Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1988)
Tuesday, February 23, 1987/The Battalion/Page 7 Sports AY AGAIN? JSERT 254 luminum is fantastic for cans, angerous for baseball players [ P THE)/ mi Seeing blood gush from A&M ebacker John Roper’s face after a arterback sack in the LSU game is a frightening sight. But it uldn’t compare with the horror of e sight of a motionless Darin Fer- a . nd e . Z ’ [niversit y New Or- le a n s Itcher, ly- Ig on the lound after aving a line •ive by l&M’s Tom a r c i o n e pcket off Is leg. 1 From my |erspective the press bx, the ball loked as if it hit Fernandez in the roin. But the ball made a loud racking sound when it ricocheted [iward the UNO dugout as if the all hit Fernandez’s knee. My first thought was that he had Anthony Wilson Sports viewpoint broken a leg or shattered a kneecap. Fernandez stayed on the ground for five minutes as A&M’s and UNO’s trainers attended to him. Fernandez Finally got up and after a few practice tosses, finished the in ning, a credit to his gutsiness. Fernandez never had a chance to get out of the way of.the horsehide projectile traveling at a speed of close to 200 mph. He was lucky, if the trajectory of ball had been slightly higher, it could have broken his ribs. The worst scenario, and a aossible one, is that the ball could lave hit him in the head or face and easily killed him. The culprit of this possible das tardly deed? The aluminum bat — a potentially lethal weapon in the hands of any dec ent line drive hitter with quick wrists. Ever wonder why aluminum bats are used in Little League, high school and college baseball, but not the major leagues? The answer is simple — no one in the major leagues wants to see a pitcher get killed. Imagine this hypothetical situa tion: Fastballer Roger Clemens is on the mound wielding a small leather sphere and a glove. Power hitter Darryl Strawberry is at the plate wielding a large piece of metal a.k.a. an aluminum bat. Clemens winds up and lets fly with a screamer right down the pipe. Strawberry winds up and lets fly with his windmill swing. Strawberry connects with the ball. The ball connects with Clemens, and a great talent and a human life is cut down in its prime. The major leagues realizes the danger involved in letting great hit ters use aluminum bats with a hu man being standing in a vulnerable position 60'/a feet away. Aluminum bats would also give major leaguers an unfair advantage. If you think hitters are hitting too many home runs with the so-called livelier “rabbit ball,” try to imagine how many more would be hit with aluminum bats. Roger Maris’ and Hank Aaron’s home run records wouldn’t stand a chance. Singles would become obso lete in the Minnesota Twins’ Hom- erdome. The art of bunting would fall by the wayside. Collegiate teams using wooden bats also would give professional scouts a better perspective about how good a hitter really is and po tentially could be in the majors. Using aluminum bats does have its advantages. Trainers never have to worry about replacing chipped or broken bats. Hitters don’t have to worry about breaking bats by hitting a ball on the label. Aluminum bats also take away some of the nuances of the game. When a baseball meets a wooden bat, the result is a hearty “CRACK!” that is music to any true baseball fan’s ears. The sound of a hit with an aluminum bat sounds like a sickly synthesizer — “plink.” The solution — to replace alumi num bats with wooden ones — could be implemented in between seasons at a relatively cheap costs. Of course, any cost would be cheaper than that of a human’s life. Many factors caused downfall of US team CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Too little international experi ence and not enough help from the NHL were largely responsible for the demise of the U.S. Olym pic hockey team, leaders of the squad claim. Eliminated from the medal round with a 2-3 round-robin re cord, the Americans could not cope with the top veteran teams in the tournament — the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and West Germany. “We played well and we played hard, but we didn’t always play wisely,” Coach Dave Peterson said in the wake of Sunday night’s 4-1 loss to West Germany.“Give me this team for four years and we’d win a gold medal.” But Peterson only had about six months to put together the U.S. team. Even though the Americans played a 60-game ex hibition schedule leading to the Olympics, they were criticized for their generally weak opposition. While they played nine games against NHL clubs, the U.S. hockey team did not always face the best players the pro teams had to offer. And while the team played an eight-game series with the Soviet Selects, that opposition wasn’t close to the quality of the Soviet national team. A little more than one third of the schedule was devoted to games against much weaker col lege teams. “That might have hurt us,” goaltender Mike Richter said. “We really didn’t get much com petition from the college teams we played.” For General Manager Art Berglund, it apparently wasn’t enough. Had the team played a tough enough exhibition schedule, one as demanding as Canada’s? “Probably not,” Berglund said. “We probably wished we would have played more NHL teams. But you have