Wednesday, March 30, 1 OSSAThe Battalion/Page 11
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40-year-olds still succeed on mound
From the Associated Press
■okies when it breaks the 95-mile-
peihour barrier, and Charlie
Hpugh’s knuckleball still makes
pose tantalizing dips and turns.
shiti&HWhile most of their 40-year-old
theit Hntemporaries have retired, Hous-
kidedjton’s Ryan and Texas’ Hough are
■11 pitching af ter all these years.
■ Each pitcher reached the 40-year-
'id lit. old plateau with drastically different
>v onlijmethods.
Morv, HRyan does the job with fast ball
spleasiilheat, Hough with knuckleball fluff.
WleovtHRyan, 41, works out continuously
ipiiig in the off season and attributes his
ale tkjHreful health program with extend-
0-poir ling his career.
vietnjBHe is a non-smoker who does a
full-days’ work during the off season
led bilononeof his three ranches,
also ■Hough, who turned 40 on Jan. 5,
■ IViBdiews the exhaustive weight train-
coaling program established by pitching
m, aacBach Tom House in favor of his
vDukJown methods.
londB House decided not to mess with
success, no matter how unorthodox
it appeared.
Hough works hard at his own pro
gram in spring training, his sessions
on the stationary bike interspersed
by cigarette breaks.
“I never thought I’d be pitching in
the major leagues at this age because
most fastball pitchers don’t last this
long,” said Ryan, the major league’s
all-time strikeout leader.
Ryan had one of the most mem
orable and forgetable seasons of his
career, all rolled into 1987.
Ryan led the major leagues with
270 strikeouts and tied for the major
league lead with a 2.76 earned run
average.
Yet he became the first player in
history not to win the Cy Young
award after leading the league in
both categories.
Ryan finished fifth in the Cy
Young voting because of a 8-16 re
cord, attributed to a season-long lack
of run support.
“I’ve seen pitchers throw well and
go through a month of not getting
the support,” Ryan said. “But it
lasted all season with me.”
Hough led the Rangers’ otherwise
youthful staff in victories for the
sixth straight year. He led the major
leagues with 40 starts and 2851/3 in
nings pitched.
At 39 years, nine months, he be
came the oldest pitcher to lead the
American League in both categories.
“I’ve incorporated some of what
Tom does into my routine,” Hough
said. “But the main filing for me is to
get enough innings to pitch. A
knuckleball pitcher has to throw it a
lot to get ready.”
While Ryan is part of a veteran
pitching staff with the Astros,
Hough is the elder moundsman of
the Rangers.
His 18-13 record last season and
his 223 strikeouts, fourth best total
in the league, gives more weight to
his opinions and he tries to lend a
voice of experience to the younger
staff.
“I try to be kind of a second to
what management says,” Hough
said. “Sometimes you’ll have a man
ager tell you something that doesn’t
sound just right.
“It helps to have a veteran say,
‘Yeah, I’ve seen that work before,
you should apply that.’ ”
Although knuckleball pitchers
have more longevity than fast ball
pitchers, Hough realizes he’s pitch
ing on borrowed time.
“Yeah, you wonder when it’s
going to end,” Hough said. “You get
all kinds of aches and pains in spring
training.
“One day your legs hurt, another
day it’s your shoulder. You never
know which one will get you.”
For all his experience, Hough ran
afoul with the new balk rule early in
spring training, commmiting nine
balks in four innings.
“It’s not going to bother me as
long as it’s enforced equally,” Hough
said. “You could find guys getting
balks called with one (umpiring)
crew and not with another. I don’t
want to get caught in that kind of
disadvantage.”
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tollins rejoins Reds
after lucky accident
PLANT CITY, Fla. (AP) — A
didu jcket to a Cincinnati Reds’ game
nstopij ias turned into a ticket back into
he big leagues for outfielder
)ave Collins.
