| This is indeed an historic note, my friends ...
After 5 full seasons of touting the extraordinary literary genius of
Philadelphia Inquirer baseball beat writer Jayson Stark and extracting his
weekly Kinerisms for your reading pleasure, I can at long last present to the
SPORTS community an *entire* Jayson Stark "Week In Review" column.
I finally struck the mother lode on CompuServe when I noticed a few days ago
that selected articles from major American daily newspapers are available
on-line. A quick little search on the keyword "baseball" and voila ...
Long-time SPORTS noters will recall that, years ago, I recevived personal
permission from Stark to share his work with you. And with that, I give you
the first edition of the 1992 baseball season and hopefully the first of many
more to come ...
Enjoy ...
Bob Hunt
KEEPING UP WITH THE EARLY ACTION? HERE'S THE TEST
Philadelphia Inquirer (PI) - TUESDAY April 14, 1992
By: Jayson Stark, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Edition: FINAL Section: SPORTS Page: E05
Word Count: 1,633
BASEBALL / THE WEEK IN REVIEW NATIONAL LEAGUE
*Baseball* 's back. And Week in Review is back - with our annual sneak quiz
on the first week of the season.
We hope you've been paying attention because, if you fail, you'll be
forced to read every campaign speech ever given by Jerry Brown and Bill
Clinton - aloud.
1. Which of these fabled hurlers did not throw out the first ball at
somebody's opener last week? (A) Flamethrowing righthander Chuck Noll. (B)
Jason Grimsley wild-pitch fan George Bush. (C) Dave LaPoint throw-alike Dan
Quayle. (D) Oil Can Boyd.
2. Which two current NFL teammates found themselves starting in the big
leagues for the Braves and the Cardinals last week? (A) Deion Sanders and
Brian Jordan. (B) Refrigerator Perry and Mike Ditka. (C) Jerome Brown and
Mike Golic. (D) Ralf Mojsiejenko and Joe Montana.
3. Which of these men can not be found on a big-league roster these
days? (A) Archi Cianfrocco. (B) Mark "Admiral" Dewey. (C) Jacob Brumfield.
(D) Dave Parker?
4. How come those menacing Phillies hitters got hit by pitches eight
times last week? (A) Their resplendent new home uniforms were so darned
white, pitchers kept mistaking them for home plate. (B) They were trying to
prove they're tougher than popular opening-day attraction Benny the Bomb.
(C) The National League was so appalled by that messy Wally Ritchie-Otis
Nixon kick fight last year on Dale Murphy Appreciation Night, it still was
retaliating. (D) It was a plot by the Ruben Amaro Fan Club to make sure
that so many guys get hurt, Amaro wouldn't be able to leave the lineup
until 1996.
5. Which of these notorious sluggers did not hit a home run last week?
(A) 160-pound Dodgers masher Brett Butler. (B) Padres pitcher Dave "I
Haven't Swung A Bat In Six Years" Eiland. (C) Secret Phillies weapon Ruben
"Six More And I'll Take Over The Family Home-Run Lead" Amaro. (D) Andre "I
Still Want As Much As Sandberg" Dawson.
6. The weirdest injuries of a week full of injuries came when the
Cardinals' Donovan Osborne and the Mets' Vince Coleman got hurt at the same
exact moment Thursday in St. Louis. What happened to them? (A) In a bizarre
shift of the Bermuda Triangle to the Midwest, Coleman suffered a pulled
hamstring and Osborne a sprained ankle even though they never touched each
other. (B) Pedro Guerrero ran them both over while chasing a fly ball in
left field. (C) Sid Fernandez ran them both over with a golf cart. (D)
Coleman accidentally leveled Osborne while attempting to avoid reporters
from the New York Post, Hard Copy and Inside Edition.
BOX-SCORE LINE OF THE WEEK
The competition doesn't get much more feverish than it did last week for
the first box-score-line-of-the-week award of 1992. So in picking our
winner, we applied a time-honored Week in Review guideline:
The guy with the best postgame quotes wins.
By that standard, we now honor the Mets' Bret Saberhagen for this
unbelievable performance last Tuesday in St. Louis: 2 1/3 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7
ER, 3 BB, 0 K, two hits by opposing pitcher Omar Olivares, two line-drive
outs and a bases-loaded walk (this from the pitcher with baseball's
best walks/innings-pitched ratio in the last three decades.)
Saberhagen's top three postgame assessments of this mess:
* "Fortunately, it's not my first big-league game. I could be sent down
tomorrow if it was."
* "My neck is sore from turning my head, and my legs are sore from
backing up the bases."
* And his first-prize quote - "If this was golf, I'd take a mulligan."
KINERISMS OF THE WEEK
The season may just be getting out of first gear, but the official
broadcaster of Week in Review, Ralph Kiner, is already in overdrive. So
let's throw out those eagerly awaited first Kiner Klunkers of the year:
* Andy Siegel of Yardley heard Ralph, the expansion expert, provide the
kind of spring-training background on Miami's Joe Robbie Stadium that only
he could offer.
