on clean-burning fuel.  His accomplishments are too much the fabric
of another era and his coaching skills still laced with old Steelers rythm and
philosophy.  The comparison would have been himself to himself.  The same can
be said of Dick Hoak.
	In hiring Cowher, Dan Rooney obviously put Greene and Hoak in
precarious positions, which shows Rooney was willing to pay a high emotional
price to give the franchise a clean break from its malaise, and that is to his
considerable credit.
	Frankly, i didn't think he could do it.
	When you win four Super Bowls inside of 6 years, the notion that it is
happening because of WHO YOU ARE must be monstrous.  But none of us,
ultimately, can be defined and redefined as WHO YOU ARE.  We are not WHO WE
ARE.  We are, rather, WHERE WE ARE GOING.
	The Steelers in the past five years were GOING 39-42.  They were GOING
78-80 in the past 10.  Cowher was not a head coach in any of those seasons and
not a coach of any kind in the first three.  But in the past seven years,
coaching staffs that included Bill Cowher as special-teams coach, secondary
coach or defensive coordinator won 69 games, lost 41, and tied one.  Teams
Cowher helped coach won at least 10 games in 5 of the past six seasons.
	Quite simply, in a profession where hot coaching talent cools and
retreats in loose annual cycles, Cowher's career has never taken a backward
step.  And though only the cincinnati Bengals semi-spastic introduction of Son
of Shula keeps him from being the youngest coach in the NFL, Cowher is ready.	
	Whether or not he warms to the role, Cowher is the White Knight of
Change in the dark kingdom of resistance.  A heavy burden, and what a pain
putting it on you Form 1040, too.
	"We're not looking for a savior,"  Rooney had said.  "We don't think we
need (to be) saved."
	What they needed was to be dragged from a crumbled dynasty, and this
hire did it for them.
	What it means is there are no longer what we've come to know and loathe
as Steelers "systems."  You can forget you ever heard of the Sophisticated Trap
Offense or the Think and Stink; you can forget perhaps the process of recalling
players waived last week because they "knew the system."

	There are no systems.  Say Allelujah.

	Twenty-Four days after Noll stunned Rooney, the fans, the players, the
stinking media and perhaps even himself by announcing his retirement, the son
of Crafton (Crafton is a Pittsburgh neighborhood), Steelers fans, suceeds the
Emperor.
	His mission is simple; his mission is complex.  he must, in the words
of an anonymous philosopher, merely sustain the art of progress, which is to
preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
					
							Gene Collier


JaKe

210.53Collier again on CowherCELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Wed Jan 22 1992 23:0599
COWHER HAS TIME, BUT IT'S TICKING
from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-21-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Now that we finally know who he is, where he has been, what he has
done, and established that he's still too young to be President of the United
States, it's time to confront, yes, even larger issues.
	Like when, Bill Cowher, can we expect delivery on The New Steelers??
	Ok, maybe it's an essay question.  Anytime this semester, even summer
session, will be fine.
	Dan Rooney, sitting professorially behind a brown turtleneck and a big,
brown, football-shaped desk and looking so typically like Mr. Patience
yesterday, said he doesn't know, either, about delivery.
	But, heck yes, he has got his expectations.
	"We have good football players," Dan Said, hours before turning 'em all
over to Chuck Noll's successor.  "We have some positions that need to be
improved.  Certainly we have to look at ways to get better players in certain
spots.  But I feel there's good talent here.
	"I think we should be able to make a real challenge to make the
playoffs."
	So this is Cowher's charge?  Challenge for the playoffs as a first-year
minimum?
	"I would not want to put on a new operation anything that sounds like,
you know, you've got to do any particular thing.  At the same time, the people
I'm concerned that I'm going to give the wrong message to with this are the
players.  I want them to know that I expect them to really perform and perform
well.  Bill is going to give them really good leadership and I expect them to
respond."
	So you've got good players, responding to good leadership, which would
seem to indicate that any general duplication of the early Chuck Noll flowchart
would not be looked upon favorably, right??
	Noll won one game in his first year, five in his second, six in his
third.  Of course, that was a 14-game schedule.  What if Cowher won 2 of 16
next season, then six, then seven??
	"I always hope that I will be a person with enough patience and enough
understanding to look at what is actually happening at the particular time,"
Rooney said.  "I'll evaluate after the season, after I've seen what has taken
place."
	All of which points to the clear conclusion that Cowher will operate
with the pressure on low, which is exactly as it should be.  You can't turn the
pressure off completely because this is a job that needs to be fueled by
urgency.  But to give Cowher any less margin for error than was given Noll,
even in 1969, would be unfair.  Maybe the 1968 Steelers won only tow games and
were 100 percent dogmeat, but the difference between that team and those of
recent pedigree can't be enough to turn up the heat on Cowher.
	The new coach gets a four-year contract and should be allowed to play
it out because he inherits:

		-A team that won only seven times last fall and against only
six victims.  They nailed the pesky 3-13 Bengals twice, once needing overtime.

		-A team with three 100-yard rushing performances in 32 games.
	
		-A team with four 100-yard performances by a pass receiver in
its past 32 games.

		-A team whose longest winning streak in 1991 was two games.
		
		-A team that has won three in a row once in the past 32 games
and WON FOUR IN A ROW ONCE IN THE PAST EIGHT YEARS.
	
		-A team that hasn't had a 100-yard performance by a runner or a
pass receiver in its past 12 games.

		-A team whose seven victories came against opponents with a
combined record of 20-60 (San Diego, New England, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and
cleveland) except for a jarring victory against a Houston Oilers team that
couldn't function outside the Astrodome.

		-A team with 14 first and second round draft choices on its
year end roster, but only five of whom are established NFL forces--Dermontti
Dawson, Eric Green, Carnell Lake, Gerald Williams, and Rod Woodson.  The others
remain questions--Kenny Davidson, Jeff Graham, Huey Richardson, Tim Worley--or
busts--Delton Hall, Aaron Jones, Tom Ricketts.  And one, Louis Lipps, is well
past his prime.

	And yet in the league as it is, structured politically, Rooney's notion
that this team could challenge for the playoffs is not ridiculous.  It only
states between the lines that 43 percent of the league must make the playoffs
and that usually another 43 percent barely misses.  To ask Cowher to be
somewhere in that 86 percent really isn't asking too much.
	"i think Bill will pretty much have the same opportunity that has been
our custom,"  Rooney said.  "He'll be involved in football operations, working
closely with Tom Donahoe in all areas including acquiring players to help the
football team improve.
	"You know, in Chuck's early years, even though he didn't win much, I
could see there was improvement, new direction, a new feeling about the team.
	For the foreseeable future, those are the only standards to which
Cowher can be realistically held.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

	
210.54Collier on the "NEW" NollCELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Tue Jan 28 1992 00:04103
NOLL: TALK SHOW HOST OR MEDIA DARLING, FLIP A COIN
	
from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-26-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Noll:"Bob in Blawnox, go ahead, you're on 'The Chuck Noll Show.'"
	Caller: "hello, Am I on??? hello"
	Noll: "Yes, Bob, go ahead, I'm at your disposal.  You're first in the
winery."
	Caller: "Chuck, How ya Doin??"
	Noll:  "I'm well, thank you."
	Caller: "Good, good.  Hey Chuck, ya knkow, I dunno about this new
offense, ya know, widda Stillers?"
	Noll: "Uh-huh."
	Caller" "I mean, ya know, it's like, well, I just dunno, ya know?"
	Noll: "Interestingly put, Bob. Thanks for your call.  We'll be back
relatively quick.  This is 'The Chuck Noll Show.'"


	HARUMPH.  You scoff. (and cover your mouth when you scoff)
	Isn't "The Chuck Noll Show" where this is all going, the events of the
past few weeks, I mean??   Talkin' about the near total inversion of the Noll
public persona. 
	It ain't the fall of communism, but it is somehow immense.  After
nearly a quarter century of regarding the sports media as at best a nuisance
and more commonly a foolish annoyance, after 23 years in rote avoidance of
anything resembling self-promotion, the walls around the Noll image appear to
be quaking.
	First, we had the imminent public emotion of the farewell news
conference.  Then the unhesitating acceptance of the Super Bowl coin-toss
invitation.
	Then we had the absolutely stunning in which famous Pittsburgh Press
sportswriter Gerry Dulac picked up his telephone one night and a voice on the
other end said, "Gerry? This is Chuck Noll."  Yeah, right, Gerry thought, hold
on, Chuck; I got Liz Taylor on the other line.  But yes, the Emperor had
actually returned a telephone call.
	Then we had Noll's rather expansive appraisal of today's game at the
passing request of the Boston Globe.
	I'm just telin' ya, it's only a matter of time before Chuck gets the
talk show, leaving I think only seven of us without one.
	Not to be bitter.  But heck, back to the lines.

	Noll: "Carl in Carlynton, you're on 'The Chuck Noll Show'"
	Caller: "Yeah, uh, Chuck, how ya doin'?"
	Noll:  "I'm well, thank you."
	Caller:  "Chuck, I was just wonderin' what kind of year you thought Tim
Worley would have next year?"
	Noll: "Carl, as I once said about Sydney Thornton, Tim has many
problems, and they are great."
	
	Noll: "Clair in Clairton, you're next with Chuck Noll."
	Caller: "Uh, hi Chuck.  Why don't they play the Steeler polka at the
game anymore, Chuck?  I think the team was a lot better when they did.  Do you
think we should just go ahead and sing it anyway?  Do you think it would help?"
	Noll:  "Whatever it takes, Clair.  Ed in Etna, Go 'head"
	Caller: "Chuck??"
	Noll:  "Yes?"
	Caller: "Is this Chuck Noll?"
	Noll:  "This is Chuck Noll."
	Caller:  "HEY RUTH, I GOT 'IM.  I'M TALKIN' T'CHUCK NOLL! CHUCK NOLL,
RUTH!!!!"
	(click)
	Noll:  "I think Ed should turn down his radio and then perhaps find the
wherewithal to tear his phone out of the wall.  We'll be back after this from
Ferlin Honda Subaru Saab Geo Metro Hyundai Jeep Potato."
	
	How about giant billboards, with Chuck standing with Lynn(Swann), Doug
(Hoerth), Phil (Musick), Myron(Cope), and Bruce(Keidan)(JaKeNOTE:the above are
all Pittsburgh radio personalities) saying, "Youbetcha.  This is the best team
I've been around since the Super Bowl years." No? It's accurate.
	How 'bout Chuck doing Tuesdays with Paulsen and Krenn(Pittsburgh's #1
morning team who are absolutely HILARIOUS!!)
	Paulsen: Now Chuck, ya haven't had breast augmentation, have ya????
	Noll: huh-uh
	Krenn:  Are ya wait-listed????


	Noll: "Before i take the next call here, I'm reminded to tell all our
listeners that I'll be appearing at the Pittsburgh Sports Garden Friday night
from 7 until 9 and then Saturday I'll be one of the judges at the Miss Hot Legs
IV contest over at Chauncey's.  So stop by, I'l be real glad to see ya."

	Noll: "Monroe in Monroeville, you're on with Chuck Noll."
	Caller: "Yeah, Mr. Noll..."
	Noll: "Chuck, please."
	Caller: "OL Chuckmeister.  Got a trivia question for ya.  Do you know
wo tha last Steeler to have a touchdown run of more than 50 yards was?"
	Noll:  "Yes." (CLICK)

	Noll: "Next we have Frank on the North Side.  Hello, Frank"
	Caller:  "Hey Coahc, how ya doin'? It's me, Franco"
	Noll:  "FRANCO WHO???????????????????????"

						Gene Collier


JaKe



210.55Collier on hockey .vs. Football, control wiseCELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Fri Jan 31 1992 01:0898
SOLUTION SITS BETWEEN KICKED OUT AND KICKOFF

fron The Pittsburgh Press, 1-28-1992

By


Gene Collier

	Based on two episodes from the weekend, both studied extensively via
the clinically proven method known as witting on the couch for eight hours, the
following premise can be stated with some confidence:
	
	Whereas professional hockey is a game rather out of control,
professional football is a game all but suffocating from control.