He was out of baseball early
ast summer when he decided to
ustms nake the one-hour drive from his
mingli Springboro, Ohio, home to watch
Reds’ game at Riverfront Sta-
lium.
He saw equipment manager
Bernie Stowe, spent some time
eminiscing, then went down to
he Reds’ clubhouse to visit.
I think that was the start of it
til,” he said. '
When Reds officials learned
hat Collins was out of baseball,
hey started negotiations toward
ringing him back to Cincinnati,
where he played from 1978-81.
“One thing led to another,” he
aid.
The result is a reunion that has
leased both parties.
Collins, 35, played for the
ieds’ Nashville farm club from
une 19 to July 3, regaining his
tiling stroke. He became the
leds’ busiest pinch hitter the last
all of the season, and hit .294
overall in 57 games.
Collins got a reprieve from the
arly retirement he feared was at
and when Montreal cut him just
cored
lis seas
a 25'
due i(
before the start of the regular
season.
“I didn’t think I’d get on with
another ballclub,” he said. “I fig
ured that would probably be it.”
Had he not gone to the Reds’
game last summer, he’d probably
be concentrating solely on coach
ing Springboro High School’s
basketball team.
The Reds aren’t about to let
him concentrate year-round on
high school coaching yet. They
like Collins’ varied assets: he has
experience and speed, he can
switch-hit and pinch-hit, and he
can play first base or any outfield
position.
Collins isn’t shy about trying to
help younger players by giving
advice.
“Any time you’re on a team of
younger players and you’ve got
experience, you can help the
younger players in relating to
them the experience you’ve had,”
he said. “If something should be
said, you should say it.”
Collins is one of six outfielders
remaining on the Reds’ roster,
virtually assuring him of a spot on
the team. He and Eddie Milner
will back up regular left fielder
Kal Daniels, center fielder Eric
Davis, and platoon right fielders
Paul O’Neill and Tracy Jones.
Old-Timer Yount still
crazy about baseball
CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — Tea
mmates still call Robin Yount “The
Kid” and at age 32 with his 15th ma
jor league season several days away
he still approaches the game with a
boyish enthusiasm.
“It’s as fun as the team is success
ful for me nowadays,” says the Mil
waukee Brewers’ center fielder, who
became a major league shorstop at
age 18 in 1974.
“I’m in it basically for the competi
tion. It’s really the only reason I do
play, for the competition.”
Yount, who is in the second year
of a three-year contract that pays
him more than $1 million a season,
has played more major league sea
sons than any other Brewer.
Shoulder surgery in 1984 and
1985 forced him to move from the
infield to the outfield because he
could no longer make the long
throw from the hole.
But in 1987 Yount hit .312 with
21 homers, 103 runs batted in and
198 hits in his best season since he
won the American League MVP
award in 1982.
“I still feel like I swing the bat as
well. Actually a lot of times, 3^ is
your prime,” Yount said.
“Sometimes you don’t don’t feel as
young. Your body doesn’t always
work as well as you’d like it do but
most the times it feels pretty good,”
Yount said.
The outfield presented a new
baseball challenge for Yount, and it’s
one he’s conquered after years as
one of the game’s top-fielding short
stops.
“I played the infield for 20 years,
and I’ve only been out there for
three years,” said Yount, who made
only six errors in center the last two
seasons.
“The more you play the more
comfortable you get. I feel comfort
able out there, but it doesn’t mean
you don’t still have things to learn.
Hopefully the more I play the better
I get.”
Yount’s most memorable catch in
1987 came last April when on the
dead run he made a fully extended,
diving grab of a line drive for the fi
nal out of Juan Nieves’ no-hitter
against the Baltimore Orioles.
Yount already has 2,217 major
league hits, but he says statistics have
never been as important to him as
playing on a daily basis.
“I’ve been fortunate. I’ve had in
juries but not the type that have kept
me out of the lineup. I’ve been for
tunate lostay healthy,” he said.
“If 1 lead, it’s by example. I don’t'
go around telling guys what they
should do or what they shouldn’t do.
