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Wednesday, Decembers, 1990
The Battalion
Sports Editor
Alan Lehmann
845-2688
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Youth should
compensate for
lost talent
With the loss of several key players,
the future of Aggie football might seem
gloomy.
A&M tailback
Darren Lewis, the §tgyg
most prolific run- #\jo ■
ning back in the his- 0 BriGfl
tory of the South- Sports Writer
west Conference, is
headed toward the I^HHHHHHHl
ranks of the National Football League
along with All-American candidates
Mike Arthur (center) and Larry Horton
(free safety).
Senior linebacker William Thomas
and four starting offensive linemen have
exhausted
their eligibility. To make matters worse,
fullback Robert Wilson and cornerback
Kevin Smith will contemplate leaving
school a year early to test the fruits of the
NFL draft.
But it’s not as bad as it seems.
With the depth of their roster, the Ag
gies won’t be crippled by these losses.
Despite losing the recruiting war to
the University of Texas the last two sea
sons, A&M still has more depth than any
other team in the SWC. Several Aggie
backups could be starters almost any
where else in the country.
For example, one of Lewis’ backups is
junior tailback Randy Simmons.
Simmons, who rushed for 2,557 yards
his senior year in high school, was rated
the best schoolboy running back in the
country by a number of sports writers.
This season Simmons has carried the
ball 53 times for 391 yards, giving him
an average of 7.4 yards per carry.
And if Robert Wilson — who was de
scribed by CBS commentator James
Brown as needing a license to run the
way he does — decides to leave, his
backup, junior Doug Carter, will step in.
Carter, who gained 1,086 yards his se
nior year in high school and was named
to the list of high school blue chippers,
saw little action this season. But Carter
was one of the few bright spots against
LSU as he scored A&M’s lone touch-
See O’Brien/Page 8
Astros not
Miami bound
HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Astros
could have been headed for Miami but the
owners of the team, who have it up for sale,
rejected a $135 million offer for the club
from a group headed by a retired Florida
banker, The Houston Post reported Tues
day.
The Post, in a report from the winter
baseball meetings continuing near Chicago,
said the Houston Sports Association re
jected the offer in September from a group
headed by Lou Poller, 83.
Poller told the newspaper he began talk
ing with the Astros two years ago, when ru
mors of a possible sale first surfaced.
According to the report, the talks were
serious enough for HSA President Bob
Harter to make a trip to Miami for a meet
ing with Poller in mid-September before
discussions were cut off by HSA.
Poller has tried to buy other teams and
recently offered to buy the Montreal Expos
for $135 million. He believes his effort to
buy a baseball team have been scuttled be
cause of his longtime friendship with miss
ing and presumed slain Teamsters Union
president Jimmy Hoffa.
But Poller is threatening to take the
Houston Sports Association to court for not
dealing with him in good faith.
“I think they’re bad people,” Poller said.
“There’s no justification for what they did.
They can’t just throw me in the garbage can
after two years of serious talks. I wouldn’t
want to fight baseball, but I’d like to take
the Astros apart in court. All they had to do
was say they didn’t want to do business with
me two years ago.”
If Astros majority owner John McMullen
had been willing to sell the club, Poller said
he was prepared to challenge baseball on
the antitrust issue by moving the team from
Houston to the Miami area.
“Everybody thinks it’s terrible to take a
team away from a city,” Poller said. “But the
people in Houston haven’t supported the
Astros. And here I am in a situation where I
could put 50,000 people in the seats every
night.”
The Post also reported today it had ob
tained several letters from Salomon Broth
ers Inc., the investment banking firm re
tained by HSA to conduct the sale, and
from Harter that indicate the Astros were
for sale long before the club’s public an
nouncement last week.
PHELAN M. EBENHACK/The Battalion
Members of the Texas A&M baseball team run a timed mile Tuesday afternoon in Kyle Field.
Winter baseball meetings get expensive
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) — Dave Righetti
and the money-mad San Francisco Giants
zeroed in on each other Tuesday, while the
price of pitching again zoomed when the
Boston Red Sox won a bidding battle for
18-game loser Matt Young at baseball’s win
ter meetings.
A Bay area trade that moved Ernest Riles
to the Oakland A’s, a lesser deal that sent
Dave Gallagher to the California Angels, a
contract extension for Steve Sax and all-day
meetings between Vince Coleman.
The Giants quickly moved into the best
position to lure the northern California na
tive back home from New York.
The Giants already have spent $13 mil
lion for Willie McGee and $10 million for
Bud Black this winter, and it could cost
them about $8 million for three years to
land the Righetti. Oakland also entered the
sweepstakes and so did the Minnesota
Twins. The Twins might have to settle for
Steve Bedrosian, who could become avail
able if San Francisco gets it’s main man.
Righetti, 32, saved 36 games last season
and is the New York Yankees’ all-time
leader. But the Yankees has offered just
$2.1 million per year and besides, Righetti’s
preference is the Giants.
Sax will be staying with the Yankees. The
second baseman, who had one year left on
his contract, signed an extension through
1995 for $12.4 million.
“Steve loves New York,” said Adam Katz,
one of Sax’s agents. “He’s not one of those
guys who wants to leave.”
Young has been a starter and reliever in
his career. The left-hander does not have a
lifetime winning record — 51-78, including
8-18 with a 3.51 ERA last season for Seattle.
The Red Sox offered Young a three-
year, $6.35 million contract, and that was a
little more than the Detroit Tigers and the
Baltimore Orioles wanted to pay.
“We are thrilled to have Matt Young, and
we see him as an important member of our
starting rotation next season,” Boston gen
eral manager Lou Gorman said. “He has a
great arm, and we believe that he can be a
winner on a contending ballclub.”
Young, 32, pitched 225 innings last sea
son. He made 33 starts and had seven com
plete games.
The Giants and Oakland each got what
they wanted in a trade for reserves. San
Francisco sent utility infielder Ernest Riles
to the Athletics for promising outfielder
Darren Lewis arid a player to be named
later.
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545
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693-2331
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Pray for us.
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