	Some balancing mechanisms should be available here, or maybe
professional football should just be fought with sticks, I don't know.
	In the first, dashing young stick-handler Jaromir Jagr skates his way
into a 10-game suspension by bumping referee Ron Hoggarth during the Penguins
6-4 loss to the Washington Capitals Sunday in fabulous Landover, Md.
	Jagr was one of three noted Penguins, all of whom started on the same
line in the NHL All-Star game just one week earlier, who on this occasion had a
case of temporary insanity brought on by Hoggarth's administration of the third
period.
	Instead of a 10-game suspension, teammates Mario Lemieux and Kevin
Stevens and others think Jagr should have gotten a medal for not strangling
Hoggarth.  Jagr, Lemieux and Stevens were a little out of control, but only
because Hoggarth had allowed the third period to get wildly out of control.
	Nowhere in there, however, is there anything new.
	The NHL, which Lemieux called a "garage league" in a series of seething
postgame remarks (and no on really understands that remark except as a clear
insult to garages), has long tolerated theselective enforcement of penalties
relative to the game situation.  A marginal hooking violation that might draw a
quick whistle in the first period, for example, is apt to be ignored late in a
tied game even in flagrant form.
	This has been going on roughly since the advent of ice, and still on
Sunday Hoggarth's liberal interpretation of what constitutes a penalty reached
ridiculous extremes.  As the teams skated frantically to snap a 4-4 tie, in
became clear there would be no violations that couldn't ultimately be turned
over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
	The Penguins themselves took some advantage of this, but the Capitals
were totally Three Stooges, if you will.  Jagr, Lemieux, and Stevens were
mugged in the final minutes.
	Despite Hoggarth's 22 years of experience--more than 1000 NHL games--he
was overseeing something that was simply out of control.
	
	Our second episode, by instructive contrast, involves the start and
restart of Super Bowl XXVI (26, I think).
	In this one, non-dashing middleaged NFL stud zebra Jerry Markbreit made
Buffalo Bills kicker Brad Daluiso do the opening kickoff again because
Markbreit hadn't signaled for it.
	The Bills were lined up as though they anticipated kicking it and the
Washington Redskins were situated as though they anticipated it being kicked,
and when it was kicked, both teams responded with appropriate awareness as it
thrilled 100 million or so people by sailing out of the end zone.
	But Markbreit had not SIGNALED for it.
	He might have thought CBS was still in a commercial, which it wasn't,
or perhaps CBS simply hadn't signaled him yet, but he wasn't going to let a
non-signaled kickoff seen by 100 million or more stand as the official kickoff
of Super Bowl 26 I think.
	This is TOTAL CONTROL.
	Markbreit promptly turned on his field microphone and announced to the
waiting world that it had just witnessed, this awful day, an "inadvertent
kickoff."
	
	GAD.

	How you "inadvertently" kick a ball 75 yards through the air after
more than 100 million people saw you tee it up and take a run at it would have
to be a matter for Oliver Stone.  In any event, three minutes and 16 seconds
later, we had an authentic, referee-signaled, network-approved, professionally
executed kickoff, which, like its predecessor, was not returned.
	Total, I mean Total, control.
	The point is--yes there was a point to this--that both leagues suffer
from these diverse control postures.  With the NFL, every play and practice is
video-taped and exchanged so that every team is all but 100 percent
predictable, and the league's corporate conscience disallows the very notion of
impromptu innovation.  And yet the NHL, because it so easily lets a great game
get totally out of control, yesterday suspended one of its top attractions for
the equivalent of 3-1/2 weeks even after Hoggarth told Lemieux he would not
invoke the abuse rule that could bring suspension.  he changed his ming.
	"There is no replay anywhere," General Manager Craig Patrick noted as
he prepared for an appeal, "so unless we come up with someone else who filmed
it..."
	You mean we're looking for an Abe Zapruder type???

	"We lose players to injuries all the time; that's just going to
happen," Patrick said.  "But you hate to see someone like Jaromir out of the
line-up, especially if it's not deserved."
	
	Yeah, I think I hate it even worse than an inadvertent kickoff.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.56Dave Barry in cleatsSHALOT::MEDVIDtoo sexy for my carFri Jan 31 1992 12:133
    
    210.55 is the best and funniest Collier column in here to date.  
    
210.57On Lacrosse and GOLF, golf part hilarious!!CELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Tue Feb 04 1992 23:2295
GETTING BULL-ISH JUST MAY BE THE BEST WAY TO TACKLE A JOB
from The Pittsburgh Press, 1-31-1992

By

Gene Collier

	How 'bout them Bulls, huh?
	Big topic.  Underplayed.  Nearly 7000 at the Civic Arena to see them
gore the Philadelphia Wings last weekend, amazing when you consider it's more
people than you'll have seated at the end of an overtime Penguins game.
	And what a club, da Bulls.
	Yeah, I know that the Bulls 1-2 record doesn't look like much, but the
Bulls could EASILY be 2-1, and in a Major Indoor Lacrosse League obsessed with
parity, you can't be too dissappointed with their station as we approach the
season's midpoint.
	So please, less vitriol on those talk shows.  Let the Bulls be the
Bulls.
	They're idle until they meet the expansion Buffalo Bandits next
Saturday at the Civic Arena, so what better time for a thorough mid-season
analysis??
	Yeah, yeah, but I'm doing it anyway.
	Of course, I haven't seen the club.  Hearing their radio commercials
makes me want to bite the head off a live chicken, so I don't want to risk
actual attendance.

	"A WHITE-HOT SPHERE SCREAMING STRAIGHT FOR YOUR FACE!!" one begins. 
That's a phrase that's been out of use since Gerald Ford golfed regularly.

	"THE NASTY BOYS ARE BACK AND THEY'RE BADDER THAN EVER!" it goes on. 
Ron Dibble and Randy Myers play for the Bulls??????  That IS bad.  What's
badder than Dibble?? Dibble with a lacrosse stick, obviously, egged on by the
booming, ominous voice of the guy who has done every single monster truck show
commercial since the dawn of monster trucks.
	
	"SLASHING, BOARDING AND CROS-CHECKING!" the Bulls advertise.  Unless
they are surnames of three of the forwards, those, presumably, are penalties. 
And since the Bulls certainly don't know those violations will be committed by
the opposition, the commercial is an implied gaurantee the Bulls will be going,
uh, outside the rules.
	The big gaurantee came before the game against Philly's Wings, when it
was announced that, "Butch Marino and Kevin Bilger have vowed that the Wings
will fall!"
	And hey, buddy, look it up.  Bulls 14, Wings 9.  You don't walk the
leadoff hitter; you don't tug on Superman's cape; you don't doubt Marino and
bilger.
	Obviously, the Bulls are onto a heckuva concept here, namely bombast
and violence.  Excellent.
	So many other mainline sports are still missing the point, so many
could rake great benefits from this concept, like GOLF.  I mean, how many times
have you sat across the table from someone who has said, "Friend, what can be
done, realistically, to improve the game of golf??"   To which you responded,
"Simple.  Bombast and Violence."  How many times??
	Say Curtis Strange is leading Paul Azinger by a stroke as they begin
the back nine at Augusta.  Instead of thinking conventionally about his
approach to No. 10, Curtis ought to be thinking, "Look, Azinger's right over
there.  I gotta bag full o'clubs here.  What I need to do is whip one out and
rap it off his shin pads a couple times, distract him, right?"
	Yes, absolutely.  Golfers should wear pads.  And Helmets.  Then you'd
have a SPORT.  Then, when Azinger blows up on the back nine in the Masters, the
golf writers would ask Strange,  "Curtis, what'd you use on him??"
	"Whacked him with a 5-Iron a coupla times near the knee cap,"  Strange
would say.  "Some guys would use a 4-wood there, but I like a little bit more
control.  Didn't hurt him a bit, but shook him up real good, got the green
jacket to prove it."
	AND DON'T FORGET BOMBAST!!!!
	Instead of that whiny, insipid pre-tournament discussion about fast
greens, high rough and capricious winds, let's have something like Mark
Calcavecchia predicting disaster for Fred Couples.
	"Write this down," Calcavecchia should say, "Couples on these greens is
going to bogey, bogey, bogey.  And if he doesn't, he's going to have a
hot-white sphere screaming straight for his face!"
	See? Now we're getting somewhere.
	Even the Bulls haven't tapped the full bombast-and-violence potential
endemic to lacrosse.
	You've got these 45-inch sticks you're running with, you've a ball
harder than calculus, and you've got history on your side, too.  Lacrosse is
probably the continent's oldest sport, the original league being run by native
Americans of the Huron Tribe and observed by the French in the 1500s, or before
ESPN.  SOme of those early contests were said to have been contested by teams
of up to 1000 braves with the goals up to several miles apart.
	Now here's what we need.  A goal near the fountain at Point State Park,
the other in the lobby of the Hyatt Chatham Center.  Two teams of 1000
Pittsburghers each.  Faceoff near Kaufman's at noon.  EVERY DAY.
	In the entire history of sport in this town, I don't think anything
could quite compare to 200 Polish Hill(ethnic neighborhood) forwards bashing 
their way through Wendy's on Fifth Ave. at lunchtime.
	I'm just telliin' ya.

					Gene Collier



JaKe

210.58Collier on "American Gladiators"CELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Wed Feb 05 1992 01:3684
'AMERICAN GLADIATORS' DEFINITELY NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

from The Pittsburgh Press, 2-3-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Rarely has an athletic event so perfectly suited its television time
slot like "American Gladiators," which flickers our way Sundays at 1 a.m., when
the audience is  divided pretty much by two methods of experiencing the
contest: drunk/stoned/wired and (the best way) asleep.
	In what amounts then, in all modesty, to something of a corageous
psychological experiment, I taped the "American Gladiators" and watched it
yesterday in a state of relative wakefulness and cold sobriety.
	Here's my report.  (No need to thank me.)
	At the top of the show, Gemini revealed he has two personalities and
asked cryptically, "Guess which one I'll be using against the contestants?" 
Nothing like a serious emotional question to draw us in.  Maybe we could switch
this to weekdays at 1 p.m. and call it "All My Oversized Children."
	Immediately thereafter, the contest's format was revealed both for
first time viewers such as myself and for regular viewers who can't remember it
from one week to the next.  The format is basically this:  Four relatively
normal-sized human beings, two men and two women, will engage in a series of
competitions obviously conceived at some long ago 1 a.m. of altered states. On
this night the competitions are slingshot, hang tough, atlasphere,
breakthrough, conquer, powerball, assault and eliminator.  But in all these
competitions, there are one or more X-factors--The American Gladiators,
out-sized humans of both sexes who attempt to disrupt the contestants via
various forms of physical assault.

	Yeah, it's a lot like "Lassie."