I just try to play as often as I can and
as hard as I can.”
New faces dot Oklahoma spring workouts
said»
vingWNORMAN, Okla. (AP) — For the
ith io first time in a long while, Keith Jack-
misse sou’s name is missing from the Okla-
roken feuna football depth chart. So is Dar-
our. ■ Reed’s, Mark Hutson’s, Dante
econd-Mues’and Lydell Carr’s,
ye AlsH 1 hose players helped put to-
ceniei ge'lier one of the most successful
1 rdiiif® e tches in Oklahoma history. The
Kn®Hp <mers have gone 11-1 each of the
■st three years and have won one
national championship.
Five All-Americas were on last
now.
|v IP
j “IfWar’s club; all five are gone
(fklahoma must replace six starters
from one of the nation’s most potent
offenses and seven defensive regu
lars from a unit that led the country
le past three years.
« v J“Kor the last few years, you could
| j |-{|)st the depth chart on the first day
Bd the names at the top almost
never changed,” assistant coach
Herv Johnson said. “This spring
ithne’s competition for positions
that’ll allow the depth chart to
■ange from day to day.
■ “It’s going to be quite a spirited,
■thusiastic spring. There are a lot
i of young players who haven’t played
joinisB
d-qua 1 ®
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who really, sincerely think they can
start.”
There appear to be two major
tasks for the offense — rebuild the
line that lost three starters and work
on a controlled passing game.
That’s right, a passing game.
Oklahoma has thrown the ball
more in the past few seasons than it
ever had before, but the Sooners’ in
ability to effectively mix the pass and
run was spotlighted in their national
championship loss to Miami on New
Year’s Night.
“We might not be quite as versatile
on offense as far as running the
power game and the option game,”
offensive coordinator Jim Donnan
said. “We re going to have to throw
short passes once in a while rather
than trying to grind it out all the
time.
“Our quarterbacks have the ability
to throw the ball, and we’ve got some
excellent split receivers. . . . All of
our halfbacks are pretty versatile.”
One quarterback who won’t see
playing time this spring is Jamelle
Holieway, who is recovering from a
knee injury suffered against Okla
homa State last season. Holieway is
expected to be ready by fall, and in
the meantime will be replaced by
Charles Thompson.
As a redshirt freshman, Thomp
son started the last three games of
the last season and played impres
sively. Being the main man in the
spring is nothing new — last year he
did it after Holieway broke a thumb.
The backfield has lost Patrick Col
lins and the bullish Carr, but players
like Anthony Stafford, Damon Stell,
Eric Mitchel, Rotnei Anderson and
Leon Perry — plus a host of
redshirted freshmen — make that a
solid part of the offense.
The front line has All-Big Eight
guard Anthony Phillips, a three-year
starter, and center Bob Latham re
turning. New names include tackles
Mark VanKeirsbilck and Gary Ben
nett, guards Terron Manning and
Larry Medice, and tight ends Dun
can Parham and Billy Dykes.
One of the biggest holes was left
by Jackson, a consensus All-America
who had a knack for big plays and
also dominated his opponents as a
blocker.
“He was a great blocker,” said
Johnson. “I’ve heard and read
where some of the pros question
that. But once they come in and
study film, they change their talk.
“We’re going to be looking for
Keith Jackson for a long time, I ex
pect.”
The defense, long dominated by
experienced players, is littered with
youngsters. Tackle Curtice Williams,
linebackers Richard Dillon and Kert
Kaspar, and defensive backs Lonnie
Finch and Scott Garl are the only se
niors with their names at the top of
the depth chart.
“I think it’s critical for those peo
ple to assume the leadership position
and raise their level of play,” de
fensive coordinator Gary Gibbs said.
“This is similar to the ’84 spring —
a lot of new' faces, a lot of uncertain
ties, a lot of unknowns. It’s a chal
lenge for us as coaches, but it’s also a
challenge to the players.”
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