"That," Kiner said, "is where the new expansion Dolphins will play."
Which is great news for all of you who always wondered whether Don Shula
could execute the double switch.
* Then Ralph, the stat man, charged into opening day with an exclusive
tidbit on hard-luck Cardinals pitcher Jose DeLeon.
"And DeLeon," he revealed, "has a lifetime record of 73 wins and 105
RBIs."
We're depending on all you Kiner fans to contribute thousands more just
like this in the weeks to come. So keep those Kiner letters coming.
VAN SLYKE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
It was Wednesday night. Montreal's Delino DeShields smoked a ball to
deep center field in Pittsburgh. Our man Andy Van Slyke went flying after
it.
First he headed right, looking over his left shoulder. Then he headed
left, looking over his right shoulder.
Then he leaped. His glove went up. The baseball sailed by it. The ball
hit the fence and caromed halfway to Harrisburg. So DeShields had a
stand-up inside-the-park home run. And Andy Van Slyke had the
inspiration for his first spectacular quote of the year.
"I ran a bad pass pattern," he explained. "Somebody told me after the
game that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But
I was very poor in geometry. I always thought it was an isosceles
triangle."
That's all for this week from Professor Andy Van Slyke.
BULLPEN FLAKES OF THE WEEK
Undoubtedly, there is some psychoanalytical expert out there who can
explain why relief pitchers are the wackiest players alive. But at Week in
Review, we're just happy it's true.
After all, where would we be without the Jeff Innises and Roger
McDowells of the world?
No pitcher in history had appeared in more games without saving or
winning at least one of them than Innis did last year for the Mets (69). So
it figured that this season he would make sure on opening day that he had
no chance to break his own record. He was the winning pitcher for the Mets
in their opener. And this was his deeply moving official reaction:
"I'm on a pace to win 162."
Meanwhile, McDowell strolled in Tuesday for the Dodgers and, amazingly,
did his first-ever Rob Dibble imitation by striking out the side in the
ninth. But McDowell aw-shucksed that feat afterward and said he was just
trying to keep the bullpen afloat until injured closer Jay Howell returned.
"We'll just circle the wagons," he announced, "until Custer gets back."
Nice sentiment. Lousy analogy.
"OK," McDowell said, correcting himself. "Till Patton gets back, we'll
circle the tanks."
AND FINALLY, LARRY ANDERSEN
It isn't easy being the most quotable man in America when you're on the
disabled list. But nobody can rise to a challenge like that better than
Padres humorist Larry Andersen.
First he was asked on opening day for the latest update on his sore
shoulder.
"There's no question in my mind, I could throw right now," Andersen
said. "I don't know if I could get anyone out. But I could throw."
Then, a few days later, the Padres eased him back by pitching him in
what Andersen described as a "stimulated game." He was asked afterward how
it went.
"They gave me five outs an inning," he said. "Just like my regular
games."
Maybe his defense doesn't fully appreciate the wit and wisdom of Larry
Andersen. But Week in Review always does.
NL AIMLESS FACTS
* SLUGGER OF THE WEEK: What do Dave Eiland, Hoyt Wilhelm, John
Montefusco and Buster Narrum have in common? hey're among the nine
pitchers who hit home runs in their first big-league at-bats. Eiland joined
the group Friday with a swat off the Dodgers' Bob Ojeda. He was the first
to join it since Jose Sosa (July 30, 1975) and the first Padre of any size,
shape or position to achieve the feat. "What can I say?" he said, with
appropriate shock. "Strange things happen."
* STAND-IN OF THE WEEK: Norm Charlton might lead the league in saves,
but he still reminded the Reds that they miss Rob Dibble. Charlton blew his
first save opportunity on Thursday in Game 4 of the season. Last year,
Dibble didn't blow one until July 16 - in Game 86.
* 0-FERS OF THE WEEK: Braves ace Tom Glavine was 0-8 lifetime against
the Astros until he beat them on opening day. That leaves Craig Lefferts
(0-7 vs. the Mets) and Tim Leary (0-7 vs. the A's) as his successors for
the prestigious honor of Worst Record Against One Team. Runner-up: Jose
DeLeon (0-6 against his own team, the Cardinals).
* DOME-BODIES OF THE WEEK: You might recall that the Braves were one
victory under a dome away from winning the World Series last October. Well,
on opening day, they did win under a dome for the first time since Aug. 11.
But it was the Astrodome, not the Metrodome. It must be the foe, not the
roof. The Braves have won five in a row in Houston.
* DEBUT OF THE WEEK: Bobby Bonilla sure can make an entrance. The
auspicious part of his two-homer game for the Mets on opening day was that
he bashed both shots lefthanded. Last year, he hit just four homers from
the left side all season. And he hadn't launched a two-homer barrage
lefthanded since May 20, 1990 - 295 games earlier.
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