	The Gladiators, whose names are Zap, Tower, Blaze, Nitro, Storm,
Thunder, Diamond, Laser, Ice and Gemini  (was all this one family?), have an
internal competition going on as well.  Theirs is to see which one of them can
wear the least amount of clothing the tightest.  As to body type, the
Gladiators have enormous shoulder and thigh muscles, massive necks with tendons
made of bridge cable, and biceps 'til Tuesday.  The men are similar, but with
smaller breasts.
	For the sports fan who fears he or she might have wandered beyond their
element by watching "American Gladiators", the producers have provided
commentators Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka.  These guys provide soothing
analysis, peppered with the common sportspeak that sounds even stupider than it
did when they did it during football games.
	Csonka introduced competitor Tim Goldrick and explained, "Tim plans to
take it one event at a time."  I knew I was in the right place.
	Adamle said Goldrick's "wife thought he was crazy" for going on the
show, as if there were some other possible conclusion.  And in assault
competition, in which contestants exchange tennis-ball fire with air-gun type
contraptions, Adamle said contestant Kristi Kropp "will be drawing fire from
Ice."
	Gosh Mr, Wizard, how d'ya explain that one?
	But Kropp, a former track and field All-American at the University of
Wisconsin(a fact Adamle repeated only 117 times, not that the show needs
legitimacy or anything), would have an easy time beating Denise Chase (a nail
technician) to gain nest week's semifinals.  Chase had a bad night
start-to-finish.  Zap raked her to the ground when she was suspended from the
rings in hang tough, and this while her husband's anguished face was boxed into
the picture, no less.  Worse still, at the end of the night, when the
vanquished Chase joined her husband for a sweaty embrace, Adamle intoned
solemnly, "The honeymoon's over."
	The hang-tough competition also produced the most compelling moment of
the quarterfinals when Tower, trying to yank Coz Worthington off of the rings,
failed to rip both Coz's shoulder out of their sockets, but suceeded in pulling
down Coz's sky-blue outer tights.
	At that moment, Coz was on national television in his underwear,
suspended from the rings at 1 a.m. Sunday morning with a man the size of a
buffalo clinging to what used to be his waistband but was now down around his
knees.
	It was great, but somehow I liked it better with Laurel and Hardy.  At
least they managed to act embarassed.
	Coz lost to Goldrick in the eliminator competition, a kind of elaborate
obstacle course that Goldrick finished a second before him.  It was a big
effort by Coz, especially considering the tights episode, but the man was
inspired.  As he told Csonk just before the eliminator, "There's no tomorrow."
	
	If only that were true for this show.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.59Collier on Nintendo and the MarinersCELTIK::JACOBUshering in a new era...Wed Feb 05 1992 01:3899
BASEBALL ISN'T LIKELY TO PROFIT BY NINTENDO

from The Pittsburgh Press, 2-2-1992

By

Gene Collier

	The varied reasons why Major League Baseball is disinclined toward
foreign ownership of its clubs--reasons that are at best dubious and at worst
xenophobic--got a thorough scorching from editorialists coast-to-coast last
week.
	That was cool, but not if it produces what might be an imprudent
result, namely that of hounding baseball into an agreement to sell the Seattle
Mariners to a group led by Japan-based home video behemoth Nintendo.
	Personally, I have no problem with Nintendo, at least none that picking
up our own hours-o'-fun Entertainment System and hurling it through the family
room window wouldn't cure(and yeah, I've been tempted), but many American
retailers who have to deal with Nintendo have had serious problems.
	"We were receiving a lot of complaints," Leslie Gersing of the NewYork
State Attorney General's office was saying.  "We got them from retailers who
said they were threatened with loss of distribution if they didn't toe the
line."
	The New York Attorney General's Office investigated, as did the
Maryland Attorney General's office, and a suit was brought in conjunction with
the Federal Trade Commission last April.
	New York Attorney General Robert Abrams testified that "Nintendo wasn't
satisfied with being the major player in the computer game industry.  They
wanted to extract every ounce of profit."  One retailer, Abrams said, was
nearly cut off for lowering the price of the Nintendo Entertainment System by 6
cents.
	Abrams' testimony as to Nintendo's intentions are buttressed by the
remarks Nintendo owner Hiroshi Yamauchi made to the Japanese magazine Business
Tokyo and reported in the Washington Post.
	"What's the big deal about being No. 1 if you're not making any
money??" said Yamauchi, whose company made more than $1 billion in the past
fiscal year.  "The only thing people really care about is the bottom line."
	And..."You can't do business in America if your attitude is that you
don't want to be sued."
	For Yamauchi, there was a good reason things seemed that way.  Nintendo
also dealt with suits brought by competitors it reduced to scrambling for
market crumbs, including once-powerful Atari.
	Industry critics have charged Nintendo with illegal restraint of trade,
and with creating artificial shortages to ensure its merchandise commands
premium prices.
	In a settlement of the FTC suit, Nintendo admitted no wrongdoing but
agreed to pay $30 million in fines and costs, with $25 million of that
distributed to customers in $5 discount coupons, which amounted to a marketing
investment.
	The question then for Fred Kuhlman, CEO of the St. Louis Cardinals and
chairman of the ownership committee that will approve any sale of the Mariners,
was obvious.  Are these matters germain to the ownership committee, or is it
just looking to make sure a buyer has the bang to run a franchise in the
cost-prohibitive '90s?  "All those things are being investigated," he said. 
"Its a routine process."
	Yamauchi is not expected to be pulling many strings from the Kyoto
headquarters of what some analysts have called his "private mint."  Yamauchi's
60 percent investment would be administrated by his son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa,
a 15 year resident of Washington and president of Nintendo of America Inc.  The
purchase group also includes top executives from Seattle companies, which could
mollify baseball's passion for local ownership.
	But a 60 percent share in the club, in the form of a $75 million
investment of Yamauchi's money, would appear to make Yamauchi more than a
figurehead.
	Baseball has to take a serious look at whether it wants a part of
itself backed by an entity of such incredible ambition, of such incredible
profit-drive.
	Oddly, the Seattle Times, which recently did an almost chilling
investigative piece on Nintendo, joined the editorialists imploring baseball to
approve this purchase.  In the news story, the Times wrote, "some U.S. analysts
have declared that Nintendo has long pursued a 'Trojan Horse' strategy of using
U.S. children to haul home a harmless toy, whose power and revenue potential
was intentionally understated.  Few Nintendo players know that hidden on the
bottom of the Nintendo Entertainment System is a standard 48-pin computer-cable
connector, which would allow a user to hook up a modem, as well as a keyboard
and many other personal computer devices."
	Anyone who has been witness to the near-decade long financial highwire
act that is the Pirates has to sympathize with the people of Washington, who
made sure the Mariners easily outdrew the New York Yankees, and who are
desperately trying to keep American League baseball from bolting for a second
time(the Milwaukee Brewers used to be the Seattle Pilots).  The chances the new
ownership group would turn out to be a credit to that city and the game itself
aren't remote.  But Nintendo's business posture suggests two possible results
should it acquire the Mariners.  It will either destroy the product with
cost-cutting to enlarge the profit margin, or it will invest to the extent
Barry Bonds' new contract will look like chump-change.
	In short, baseball might not, and certainly should not, see the whole
issue as clearly as Slade Gorton, the Republican senator from Washington who
pulled the partnership together.  Gorton, in the current Sports Illustrated,
says flatly, "there is no justification for this offer being turned down."
	Well. none that Seattle wants to see anyway.

						Gene Collier



JaKe


210.60Collier on TysonCELTIK::JACOBYou can't argue with a sick mindTue Feb 18 1992 01:0578
TYSON KNOCKED OUT OF RING, BUT NOT PUBLIC EYE
    
from The Pittsburgh Press, 2-12-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Observers of the Indiana legal system have established seven to eleven
years as the early line on Mike Tyson's prison sentence, scheduled for
conferral March 6th.
	If that is accurate--it's based apparently on past sentences for
(reasonably) similar crimes--there is an obvious flaw in the first wave of post
verdict analyses, specifically the presumption that Mike Tyson's career is
history.
	In seven years, Tyson will be 32, almost young by the heavyweight
division's comically shifting demographic.  Larry Holmes will be 49, George
Foreman 50.  It only SOUNDS ludicrous to suggest Larry and George will still
hover over the boxing slumscape at that point.  (To really be ludicrous, you
have to predict Floyd Patterson will have added himself to the field by then.)
	Further, Tyson might not serve his entire sentence.  The chances that
the former champion could fight again before the turn of the century do not
appear prohibitive.
	On then, to the issue of the moral sensibility of such a return.
	This is boxing, next issue.
	The marketability of Mike Tyson might drop a few percentage points in
the next few years, but a rebound is inevitable given fertile circumstances. 
Those circumstances are what make boxing the sport it is, what make the boxing
public and its celebrity-mad extensions the audience they are.  Those elements
are in no peril of having applicable sensibilities bumped in the general
direction of the 21st century.
	Note Tyson's compensation in the just-ended first phase of his career,
a phase historied with all manner of ill manners.  We complain about salaries
such as will appear on Bobby Bonilla's 1992 tax return, $5.8 million.  Tyson,
in 1988 for example, earned more than eight times that on a tiny fraction of
the appearances and endured virtually no protest about it.
	This was an athlete an HBO executive once told me earned "Oprah-type
Money."  He mentioned Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson as
Tyson's only financial kin in the entertainment biz, those who earn in the
scores of millions annually.
	What those amounts mean, in one sense, is that Tyson struck a singular
ominous public chord that can and will be struck again, although perhaps not
until Tyson is free.  He was presented as some kind of middle-of-the-food chain
species, brutal and sinister, tamed only inasmuch as was necessary to bflourish
in the fight game, which meant, of course, just barely.
	His conviction on one count of rape and two counts of deviate behavior,
added to his dysfunctional social history, to many only notarizes the packaging
of Tyson we've endured for the past decade.
	And make no mistake, whether it was because of that packaging or to
some sick link-up with the worst in us, there was nothing in our experience
quite like the start of a Tyson fight.  You couldn't look and you couldn't look
away.  Something bad was going to happen.  This was live and scheduled and
sanctioned evil.  He was THAT vicious.  He was THAT, uh, accomplished.
	The market for that does not fluctuate perceptively, I don't think, on
matters such as appreciation for the rights of women, much less the rights of
one woman.  The market for this is actually lubricated by forces that undermine
those rights.  The sports-entertainment dollar is printed in the world of the
Swedish Bikini Team and the Spudettes.  In its boxing neighborhood, there is
one function of the female, Round card girl.  Requirements:  Great body,
willing to dress suggestively and parade in front of large, mostly male crowds. 
The reinforced notion is obvious: Women are basically decorative, of limited
function, disposable.
	Even as Tyson's immediate future and that of his courageous victim were
just beginning to unfold yesterday, two persons phoned this office to find out
if there wasn't a fighter who fought while in prison.  Don't think it hasn't
occurred to Don King, the self-described only-in-America man, that Tyson might
actually be able to carry this on behind bars.  Don't think somebody in Las
Vegas hasn't envisioned the nation's first hotel-casino-penitentiary complex.
	Even if this IS the end for Tyson the boxer, it is not the end for
Tyson the celeb.  As damning as it sounds, there will be a place for Tyson in
this society's public eye.  Maybe not on "Love Connection" or the Lifetime
channel, but someplace.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.61CNTROL::CHILDSmake the right choice, TsongasTue Feb 18 1992 13:119
>	On then, to the issue of the moral sensibility of such a return.
>	This is boxing, next issue.

  hahaaa great two lines...what a wit..

  for those that don't remember Rubin "Hurricane" Carter did fight while
  in prison. Right after Dylan's famous Hurricane song...

 mike
210.62AXIS::ROBICHAUDChicken McShaughnessy?Tue Feb 18 1992 13:214
    	I don't think Carter fought in prison Mike, but some guy named
    Scott did and he was a regular on CBS.
    
    				/Don
210.63SCHOOL::RIEUSupport DCU Petition Candidates!Tue Feb 18 1992 13:403
       It was James Scott who fought from Rahway State prison. I heard
    somewhere that Indiana won't allow it.
                                           Denny
210.64WAYNE'S WORLD!!!! EXCELLENT!!!!SHALOT::MEDVIDEarth Mo FoTue Feb 18 1992 13:5510
>James Scott who fought from Rahway 
    
    Way!
    
    Not!
    
    Hurl!
    
    Party on!
    
210.65LUNER::BROOKSYou down wit MSG ?Tue Feb 18 1992 14:394
    Whatever happened to Scott ? As for Carter, he was RR'ed way back in
    '64 or so, while I hear that he was never cleared, he is out now.
    
    Doc
210.66CAMONE::WAYCheesed a big one offTue Feb 18 1992 15:0819
            <<< Note 210.65 by LUNER::BROOKS "You down wit MSG ?" >>>
                                                           ^^^

Is that:

	Madison Square Garden

	Monosodium Glutamate

		or

	McCauley-Shenker Group


Just curious...