to get. them when you can.” Ag baseball team improves to 9-0 kfter 12-2 demolition of Bearkats yments lents tothelij headed bySliJ •agraph i Swiss oilm ‘confirmed ikf I Peres" ihaif I ioraewhere Itfl llion a year f®I e conclusion® [ ndicatedton ( | rtion of I ctly to Lab® 1 ' I id. i ban rency <) ua Florida art | dollars. juarantineij n valid. are , >er saidearwl ban wasitfq citrus cantf| exas. By Loyd Brumfield Sports Editor HUNTSVILLE — T he Texas \&M baseball team continued to loll over its opponents, clubbing Bam Houston State 12-2 Monday afternoon. A&M, 9-0 and ranked fourth in the nation, will play Lamar to- [day in a doubleheader beginning |at 1 p.m. at Olsen Field. The Aggies toppled the Bear- kats’ upset hopes in a hurry, scor ing six times in the first inning to put SHSU away. After Kirk Thompson’s lead- off walk, Terry Taylor and Scott Livingstone both singled, and af ter John Byington struck out, five straight Aggies made it to base, highlighted by Tim McWilliam’s two-run double. A&M got some more runs in the second when Byington doubled, and he and shortstop Chuck Knoblauch scored on a Jim Neumann sacrifice fly. Both teams went scoreless in the third, but the Aggies picked up the tempo again in the fourth when a sacrifice fly by Tom Car- cione brought Livingstone home. The Bearkats scored twice in the seventh off A&M reliever Kerry Freudenberg, but the Ag gies came back in the eighth to score six runs to finish the scor ing. Livingstone hit a two-run hom- erun in the inning, and Byington followed with a double off the left field wall, and four more runs followed. Blair leads US to second gold medal CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Bon nie Blair lifted Americans’ morale and medals count in speed skating Monday, winning the women’s 500- meter sprint in world-record time. It was the first gold medal in speed skating by an American woman since Sheila Young won the 500 in 1976 and only the fourth ever. It also was the fourth U.S. medal of this Olympics, the second in speed skating, and it provided a measure of revenge for her team. Blair’s time of 39.10 seconds nipped the world record set minutes earlier by her East German arch-ri val, Christa Rothenburger. In the men’s 1,500 meters Saturday, Amer ican Eric Flaim saw his world record last only five minutes before East German Andre Hoffman beat it and took the gold. “She looked to me and I gave her the thumbs up,” said Flaim, who set tled for silver. “She did a heck of a job.” Rothenburger took the silver be hind Blair, while the bronze went to East Germany’s Karen Kania, her sixth Olympic medal, in 39.24 sec onds. It was the third straight Olympics that Kania has won a medal in the 500. She won in 1980 and took the silver in 1984, when she had two golds and a silver in other events. Rothenburger, the defending Olympic gold medalist in the 500, skated in the second pair and ripped off a 39.12 to break her former world record of 39.39 seconds set in Calgary last December. Rothenburger’s first 100 meters were clocked in 10.57 seconds, but when it was Blair’s turn two pairs later, she got off the line even faster — in 10.55 seconds — and made a fi nal lunge at the finish line to beat Rothenburger by .02 of a second to the cheers of a large crowd at the in door Olympic Oval. iton 1-8700 fall LtSiit &ck$' x stuck" sick 0 ; (4>-« leasifl? f 1 t for! rate ^ elects ^ovet ’ burn i 693'^ ‘lot/ vlOfib; . Texas Instruments JobRur Tuesday, February 23, 1988 Texas A&M Rudder Tower Room 701 Interviews Scheduled Please bring your resume and a copy of your transcript or a list of courses. TALK TO TTS MAJOR PRODUCT & SERVICE GROUPS. Tl’s technical managers want to see you. They want to tell you about the job opportunities in the many technologies which make Texas Instruments a leader in electronics. That’s why T1 is having a J(h Pair on the Texas A <St M campus February 23 through 25. It gives the company three days to bring in key engineers and managers to meet you. They’ll come from T1 labs and sites to describe programs, answer questions, and schedule interviews. If you’re a top student, partic ularly in EE or Computer Science, this is an event you won’t want to miss. SIGN UP FOR INTERVIEWS IF YOU ARE GRADUATING WITH THESE DEGREES: Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD degrees in: • Electrical Engineering • Computer Science • Medianical Engineering • Industrial Engineering • Phsyics (Engineering and Solid-State) • MBA with technical under graduate degree • Business Analysis Briefings and sign-ups for interviews: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Febmary 23, Rcxm 701, Rudder Twer. Interview's (by appointment): February 24 and 25 in the Annex. For more information, please contact the Texas A&M Placement Service. An Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/H Texas Instruments Creating useful products and services for you. Tuxedo Jfen&tb **<***• Culp&jpper pla-xa* 76> / l'-SZ8g Students! Work Smart. Work Simply... With Hewlett-Packard! 11C... 12C.. 15C.. 17B... 19B... 275.. . 285.. . 41CV 41CX 71 B... ...$47.00 ,..$65.00 ..$65.00 ...$90.00 .$140.00 ...$90.00 .$190.00 .$140.00 .$200.00 .$500.00 ifSI AUTHORIZED HEWLETT-PACKARD DEALER 505 Church Street • College Station, Texas (409) 846-5332