'Saw

210.67AXIS::ROBICHAUDChicken McShaughnessy?Tue Feb 18 1992 15:171
    	I thought Carter was re-tried and was found guilty again?
210.68CST17::FARLEYSon,you can make hundreds o'dollars...Tue Feb 18 1992 15:399
    A few weeks ago (2?), Jimmy Meyers on EEEE EEEEE IIIII was commenting
    on Carter.  From what I recall, he was retried and acquitted.  He now
    lives in Canada.
    
    Most of the original evidence from trial #1 was found to be fabricated.
    He was guilty of one thing - being black.  
    
    Kev
    
210.69Not an open-and-shut case, as I recall...NAC::G_WAUGAMANTue Feb 18 1992 16:0011
          
    I agree with Doc and Slash; I'm pretty sure that Hurricane Carter's
    record upholds his conviction for murder, whether he was re-tried or 
    his appeals denied.  I do recall that the last information I read on
    the case was inconclusive.  There seemed to be a reasonable doubt that
    he committed the murder (but a jury convicted him anyway); however, the
    evidence to clearly exonerate him after he had been convicted wasn't 
    there either...
    
    glenn
      
210.70PFSVAX::JACOBTue Feb 18 1992 23:1611
    Carter got a new trial after Dylan came out with the song and there
    were others who created a lot of public outcry.  The new trial ended in
    the same way as the first one, CARTER GUILTY!.
    
    ANd the justice system works, eh? (8^(*
    
    Seems to me, after reading many articles on the subject both before and
    after the more recent trial, that Carter was definitely railroaded.
    
    JaKe
    
210.71CELTIK::JACOBI Can't Dance, I Can't Talk!!Tue Feb 25 1992 02:4893
210.72Collier on Iditarod28918::JACOBWhatta weekend of I &amp; I it was!!!Tue Mar 10 1992 01:57104
THOSE AREN'T MUSH MELLOWS DOGGING IT IN ALASKA!
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-6-1992

By

Gene Collier

	The annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race, now about half over according to
reports yesterday out of Cripple, Alaska, continues its surge toward the
mainstream of the American sports consciousness.
	Serious now.
	This event's uniquely compelling setting and history, woupled with a
life-and-death struggle with the elements of one of the final North AMerican
frontiers, have generated a certain environmental romance you can't always milk
from, say, nine innings of contested incentive clauses among millionaires
inside the Astrodome.
	But let's be frank.
	No matter how satisfying this 1159-mile race through frozen wilderness
is to the sould of the stern Alaskans, no matter how much of the chilling drama
ABC can translate to us over three weekends, no matter how many reverent books
are written and songs sung about it, the essence of the Iditarod will always
come down to one thing, the name itself.
	Iditarod, an Indian word meaning, literally, "dogs (are) stupid."
	In the race in progress, this year's field of 76 dog teams (generally
10 to 20 dogs each with two on developmental squads), have expanded the meaning
of Iditarod beyond the obvious.
	Obviously, only a species with the brain of a dog would be willing,
probably eager, to run more than 1,000 miles through the snow in temperatures
collapsing to 50 below.  No wonder they're drug tested at the end.
	Even horses, never mistaken for the rocket scientists of the wild
kingdom if you know what I mean, will run all out for about two minutes when
highly motivated to do so, like on Kentucky Derby Day.  Some of these dogs are
going to be running for TWO WEEKS!!
	"I watched the top 15 or 20 teams come through McGrath, a town of about
500," ABC's Sam Posey was telling me yesterday from Anchorage, where he was
thawing out in an "editing suite."  "Night before last, Joe Runyan appears out
of the night, 4:38 A.M.  You just can't believe the steam pouring off the dogs,
the ice on their faces and their flanks reflecting the miner's headlamp worn by
the musher."
	He's right, of course.  I can't believe it, but you should never
underestimate how goofy dogs can get.
	Earlier in this race, a number of mushers(that's drivers, the dogs are
the mushees), including four time champion Susan Butcher, the Joe Montana of
sled dog racing, fell off of their sleds and lost their teams when the dogs ran
off without them.
	Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad Dog!!!
	LUCK-EEE! RUST-EEE! COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW1 ALL RIGHT, I'M GETTING
THE NEWSPAPER!
	Of course, it could have been worse.
	I asked Sam for a moose report.
	"So far, so good," he said.
	This means none of the teams have been attacked by moose, who in my
opinion have, to use a technical sled-dog racing term, a legitimate beef with
this event.
	They've been running the Iditarod for about 20 years, but the moose
have been wintering in that part of Alaska for a couple of million years, and
have come to regard it pretty much as home.  It's where they eat, mind you. 
Now all of a sudden, here come these teams of dogs thumping right through the
dining room.
	"The natural enemy of the moose is the wolf," Posey pointed out.  "When
the moose first see these dogs, at first they're frightened, then they're
belligerent and territorial.  We have had some moose sightings and we have some
marvelous moose photography going into our show this weekend."
	You should hope that won't include footage of the aftermath of an
actual moose tirade.
	"The rules require that if you are forced to kill a moose(in defense of
life or property)," Posey said, "you have to cut it into four parts and drag it
off of the trail."
	I get the sense that the moose missed the rules meeting on that one. 
Should make for an interesting discussion in the editing suite, though.
	Sam told me he'd be getting back out on the course soon, although I
don't know what the hurry would be.
	While more and more media are trying to cover the event each year, it
doesn't get any less difficult.
	ABC is using a helicopter and three planes, one of which has skis-like
landing gear, which would seem to have the potential to wind in some kind of
Winter Olympics competition.  At the same time, I don't think we're in any
danger of seeing the Jamaican Iditarod team.
	"At first, the whole thing is bewildering," said Posey, who's covering
it for the third time.  "It's so hard to cope with the distances.  You're
knocked out by the grandeur of the place.  Unless you're a seasoned outdoors
person, 45 below is a little hard to get used to.  It's incredible to see a
human being, with his or her dog team, deal with the exhaustion, to see the
capability of these people.  They know how to cope with hypothermia and
exhaustion and they know how to care for up to 20 dogs in complete wilderness.
Not to get too (rhetorical) about it, but at a time when people are wondering
about human resourcefullness, complaining about the frontier spirit being lost,
I can tell you it has not been lost.  These people are turning in awesome
performances.
	"At the same time, I find myself really dumbfounde, in an age like
ours, that people would be doing this."
	That's two of us.  But I have a feeling that before long we'll be
getting cellular phones on those sleds and Nike will figure out a way to get
four sneakers on every athlete and we'll all feel a lot more comfortable about
the whole thing.  Maybe we can even get Keith Jackson up there for the pregame.

	"Yes sir, the huskies and the mooskies, a coupla teams that dooooon't
like each other."
					Gene Collier


JaKe

	
210.73Collier on Worley28918::JACOBSend Solar Panel Wax, Soon!!!Tue Mar 10 1992 02:37116
STEELERS ARE LEARNING THE HARD WAY ABOUT WORLEY
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-8-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Good news, of all things, for Tim Worley; he has been designated a
finalist in the NBA's fan of the year competition.  Tim demonstrated his
passion for the game by attending NBA All-Star weekend in Orlando, Fla., last
month, even though it meant missing two drug tests, which will probably cost
him a year's salary.
	What can ya sas; the man really likes hoops, OK?
	Of course, I'm making that up.  There is no NBA fan of the year.  Good
news about Tim Worley, ya GOTTA make up.
	The part about missing the drug tests and therefore probably the 1992
Steelers season is true, as is the outline of Tim's all-star explanation.  It's
only the latest, and perhaps the lamest, episode in what has become a
year-round Pittsburgh pastime, explaining Tim Worley.
	But explaining Worley isn't really that difficult, or at least not as
difficult as explaining why the Steelers drafted him in the first place.
	Worley walked right off of the pages of a sociology textbook onto the
Steelers' roster in 1989.  He was a poor student with a dysfunctional
background, almost his entire orientation was geared to quick gratification. 
The implications of his actions andof those around him he measured in hours,
not years.  His naivete, good humor and trusting nature were a giant bull's-eye
for opportunists.  They didn't miss.
	The Steelers knew all that, but they knew also that many players have
flourished from the same dim and poisoned light, and they were blinded by his
awesome physical potential.  their failure was in not thoroughly assessing his
psychological profile, a failure that persist even now as the organization
prepares for the April draft.
	"In the pros, where talent evens out, we have found that psychological
factors clearly make the difference between winners and others wo do not make
it in spite of what, in many cases, are awesome abilities," said Herb
Greenberg, Co-Chair of Caliper Corporation, a Princeton psychological
assessment company that has helped many professional sports teams, including
the New York Giants.  "We are able to pinpoint an individual's degree of
self-discipline, self-esteem and competitiveness and we can accurately forecast
whether a player has what we call 'the psychology of a winner.'"
	The psychology of the Steelers on this tool, despite impressive
independent documentation of the performance of Caliper and other psychological
testing firms, has been somewhat immobile.
	"We found that on the occasions that we did use it, not on players but
on our other employees, for example, that it really wasn't that helpful," said
Steelers President Dan Rooney.  "You can get confused and take the conclusions
in the wrong direction.  As far as testing the players goes, one of the
problems is that you're ultimately going to have football people interpreting
the results of tests they might not be qualified to interpret."
	Rooney said that does not mean he has ruled out psychological testing. 
It is inexpensive.  Caliper, for example, could test 100 draft eligible players
for as little as $17,500.  The biggest obstacle to testing, in fact, has been
removed----Chuck Noll.
	"Chuck was not convinced of the value of psychological testing, and Dan
supported Chuck," said Joe Gordon, long time Steelers executive now carrying
the understated title of director of communications.  "A great advocate of it
was (recently departed director of player personnel) Dick Haley.  I just
mentioned to someone that maybe if we had done a better job in this area, the
Tim Worley situation could have been prevented."
	By "prevented", Gordon means that a player of poor psychological
projection would not be drafted, or at least drafted with full knowledge of the
potential downside.
	"Take the case of Rod Woodson," Gordon said.  "Now we probably would
not have tested him.  He was the 10th player picked and we were told he'd be
gone by the fourth or fifth, so we wouldn't have taken that hard a look.  But
Worley, we knew he'd be in our range.
	"I'm not saying a player wouldn't be taken anyway, but if you're
comparing him to another player and he's got a lot of caution lights or red
lights around him, you might go with the guy with all of the green lights."
	It remains, perhaps, a leap that psychological assessment of Worley
would flash nothing but red and yellow lights, but it says here that Worley's
severe difficulties in the professional setting almost surely would have been
turned up by a firm such as Caliper, which has helped more than 15,000
companies select, develop and manage people for the past 30 years.
	As part of the goofy entry-level economics of the NFL, the Steelers
agreed to pay Worley $3.05 million before he put on the uniform.  Since then,
he has started only 22 of a possible 48 regular-season games and is a good bet
to miss the next 16.
	He has had a variety of injuries, has gone AWOL, gotten arrested,
failed two drug tests, undergone treatment, nearly defaulted on his
mortgage(the club advanced him $30,000), been investigated by the league for
dubious financial dealings, hired and fired multiple agents, quarrelled
publicly with coaches and missed two more drug tests that constitute a third,
career-threatening violation.
	Psychological testing does not, generally, identify those who are
predisposed to drug abuse, although it does guage self-esteem, long considered
a major factor.  But look, for example, at some of the questions a test would
have answered about Worley:

	-Will he stay in condition on his own?

	-Will he come to practice and work hard without being forced to?

	-Will he concentrate on improving weak areas?
		
	-Is he good in the clutch?
	
	-Is he too selfish to be a good team player?

	-Will he be injury prone?

	And, most tellingly,

	-Will he rebound from failure and be up for the next challenge?

	The Steeles have all the answers now and it only cost upward of $3.05
million and a ton of heartache to get them.  They probably could have had them
for about $150 three years ago.

						Gene Collier



JaKe


210.74Collier on the Bucs woes ala Andy Van SlykeCELTIK::JACOBA double flutter blast!!Thu Mar 12 1992 01:47105
210.75GENRAL::WADEShe knowed he had a MercuryThu Mar 12 1992 15:166
    
    	Ty Gainey?  I played softball against him a couple of years
    	ago when he was between jobs (he had just been let go by
    	the Sky Sox - the Indians AAA team).
    
    	Claybone
210.76Collier on the possibility of an NHL strike28918::JACOBA double flutter blast!!Sat Mar 14 1992 02:3795
NHL STRIKE THREAT HAS COLD FACTS
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-12-1992

By

Gene Collier

	True, 911 operators have so far reported no unusual volume, but there
could be a hockey strike at any moment, and the Stanley Cup playoffs are only
TENTATIVELY scheduled to begin April 8.
	From the standpoint of impact, the best time for the players to strike
would be that day, when the club owners have the most at stake in terms of
revenue, even though the players have at stake the season's first real
accomplishment.  I mean. in many cases, if there were a work stoppage during
the regular season, how would we know?
	An April 8 strike date would also carry advantages locally.  At that
point, the Pittsburgh audience would merely deal with the prospect of life
without playoff hockey, which in most years is nothing more than life its own
self.  In fact, with the golden exception of last spring, life without
professional hockey at any time has pretty much been a condition of the
previous quarter-century around here.
	Not to be critical.
	Now with the club owners, who to this point have limited the players'
rights to roughly those enjoyed by 8th century Volga Boatmen, reportedly are
trying to get into place a plan to stock the teams with replacement players
from North American minor leagues and Europe.
	The chance to see first round Stanley Cup action between the Calgary
Replacement Flames and Vancouver's Canucks-Lite almost has me wishing this were
April 8.  But it could be worse, I could have Sportschannel.
	Lest the effect of this owners plan seem befuddling in any way, the
Associated Press cast great clarity upon it yesterday with this stunningly
analytical observation:

	"A Stanley Cup won or influenced by minor leaguers clearly would be
tarnished."
	
	Whoa!  I'm tellin' ya, they ARE geniuses over there.
	The responsible thing to do at this point, I mean journalistically,
would be to present you the issues as they persist, with obligatory background,
political measurements and potential impact of proposed solutions on each,
thereby guaranteeing that you would stop reading right here if you haven't
already.
	But I know that when it comes to the possibility of a strike, the full
extent of what you want to know about the hockey players is exactly what you
want to know about PAT drivers(JaKeNOTE: PAT:==Port Authority Transit, public
transport, busses, a$$holes behind the wheel) and nothing more:  Will they, or
won"t they??
	And I'm here to tell ya, I don't know.
	Should they??
	Uh, yeah.
	Could they??
	Oh yeah.
	Will they??
	I don't know.  We're back to the first question.  One of those vicious
cycles, ya know.
	But at least there's a good reason why I don't know.  It's because they
don't know.  They don't even know if they want to know.
	There has never been a strike by National Hockey League players and
many serious hockey students insist there will never be a strike, owing to the
makeup of the standard hockey player.
	In Canada, despite a labor history marked by millitancy equal to or
greater than that of American labor, it is still considered a privilege and an
honor to play in the NHL.  You just don't mess with it.  It is above common
politics.  And woe to the first generation of Canadian boys who would rip the
game from their nation's culture even for a day, let alone an April day.  Not
suprisingly, the fellas just don't have the stomach for it.
	"That's an opinion and that's all it is," said Bryan Trottier, the
players association negotiator.  "I'm not agreeing or disagreeing; it's jsut an
opinion.  This situation has nothing to do with anything like that.  It's just
that a set of circumstances has led us at this particular time to this
particualr point.  We're not right and neither are they; that's why we've got
to negotiate."
	The tone the players take indicates a certain urgency to their stand
this time.  It is the first bargaining at-bat for new NHL Players Association
Director Boob Goodenow, and if they collapse under him he'll be forever
impotent.  If the players want tangible advances on more liberal free agency, a
less restrictive draft and better pension benefits, they'll probably have to
push the owners up against the glass.  NOW.
	NHL players draw regular paychecks only during the regular season. 
They play the tournament for bonus money and to put their names on the Cup.
	"It's really at an impasse and it's really a tough call," said Pens
Coach Scotty Bowman, shaking his head.  "The way salaries have gone, there are
a lot of players making half-million dollars or more.  It could be that they're
not going to want to play in the playoffs just to generate revenue that they
don't share in."
	Ugly little conflict, isn't it?  Not as hideously decadent as are
baseball negotiations, but it's a start.

					Gene Collier



JaKe


210.77Collier proposing rule changes for the NFLCELTIK::JACOBHave you 'given' your quart today??Fri Mar 20 1992 01:5286
(JaKeNOTE:  THis article is from Monday, so the bit about Instant Replay has
already come true)

HERE'S INSTANT FIX FOR WHAT AILS NFL, BUT WILL OWNERS LISTEN??
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-16-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Tired of hearing of how there are no easy answers, that the quick fix
is always a fool's course?  I didn't think so.
	But here, anyway, are five pro football issues and their obvious(to me
anyways) solutions, which should be adopted at this week's National Football
League meetings, and, just as obviously, won't be.
	
	1. DEATH TO INSTANT REPLAY.
	Objectionable on only about a dozen levels in the course of its sorry
six-year history, replay deserves a timely death because of time alone.  Time
waits for no man, we thought, until the creation of the replay official.  Time
waits for him.  We do not suffer delays lightly, this society.  It is the age
of drive-thru.  And yet a serious NFL fan--let's say someone who watches two
games per weekend on the average--can count count on having one to two hours of
his life turned over to the replay official in the course of a lovely
autumn.This is a high price when you consider what you get in return 84 percent
of the time--official confirmation that what you thought you just saw, you
actually just saw.
	There were 90 replay delays that resulted in reversals last year, but I
would submit there were twice that many mistakes (many in the form of
non-calls) made by on-field officials because they were petrified by the replay
cameras.  On-field officials who once carried the confident persona of noted
jurists now twitch like petty thieves.  The game is thus not inherently fairer
than it was six years ago, but it's a lot harder to watch.
	
	2. HUT! WHUT? HUT! WHUT?
	Quarterbacks, some coaches say, should be equipped with audio
amplification devices so that their teammates can hear the signals, especially
inside the 20-yard line where crowd noise tends to increase.  As it stands,
officials can penalize the defensive team 5 yards or with the loss of a timeout
for excessive crowd noise, and that's more than is needed to deal with this
alleged problem.  It's SUPPOSED to be difficult to score, and gagging the
studio audience is a terrible way to thank it for showing up at the gate with a
couple of million dollars.
	Owners are anxious that scoring dipped to 38 points per game last year,
perhaps because they fear some political backlash from the highlights industry,
but there's nothing wrong with 38 a game.  More memorable football games come
in 17-10 size than the 27-20 type.  Further, isn't the game screwed up enough
by the technology above the field (REPLAY) without putting technology right on
the field?  Today a simple audio amplification device, tomorrow advanced
warning and control systems(AWACS) for blitz recognition.

	3.  40, 35, 30.  I'LL TAKE ARITHMETIC REGRESSIONS FOR $100. ALEX.
	Should the kickoff, traditionally launched from the 40-yard line until
we changed it to the 35, be moved back to the 30 because only 74 percent were
returned last year??  Sure, and by the year 2050, we'll be kicking off from the
gaol line.  Seventy-four percent doesn't look like crisis stage to me.  This is
the most violent play in football, anyway.  Leave it alone and be glad that
with one kickoff in four, at least, the players have a chance to get off of the
field with both knees intact.

	4.EXPANSION XXVII, ON TO HONOLULU.
	Eleven cities want NFL teams, which would bring the total to 39. 
Fortunately, only two are expected to get them for the 1994 season.  My
formula, which I can't BELIEVE can't get adopted, is to freeze the number of
teams at 28, but shut down the two franchises with the worst records each year,
then award those franchises to the expansion candidates on a rotating basis. 
This year, the Tampa Bay Bucaneers and Indianapolis Colts would have been
kicked out and replaced with, say, the Honolulu Lulus and the Memphis
Metaphysicists.  Tampa Bay and Indianapolis would be free to reapply, but would
go to the back of the line behind Baltimore, Charlotte, Jacksonville,
Nashville, Oakland, Raleigh-Durham, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio, and
Port Matilda.

	5.  IF I HAD A HAMMER...
	Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville got some grief for having rap
star Hammer on the sidelines for a couple of games, probably because nobody
else thought of it first.  Hammer should be allowed to stay so long as all the
other teams get to designate a celebrity by Friday before the game.  The
Steelers should draft Madonna.  If she balks, they can always use
Fedko.(JaKeNOTE:  Fedko is an obnoxious local sportscaster in Pittsburgh)

					Gene Collier


JaKe

210.78Collier on Bucs Dealing SmileyCELTIK::JACOBHave you 'given' your quart today??Fri Mar 20 1992 02:50100
    I think that Steve Greenberg's comments about just selling baseball as
    entertainment, and not wins and losses, shows the team doesn't care as
    much as winning as they did before, and that is why the Pirates will be
    the Charlotte Pirates or something like that in 5 years.
    
    
    
HISTORY SHOWS IT'S A DOOMED DEAL
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-18-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Did they just show Ted Simmons the books the other day????
	"Now Ted, as you can see from these revenue charts and cash
projections..."
	Ted: "AAAAAAAAGGHHH!!"
	The man's hysterical.
	John Smiley and cash for Denny Neagle and Midre Cummings??
	The man's historical, too.
	Late last night, after way more research than I really cared to do (and
two failed attempts to pass it off on somebody else, including the ever-willing
Elias Sports Bureau), I determined that Simmons has just become the first
National League executive in 68 years to trade a 20-game winner before the
start of the next season.
	No need to thank me.
	You only have to go back 17 years to find an American League team
stupi, uh, innovative enough to try it, that being the 1975 Chicago White Sox,
who on Dec. 10 of that year dealt 20-game winner Jim Kaat to the Philadelphia
Phillies for Dick Ruthven, Roy Thomas, and Alan Bannister, and promptly and
deservedly went on to lose 97 games and finish 25-1/2 games out.  The Phillies
won their division.
	Simmons' recollections of this rarest of hot-stove explosions were not
correct.
	"I don't know how many (times it's happened), but I remember the
Cardinals traded a guy named Ernie Broglio the year after he won 20 games,"
Simmons said.  "They got Lou Brock in exchange."
	Uh...NO!
	The St. Louis Cardinals got Brock from the Chicago Cubs. , that's
right, but in a six player deal FOUR YEARS after Broglio went 21-9 in 1960. 
Lovely parting gifts?
	But look, although I'm perfectly willing to mumble the usual
trade-analysis disclaimers--no trade can be analyzed upon its consummation; it
might not look good now, but in 12 or 24 months it might look great, blah,
blah, blah--this Smiley-for-prospects(all prospects are suspects) deal looks
dreary from every angle.
	The first, as has been made abvious, is framed by the fact that 20-game
winners aren't falling out of the trees.  There were four last year, only 40 in
the past 10 years.  The Bucs have had only two others since 1977(John
Candelaria and Doug Drabek).  You don't trade them, especially if they're 27
years old, and, more especially, you don't trade them for prospects.
	The second is this Pirates financial gyroscope, which is all very
complex and intriguing, I suppose, and presumably the Smiley dumping makes
sense within that context.  Uh...NO, again.
	Say the Pirates sat down and figured out that with Barry Bonds, Doug
Drabek, and John Smiley in the final year of their contracts, they could afford
to keep only one.  Say they decided it was Drabek as, obviously, they have. 
That's fine.  Except for this.  With bonds clearly going and Smiley gone, the
price of Drabek has just gone up.  With the club's strategy so clearly
revealed, what do you think will be the approach of Drabek's agents.  The
Fabulous Hendricks Brothers?  Youbetcha.  "Look, this is the guy you're gonna
pay, now PAY him!!"  The fans will have roughly the same position.  Drabek, on
the other hand, might think, "What do I want to be here for when they're
dumping all the good players?"  You can put the Drabek ssituation down as
officially botched.
	But the third and most important, with the exit of Smiley on top of
that of Bobby Bonilla, the Pirates have backed across the threshold of where
they could have won the division title in 1992.  They are now of a decidedly
different posture, be not mistaken.  You don't subtract a 100-RBI man and a
20-game winner and head back to the National League Championship Series.
	Franchises go for decades in this game without even getting themselves
in position to win.  When you've got position, you don't back up for a shot at
Denny Neagle and Midre Cummings.  Neagle and Cummings could be great players
for the next 10 years and not return the Pirates to the spot they were before
yesterday(Tuesday).
	"it forces us to do what we have been doing, to sell baseball as
entertainment; you can't rely on selling wins and losses," said Steve
Greenberg, the club's vice president/marketing and operations.  "As long as
everybody has a great time, I think that's what's important.  We're trying to
make it an event, just like Sundays in the fall are an event, but it's tougher
because we've got 10 times as many games.
	"I was down in the ticket office when this happened and I didn't see
any change.  It's similar to the Bonilla situation.  People knew that was going
to happen and people knew something like this was going to happen.  They
realize you can't sign everybody."
	Wilbur Cooper was the last National League 20-game winner to be dealt
before the start of the next season.  The Pirates sent him and Charlie Grimm
and Rabbit Maranville to the Chicago Cubs for Vic Aldridge, George Grantham,
and Al Niehaus Oct. 27, 1924.  Didn't hurt the Bucs, though.  The next year,
they won the World Series.
	As irrelevant as it looks, it's the one positive thing that can be said
about yesterday's deal.
	Well, it worked 68 years ago.

						Gene Collier


JaKe

210.79Incentive to be competitiveSALES::THILLFri Mar 20 1992 14:0329
> freeze the number of
>teams at 28, but shut down the two franchises with the worst records each year,
>then award those franchises to the expansion candidates on a rotating basis. 
>This year, the Tampa Bay Bucaneers and Indianapolis Colts would have been
>kicked out and replaced with, say, the Honolulu Lulus and the Memphis
>Metaphysicists.  

This is what they do in European soccer. The last 2 or 3 place teams are 
replaced by the first 2 or 3 teams from the next lower division. This means 
there is constant pressure to put a competitive team on the field. 

Of course, it couldn't happen with American Pro Sports, because we would be 
mixing college and pro teams in Football and basketball. Baseball teams all own 
the minor league teams anyway, so you couln't have the AAA champs playing in 
the majors and the Indians in the minors. At least these border line cities 
that want to be major league could at least be a major league city (as long as 
their team produces on the field).

I could see somethng like this in college football. A lot of the top 20 play 
each other anyway. They could have a national premier league of 12 teams, all
playing each other. (Teams are switching conferences so much anyway, so it won't
matter about "traditional" games, but you could allow one game per team agaist
such a rival.) At the end of the season, the bottom 2 drop back to their own 
regional conferences, and a playoff system determines who replaces them.

Sure it's a pipe dream, but think of the TV money this would bring out. It 
would also mean a genuie national championship, not this mythical #1 stuff.

Tom
210.80PATE::MACNEALruck `n' rollFri Mar 20 1992 16:545
210.81Collier on "uneventful" springsCELTIK::JACOBDem Pens is suprizing me!!Wed Mar 25 1992 02:4798
BIG NEWS BLOSSOMS IN THE SPRING
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-23-92

By

Gene Collier
                
	Two weeks of spring training remain and it appears those who habitually
say nothing much happens in baseball's preamble, who habitually say the entire
experience is all a rather predictable exercise, are again correct...
	Except that three members of the New York Mets were accused of rape,
except that Pascual Perez, in an interview from the back of his limo, accused
the New York Yankees of setting him up to fail a drug test, except that Ken
Griffey Jr. revealed that in a high school suicide attempt he swallowed 277
aspirin tablets, except that Bo Jackson, the most gifted athlete of the era,
was forever seperated from that status, except that Matt Keough was nearly
killed when he took a liner off the head in an Arizona dugout.
	For their part, the Pirates merely traded a 20-game winner for two
prospects, released the pitcher who led the team in saves in each of the past
three seasons, forced the manager to remind everyone that he was indeed the
manager, shook up the politics of the East Division and irreversibly altered
the financial and philosophical course of the franchise.
	So once again,. even further proof that nothing much happens in spring
training.
	And yet for those of you who remain perhaps unconvinced-and because
we're perfectly willing, as always, to belabor a point all the way to colossal
redundancy- here with the help of editor James Charlton's superb reference
text, "The Baseball Chronicle," is one opinion as to the 10 biggest things that
ever happened in spring training, when-remember-nothing much happens.
	
	1.  1989  Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader and a lock
Hall-of-Famer, tells a gathering of media interested in why he has been called
to meet with Comissioner Peter Ueberroth and soon-to-be-commissioner Bart
Giamatti, "You can read anything you want into it, but I don't see anything
bad."

OOPS!!

	2.  1973  Yankees pitcher Fritz Peterson, arriving at Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., announces he has traded his wife to pitching teammate Mike Kekich in
exchange for Kekich's wife.  Neither wife, apparently, had had a no-trade
clause wqritten into the nuptial agreement, and neither was a 10-and-5 man, er,
woman-married 10 years, the past five to the same guy.  Not only did Peterson
and Kekich swap wives, but entire families, including dogs.

	3.  1977  In a move that would ultimately solidify the sorry fate of
millions of Boston Red Sox fans for most of the next decade, the Chicago Shite
Sox trade shortstop Bucky Dent to the Yankees for outfielder Oscar Gamble,
pitchers LaMarr Hoyt and Bob Polinsky, and cash.  Eighteen months later, Dent's
three-run homer off Mike Torrez will win a one-game playoff for the American
League East, the defining moment in Boston pathos until the ball goes between
Bill Buckner's legs eight Octobers later.

	4.  1957  Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley trades his Fort Worth
farm club to Chicago Cubs owner Phil Wrigley for Wrigley's Los Angeles farm
club, says the Dodgers might play 10 exhibition games in California in 1958 and
confers with Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson and other city officials.
Uh-Oh!!

	5.  1954  Bobby (The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win The
Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!) Thomson, in his first spring training
after being traded to the Milwaukee Braves, breaks his ankle sliding into third
base during an exhibition game against the Pirates.  The Braves scraqmble to
get a rookie left fielder ready by opening day and select a 20-year-old out of
Mobile Ala.--Henry Louis Aaron.

	6.  1966  Player representatives meet to elect an executive director of
the MAjor League Players Assoc.  He is assistant to the president of the United
Steelworkers, one Marvin Miller.
Uh-Oh!

	7.  1981  The Philadelphia Phillies call a news conference to announce
they have sold slugging outfielder Greg Luzinski to the Chicago White Sox.  As
the announcement is being made, attention is diverted to a television monitor
in a Clearwater, Fla. hotel, from which CBS is reporting that President Reagan
has been shot and that press secretary James Brady has been shot and killed.
OOPS!!

	8.  1935  The Yankees release Babe Ruth.  Three months later, almost to
the day, he will hit his final three home runs, all in one game at Forbes
Field.  No. 714 clears the right-field grandstand.
	
	9.  1977  Texas Rangers infielder Lenny Randle, a little unhappy with
the way Manager Frank Lucchesi is working his spring training line-up card,
attacks the 50-year-old managerm shattering his cheekbone.  In a move that will
help keep the Mets perfectly awful for years to come, Randle is traded to New
York a month later for Rick Auerbach.

	10. 1991  In one of the most-seen confrontations between a manager and
player ever, Jim Leyland scolds National League Most Valuable Player Barry
Bonds for his disruptive spring behavior.  Bonds, who doth not protest, fails
to ask Leyland if he's ever heard of Frank Lucchesi.

					Gene Collier


JaKe

210.82Collier on Kirk GibsonCELTIK::JACOBDem Pens is suprizing me!!Thu Mar 26 1992 01:3092
GIBSON IN THE LEADOFF SPOT A DISORDERLY NOTION
fron The Pittsburgh Press, 3-24-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Couldn't help but notice that Pirates Manager Jim Leyland is "toying"
with the idea of making Kirk Gibson the leadoff hitter, which is fine as far as
it goes, so long as it doesn't go past April 5.
	By opening night, April 6, you should hope the manager has toyed with
this idea the way you used to toy with Rubik's Cube--twisting its edges a few
times, recognizing is as a demonic conspiracy or something that just plain
doesn't work, and jurling it deep into the couch pillows.
	There are a few things more depressing than the prospect of Gibson as
the first batter of the 1992 Pirates season, but since most of them have to do
with George Bush I won't discuss them here.
	Picture yourself propped next to the redio a week from Monday
night(certainly you're not going out the night of the NCAA championship game,
are you?) awaiting the first burst of verbal bric-a-brac from Lanny
Frattare(Pirates Play-by-Play Man):

	Lanno: Leading off the 1992 season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kirk
Harold Gibson, and Rook(Jim Rooker, former Pirate pitcher and now color man),
you know what that means.

	Jim Rooker's evil twin: Means we are dogmeat, Lanny.
	
	Nothing personal against dear Gibby, of course.  Kirk, after al, is
large and nasty and, in every sense, not to be toyed with.  But it is difficult
to sublimate the feeling that any team running 35-year-old, .236-hitting Kirk
Gibson up there to lead off and play right field against right-handed pitching
is not exactly bound for glory.
	The Kansas City Royals, for whom Gibson led off 23 times in his 120
starts last year, thought just enough of him to displace him in left field with
a converted second baseman with no power and a career-best average of .280, the
hugely doubtable Keith Miller.
	For all Gibson's breathlessly chronicled heroics in the late 1980's,
the Royals, coming off a season in  which they lost nearly as often as they won
(82-80), gauged his diminished potential as roughly that of Jim Eisenreich or
Chris Gwynn, nice extra outfielders on a .500 club, but hardly precious.
	If he didn't project in their big picture, he was of even less
consequence as the potential leadoff hitter.
	The Elias Baseball Analyst, that blinding glare of annual software from
which no player can hide a single blemish, freezes some of Gibson's ratty
leadoff credentials.
	he hit .252 against right-handed pitching, far better than against the
other kind, but only .221 leading off innings and .222 on artificial turf.  He
drew a sufficient percentage of walks, but had nearly as many strikeouts(103)
as hits(109).  Upon his arrival in Bradenton in exchange for Neal Heaton this
spring, Gibson boasted that, at his physical peak, he ran a 4.2 40, which would 
have made him the streak equal of Renaldo Nehemiah (yeah, right), but last
season he could run first-to-third on an outfield single less than half the
time (12 of 25).
	The alarm here has to peel more from just the disheveled look Gibson
might give the Pirates' lineup.  The news that Leyland even "toys" with such an
idea appears to telegraph larger problems.  
	Obviously, someone doesn't think Jeff King can play everyday, or that
if he can, he will not play well enough to permit an Orlando Merced/Gary Redus
platoon in the leadoff spot to play itself out.
	King is clearly the critical variable in the Pirates' offense, and if
King's spring vibes have the manager thinking about leading off Kirk Gibson,
this club is in more trouble than you thought it was.
	Leyland is not spiteful, and he is not unhappy enough with the commando
management team of Mark Sauer and Ted Simmons to ride Gibson until he breaks
down just to show them how very rickety they've left this club.
	But Gibson, it says here, IS going to break down if Leyland tries to
use him the way he once used R.J. Reynolds, as a highly serviceable leadoff man
with good base-stealing sense.
	It has been pointed out that Gibson, with his swelling history of leg
and shoulder miseries, played 86 games on highly taxing artificial turf last
year, more than twice the number of any previous season.
	Perhaps the manager views Gibson as his leadoff hitter because, sadly,
Gibson is as much a leadoff hitter as anything else.
	He's a .219 career pinch-hitter, and as an outfielder he's a good pinch
hitter.  But he stole 18 bases last year, which is eight more than Andy Van
Slyke stole, and Gibson's stolen base percentage has actually increased over
the years.  He has stolen 87 bases in his past 100 attempts.
	The prominence of Gibson discussion merely emphasizes the degree to
which the Pirates have convulsed in the last week.  As a viable National League
East contender, Gibson was the classic good guy to have in the clubhouse, and
implicit in that, a good guy for a two-time defending champion to KEEP in the
clubhouse.
	Now it looks as though they regard him as something far more important. 
And that is not very good.

					Gene Collier


JaKe

210.83Collier pretty tough on Mike TysonCELTIK::JACOBDem Pens is suprizing me!!Sat Mar 28 1992 01:0696
JAIL CAN'T HELP TYSON, BUT IT'S SOCIETY'S BEST BET
from The Pittsburgh Press, 3-26-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Prison will do Mike Tyson no good, of course, one being just as bad and
as sick as the other.
	The importance of today's sentencing therefore is not the joining of
one evil to another, but in the separation of us from him.  Our innumerable
efforts to understand him, both sincere and merely rhetorical, can be
therapuetically relaxed for a time.	
	As Tyson sizzled across this warped game-of-life course, from childhood
mugger to heavyweight champion of the world to serial buttocks fondler to
America's hottest celebrity rapist, serious and even casual students of his
career wondered, what could save him?  What would be best for him??
	Today, with the help of Federal Judge Patricia Gifford, we are perhaps
instructed to absorb rather than project that concern.  What, when it comes to
Tyson, is best for us??For all of us??
	There are people who would love to have blurred this question,
incredibly enough.
	Take The Donald.
	Mr. Trump, made aware that boxing's greatest profit horse of all time
was being counted out in an Indianapolis courtroom, offered up a disgusting
art-of-the-deal solution that would have had Tyson throwing money at families
of rape victims in exchange for a suspended sentence.

	The Donald is, shall we say, REALITY CHALLENGED.

	But other supposedly more earth-based forces got behind Tyson at his
hour of disgrace as well.  Because Tyson's trial didn't get round-by-round TV
exposure like the William Kennedy Smith trial or the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill
hearings--cases in which the public could grasp and feel the gravity and
implication of the charges--those forces suceeded to an extent in creating the
notion that Tyson was somehow being set up.  That even Tyson's lawyers were
racist charlatans, offering up as his best defense that he was obviously the
embodiment of all the basest racist stereotypes.  That everybody ought to take
whatever they deem to be appropriate precautions.  That Tyson, in some bizarre
sense, is just a guy who can't get a break.  Wasn't this the guy who, named in
a peternity suit, admitted fathering the child and submitted to a blood test
that proved he hadn't??  Yeah, if it ain't one thing, it's another.
	The accumulation of theatrics and legal mechanics combined to belittle
the issue--forcible rape, after all--and at the same time to magnify the
competitive aspect:  Could Tyson beat this speeding ticket, or were they going
to get ridiculous about it?
	That's why today, Mike Tyson probably can't believe the outcome.  H.L.
Mencken wrote, "Injustice is relatively easy to bear, what stings is justice."
	We're talking today, finally, not about sport and society, not about
the role of alleged role models, not about the commonplace tragedy of blown
potential, not about the equally commonplace failure to overcome the enormous
odds of a dysfunctional culture base.  We're talking about rape and rapists,
and about how someone we all know is a common rapist swelling by one more
cancerous cell a prison population that has grown by 134% in the past 12 years.
	This is rape, people; this is not some diabolical "trickeration"
intended to inconvenience Don King.  This is rape, the thing referred to by
Supreme Court Justice Byron White as "short of homicide, the ultimate violation
of self."
	According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, for every reported
rape(and rape arrests exceed 40,000 annually), there are 1,200 rapes or
attempted rapes that go unreported.
	More ominously, just as writers write, just as fighters fight, rapists
rape, again and again.
	The rate of recidivism (getting arrested again on the same charge) is
higher than for any other violent crime, more than twice as high as that for
murder.
	Sam Williams of the Court Counselor Program in Illinois, an agency that
works with convicts after they serve their sentences, said he would
characterize the rape and criminal sexual assault areas as "a revolving door. 
I con't know about Pennsylvania, but we've got a lot of sex crimes out here,
and it's a lot of the same people again and again, a revolving door."
	Tha chances that Mike Tyson will walk and rape again aren't terribly
remote.  Some studies have shown recidivism for rape up to 22 years from the
time of the first conviction.
	"Our organization takes no defined position on rape sentences because
the circumstances vary so widely," Kim Gandy of the National Organization of
Women said last night.  "But I spent some time as a prosecutor and a defender
in my home state of Louisiana, where rape was a mandatory life sentence and had
previously been subject to the death penalty.  Tyson was convicted of forcible
rape--not aggrevated rape, which is with a gun or a knife--but even that would
have brought a 20-year minimum.
	"I understand in Indiana he could have gotten 6 years with half of it
off for good behavior.  Three years?  You can get three years mandatory for
purse-snatching in Louisiana."
	
	The degree of punishment is highly debatable.  What is less debatable
is that everyone is safer with Mike Tyson in a cage.  Prison is the best place
for him, and it is only very sad that the best place for him can't help him
much.

						Gene Collier



JaKe

210.84Collier on "The Babe"CELTIK::JACOBA Plotcher, hard luck Your LordshipFri Apr 24 1992 00:2487
'THE BABE' A GRAND-SLAM EFFORT TO SHOW INCOMPARABLE RUTH
from The Pittsburgh Press, 4-21-1992

By

Gene Collier


	Watched every last second of "The Babe" yesterday, which is the only
way you can discover that the hot dogs appearing in the movie are courtesy of
Oscar Mayer.
	I suppose I should check the historical accuracy of that.  Was Oscar
Mayer around in the 1920s?  If it wasn't, doesn't that boldly underscore this
notion that the movie is a ratty stitching of half-truths foisted on the ever
gullible, baseball-illiterate public?
	Well, I'm not checking.  If Oscar Mayer actually fed the Babe, as well
aas "The Babe," I'm sure they're proud.  If not, they wish they had.  I mean,
we can live with it either way, can't we?
	"The Babe," the latest attempt to capture the life of Babe Ruth for the
screen, opened Friday to what are essentially two kinds of reviews.  Real film
reviewers have generally characterized it as fair to good, perhaps even very
good, while sportswriters have labeled it fair to bad or been thrown into
violent spasms in defense of trivia.
	The writers seem to think Babe Ruth's life simply cannot be dealt with
in a popular film and must only be considered in deep repose with the written
word.  How quaint.
	Almost all of the negative reviews refer the poor filmgoer to Robert W.
Creamer's excellent biography, "Babe, The Legend Comes to Life."  As it
happens, Creamer's biography is truly excellent, unsentimental, clinical,
painstaking asnd probably the definitive treatment of the grossly eventful life
of George Herman Ruth, a man Life magazine has identified as one of the 100
most important Americans of the 20th century.
	But in a darkened theater, Creamer's book is useless, unless you need
it as a booster seat or something.  For a couple of hours in the dark, I'd much
prefer "The Babe."
	John Goodman's Ruth is raucously engaging; it is the rich performance
of a pretty fair actor having a great time.  Unlike William Bendix in the
ill-fated "The Babe Ruth Story" of 1948, the year of Ruth's death, Goodman
brings the character the necessary qualities of hurt and fear, innocence and
arrogance.  Bendix brought only a quality that said, "Oh my, I'm Babe Ruth!"
	And the movie is bigger than just Goodman, if such a thing is possible.
It has a great spirit, which was the essence of Ruth, who burst out of a
Baltimore boys' home to become a legend, and a legend by every academic,
technical and popular definition.  It has great music and a very agreeable
feel, even as it deals rather uncompromisingly with Ruth's unflinching
excesses.
	"I swing big, with everything I've got," says Ruth in "The Babe" and in
Creamer's excellent biography.  "I hit big or I miss big.  I like to live as
big as I can."
	It reads like philosophy.  Goodman plays it as though it was a force
field.  Which do you think is more accurate?
	Objectors to "The Babe" are, in fact, tediously correct on several
fronts:

	--Ruth was not a fat kid, as "The Babe" would instruct.
	--Ruth was not abandoned at St Mary's Industrial School, as "The Babe"
would instruct.
	--Ruth never met little Johnny Sylvester, much less visited his
hospital bed, promised to hit him not one but two home runs, and then
delivered, as "The Babe" would instruct.

	Ruth might not actually have called his home run shot in the 1932 World
Series, but debate over that historical footnote had been going on for almost
60 years when "The Babe" came out Friday.
	And still I can't find any of these innacuracies very troubling.  We're
not talking about "JFK" in which Oliver Stone's riotous salad-bar handling of
perhaps the century's defining event is clearly and grossly irresponsible.  Nor
do we have here a case of dramatization as in "Mississippi Burning," a fine
film but one whose historical credibility maybe leaked a bit.
	All I could find to dislike about "The Babe" came in the written notes
after it had faded to black.  The film chose to point out that Ruth hit 714
home runs, a record that was broken by Henry Aaron in 1974, and that Aaron had
batted thousands of times more than Ruth.  This was, at best, unecessary and,
at worst, insulting to Aaron, whose pursuit of Ruth's record was carried out
with great dignity amid death threats and gobs of good old American race
hatred.
	The last belch served no good purpose, but the film did.  In "The Babe"
we have an ambitious handling of one of the century's most compelling figures,
but more important, about 60 years after the fact, we have another opportunity
yet, to enjoy the man and his incomparable aura.

							Gene Collier


JaKe


210.85Is Gene dead or is JaKe busy?SHALOT::MEDVIDWho's got segmented eyes?Fri May 01 1992 14:126
    JaKe,
    
    any Gene Collier columns on the Steelers' draft or the Steelers in
    general?
    
    	--dan'l
210.86PATE::MACNEALruck `n' rollFri May 01 1992 14:162
    I don't think Jake likes us anymore.  He posted a Collier column on the
    draft in the AMERICAN_FOOTBALL conference, but didn't post it here.
210.87CELTIK::JACOBApril 2--277lbs, April 30-254-1/2lbsFri May 01 1992 20:2117
    Nah Mac, that was the same stuff in there that I put in here on the
    Steelers draft choices.
    
    ONe problem, The guy delivering our paper tacked on some a$$hole
    delivery charge and we dropped the paper.  I ain't always been able to
    get one at night, but I still have the Thursday paper delivered, so
    whatever is in the Thurs. or Sunday papers, I cain put in here.
    
    I gots one on Kevin Stevens of the Pens that I'll put in tonite if'n I
    gets the chance.
    
    ANother thang is that we been REALLY busy at night and I cain't find
    the time to put them in.  Guess I gotta get my modem hookup working
    again so's I cain enter them from home.
    
    JaKe
    
210.88CAMONE::WAYAt 6', 245, from Parts UnknownFri May 01 1992 20:2818
>    ONe problem, The guy delivering our paper tacked on some a$$hole
>    delivery charge and we dropped the paper.  I ain't always been able to
>    get one at night, but I still have the Thursday paper delivered, so
>    whatever is in the Thurs. or Sunday papers, I cain put in here.
    
What, does your paper man work for the Mob?

This sounds like something outta Goodfellas (EXCELLENT MOVIE BTW).



	"I'm funny to you?  What makes me funny to you?  I amuse you?
	 Now gimme some extra money for your paper!"


8^)

'Saw
210.89Tied it in to sports, didn't I??CELTIK::JACOBApril 2--277lbs, April 30-254-1/2lbsSat May 02 1992 03:3119
    
>>What, does your paper man work for the Mob?
    
    I'm beginning to wonder.
    
    He's an independent distributor of the Pittsburgh Press, he handle the
    carriers in our area, so he just ups and cranks up the price on a daily
    paper, complete with SPORTS section and Gene Collier columns, by 40% a
    day.  Then he cranks up Sunday paper 15%, and laughs all the way to the
    bank.
    
    I could afford it but figured I wasn't paying my hard earned money to
    put his college kids thru school.  What really p'd me off was there is
    a great older couple next door to me(him 87, her 86) who have been on a
    fixed income for 22 years, and had to cancel their paper cause it
    didn't fit the budget anymore.  
    
    JaKe
    
210.90Collier on PensCELTIK::JACOBApril 2--277lbs, April 30-254-1/2lbsSat May 02 1992 03:31100
STEVENS' WILL TO WIN MIGHT NOT LET HIS TEAM LOSE
from The Pittsburgh Press, 4-30-1992

By

Gene Collier

	Nowhere on the physical superstructure that is Kevin Stevens can be
found even the vaguest evidence of concealed self-doubt, nothing at all that
could imply that rich self-confidence is not always the mans exclusive
emotional fuel.
	Look at Kevin Stevens, 6-3 and 220, chest and shoulders like a 5-to-2
Derby starter, hair black as a wet winter night, eyes dark and glowing with 
purpose. Just turned 27.  Salary in a league with Millie the White House dog. 
How on earth could Kevin Steven even take a tentative step?
	"Sometimes you feel bad standing up in the locker room, saying, 'Let's
go, let's do this and don't forget that,' when you're not playing well,"
Stevens was saying last night after playing as well as anyone to the earthly
side of Mario Lemieux, shoving the Penguins toward frenzied possession of this
latest win-or-die episode.  "I let the way I play affect me.  I can't forget
about it.  I can't sleep.  But I still feel I have to stand up and say
something.
	
	"It's good for the team and it's good for me."

	Even as he skated the first four games of this passionate series on
quivery legs, his hands drained of hockey confidence to the extent that he
clearly, shockingly did not want to carry the puck, Stevens was cutting himself
open in the locker room, letting his bubbling will boil over a roster of guys
who looked bewildered at the indifference with which they could drive the
Stanley Cup back to the airport.
	You might think these Penguins' could tire of Stevens' dramatic
exhortations, especially in the light of his retreat to virtually an idle
threat on the ice.
	"You mean like, 'What are YOU doing out there?'" askeddefenseman Paul
Stanton.  'No. You don't have to be playing great to give a team what he gives
us in here.  Nobody ever questions what he says because everybody knows how
much he wants to win.  He comes in, he yells, just like you see him on the ice
sometimes, yelling. It's very good for us."
	In most cases, what is even better for this desperate team is having
Stevens performing to par on the ice, climaxing a season in which he further
buttressed his status as the modern game's ultimate power forward.
	What the Washington Capitols had in mind to prevent that were two very
good ideas named Al Iafrate and Rod Langway, but not even defensemen as gifted
as they should be able to keep Stevens out of the net for 10 days.
	"Iafrate's got to be the strongest player in the league when he hooks
on to you," Stevens said.
	Maybe, but last night, that was like Moby Dick complimenting Ahab.
	Stevens was loose in frontt of the net three times in the first 5:05,
twice flicking his rebounds past the stiletto-sharp Don Beaupre for an early
2-0 Penguins lead.  That was immensely important on two fronts.  It meant he
was back to forcing the offense by carrying the puck, and it meant he had wired
up his scoring touch again. It may have had nothing and it may have had
everything to do with a series of telephone call s Stevens had Tuesday night. 
A couple of telephone calls with former Penguins whose names are scratched on
the Stanley Cup.
	"I talked with Barry Pederson," Stevens said.  "He told me not to be
chasing anybody around.  To let the game come to me.  To carry the puck, play
the puck.  And I talked with Mark Recchi--he's watching it at home in
Kamloops--and he told me to get it up top, and that's where I put it on
Beaupre."
	Whether it be a result of the fury of Stevens or the surreal talents of
Lemieux, Stevens had a club playoff record 12 shots on goal last night, and
four of those, Beaupre needed all of his spastic precision to stop him.  With
another goaltender on another night, Stevens might have had six goals and
Lemieux 10 assists.  As it happened, Lemieux had two goals and three assists,
Stevens two and two, and both played desperate defense.
	Not everybody in the building was convinced that Stevens' performance
was so clinically seamless.
	"On the opening goal of the game, he ends up cross-checking (Kevin)
Hatcher in front of the net, and then Hatcher is laying down on the ice and the
puck comes to Stevens and he's wide open," said Washington coach Terry Murray. 
"I thought there should be a call on it, maybe the other way.  But that's the
way it goes, he scores a goal, and yes, he played pretty well defensively and
that really helped out in the third period."
	Stevens rumbled into Washington right wing John Druce with about seven
minutes to go in the game and the Penguins feverishly protecting a 5-4 lead. 
At that moment, the Penguins were disorganized in their end and the Capitals
were swarming.  In perhaps the best defensive play of his career, Stevens rode
Druce off the puck, pivoted 180 degrees, collected the puck, and stickhandled
until he could clear it.
	Scotty Bowman, who for all the historical accomplishments he has
overseen on the way to being the winningest coach in the history of the
National Hockey League seemed to have trouble dealing with the blinding flash
of talent he had seen from Lemieux and Stevens, called that on freezeframe "a
great defensive play."
	It was Bowman, also, who said Kevin Stevens was really pumped before
the game.  REALLY pumped.
	"I knew I had my legs back," said Stevens. "I knew I had some hop."
	That was clearly a plus, but just as clearly the Penguins have been
puched to this point in large part by the force of Stevens' will.  With their
best possible effort, they could lose tomorrow night in Washington and vanish
from the hockey season, but again, Stevens just might not let them.

						Gene Collier


JaKe


210.91Collier on The Bucs so farCELTIK::JACOBPlayed first 18 of the year 2dayTue May 05 1992 03:3291
PIRATES LIFTED BY LEYLAND, MILLER, SOUR COMPETITION
from The Pittsburgh Press

By

Gene Collier

	Another month has just ended--April, I think--with the Pirates in first
place.  That's 13 in a row, whether or not you've been paying attention.  Each
of the past 13 baseball months have ended with the Pirates in first place in
the National League East.  No East division team other than the Pirates has
finished a month in sole possession of first place since the Chicago Cubs,
Sept. 30, 1989.
	Although that represents little else but the lineage of consistent
excellence, the 13th month in that streak is more amazing than the other 12
combined.  This was the team, wasn't it, that lost, dealt or dumped five
prominent players from its championship roster, including a 100-RBI manm a
20-game winner and the pitcher who led the club in saves last year.
	The pitching staff Manager Jim Leyland and pitching coach Ray Miller
steered through April is hardly a factory-fresh Mercedes.  From its less
flattering angles, it looks more like a leftover from a demolition derby.  
	In the course of the past two years, Jerry Don Gleaton, Roger Mason,
and Dennis Lamp had descended to a common point in their careers, nobody wanted
them.  Lamp had been released twice, Gleaton once and Mason was pitching at
Buffalo at age 32.  Those three, together with young Denny Neagle, still trying
to produce evidence that he's ready for the major leagues, and Miguel Batista,
who could have produced more evidence that he was ready for manned space
flight, were nearly half the April pitching staff.  And Bob Walk made it to the
disabled list before the end of the second week.
	Bottom Line:  April earned run average--2.49, best in the league.
	On offense, second baseman Jose Lind hit .161 for the month and leadoff
hitter Kirk Gibson hit .200.  Leyland used four leadoff batters and five
cleanup batters.  Jeff King, who appeared in both roles, hit .180.  Only the
Cubs had fewer hits in April and nobody had fewer doubles than the .238 hitting
Bucs.  The Pirates 13 stolen bases were one fewer than the total stolen by the
Montreal Expos' Marquis Grissom.
	Bottom Bottom Line:  First place again.  
	All of this, it would appear, asks an obvious question: what are THESE
Pirates doing in first place??
	The question implies no disrespect, actually.  The Pirates are where
they are for many legitimate reasons, the manager and the pitching coach being
1 and 1A.  And beyond that, great contributions from Doug Drabek, Zane SMith,
Randy Tomlin, Stan Belinda, Barry Bonds, Cecil Espy, and Lloyd McClendon and a
reliable defense have the Pirates in first in a large sense on merit.
	But in an equally large sense, the Pirates have benefited greatly from
an advantageous early schedule--18 of their 20 April games were against teams
in their division, teams that have, for the most part, been horrible.
	Essentially, with the East division, you have three teams that can't
catch the ball--the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Expos--two clubs
that can't pitch it--the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals--and the Pirates. 
The Phillies, incidentally, can neither catch it or pitch it.
	The Mets, who have solidified a bit in the past week and settled into
second place, were supposed to be baseball's most improved team, given the
addition of $29 million man Bobby Bonilla and former Cy Young Award winner Bret
Saberhagen.  To this point, Bonilla has as many homers as catcher Todd huntley,
and none since he jerked two on opening day.  The day Bonds hit his seventh
homer for the Pirates, he had more homers than the Mets.  In Saberhagen's first
five starts, the Mets won twice. 
	The Cubs, the division's other alleged contender, rode into April on
the euphoria of the Ryne Sandberg signing.  Sandberg agreed to a four-year
contract extension that will begin paying him and average of $7.1 million uin
1993.  Several good attempts have been made to put that figure into
perspective.  If you can endure one more, note that when Congress came under
intense fire on check-kiting and perks issues, it squawked that the annual
operating budget of the White House was an unconscionable $7,262,000.  Next
year, it will cost only slightly more to run the White House than to run the
Cubs' second baseman.  
	The Expos, who sneaked into first place briefly after outscoring the
Mets 21-4 on a weekend at Shea Stadium but have since found fifthe place more
comfortable, have several players who anonymously told a Toronto newspaper that
they would like to see manager Tom Runnells fired at management's earliest
possible convenience.  He's "too intense" they said.  The Cardinals continue
their quest to put everyone in the organization on the disabled list before the
All-Star break, an endeavor many other teams have shown an interest in as well. 
Eighty-eight major league players were on the disabled list at the end of the
season's first week.  Sixty-nine had been placed there before opening day.
	That's the kind of trend that makes you appreciate a guy like Eric
Davis of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who missed one game with a neck injury
because, in the clinical terms of world-famous surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe, "he
slept on it funny."
	The Pirates, with their winning combination of patient hitting, good
defense, resourceful pitching and meticulous, focused preparation, will stay on
top until everyone else gets healthy and starts doing something right.  I still
don't think they're quite good enough to win it; but there is now evidence that
the others can be bad enough to lose it.
					Gene Collier


JaKe


210.92Is it true that Gibson can't get around on the fastball anymore?CTHQ1::MCCULLOUGHLindsey's gonna HAVE a sister!!!Tue May 05 1992 13:050
210.93SA1794::GUSICJReferees whistle while they work..Tue May 05 1992 17:189
    
    re-2
    
    	That is some hall of fame material there...especially the part 
    about the White House and Eric Davis' sore neck.   Classic stuff!
    
    
    								bill..g.
    
210.94CELTIK::JACOBI &amp; I'd out!! Whatta week it was!Thu May 21 1992 03:066
    Gene Collier's columns are on hold right now.  The Pittsburgh Press and
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspapers are on strike, so no paper, no
    Collier.
    
    JaKe
    
210.95PFSVAX::JACOBPgh. Paper back on Jan. 18th, FINALLY!!Mon Jan 04 1993 18:5618
    Well, there's good news and bad news on the newspaper situation in
    Pittsburgh.
    
    Good:
    The justice Dept. OK'd the plans of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to buy
    the Pittsburgh Press, and the papers will be on the stands again come
    January 18th.
    
    Bad:
    The Post-Gazette will be the only paper in Pittsburgh as they plan to
    immediately CLOSE the Press once the acquisition becomes final, SO, it
    is unknown whether they will take on Gene Collier or set him afloat.
    If they take him on, the columns will be entered in here(or the new
    incarnation of ::SPORTS) as they become available(and when I get time
    out of work to enter them).
    
    JaKe