. s' s/AL*,'/,
Sports
rboT^r Tuesday, April 5, 1994
The Battalion
Page 9
New minor
league gives
chance to play
MARY
MAGMANUS
Asst. Photo
Editor
Aggies to take
on Bearkats
Beime to start against Sam
Houston State at 7 tonight
By Drew Diener
The Battalion
Ale
tew
B aseball fans have more to look forward
to this summer with the start of the
newly formed Texas-Louisiana Profes-
1 sional Baseball League.
This privately-owned AA minor league,
which is not affiliated with any major
[league teams, will give people in Texas a
better chance to see professional baseball
and will also give major league hopefuls
more places to play.
People in the six Texas cities, which will
host teams in the league, cannot easily go to
a professional ball game at the moment.
Jack Lazarko, director of baseball opera
tions for the Texas-Louisiana league, said it
is difficult for people to go to the As
trodome or the Ballpark in Arlington, and it
gives people a chance to see pro ball closer
to home.
Many of the cities getting teams, such as
Harlingen, Amarillo and Corpus Christi, are
not close enough to cities that have even mi
nor league teams to see pro ball.
As many people from these cities can tes
tify, there is not much to do in these towns
for entertainment so the new baseball teams
will give people a place to go.
“These cities and a lot of areas are hun
gry for baseball,” Lazarko said.
With more people being able to see
good, cheap family entertainment, the pop
ularity of baseball will also increase.
League games do not even start until the
end of May, and people in the host cities are
excited about the start of the season.
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See Minors/Page 10
The Texas A&M baseball team will continue its
non-conference schedule when it hosts Sam Hous
ton State tonight at 7 p.m. at Olsen Field.
A&M head coach Mark Johnson said that the
game will be pivotal for the Aggies (21-16 overall
and 2-7 in the SWC), who dropped six out of eight
games before taking two of three from the Universi
ty of Houston last weekend.
“Our biggest opponents are ourselves,” Johnson
said. “On the whole, we haven’t gotten to the brink
of where we feel comfortable with our game and
everybody’s playing relaxed.”
Johnson said that the Aggies must improve on the
sloppy play that they have exhibited of late, most re
cently in the Houston series when the team commit
ted a total of nine errors.
“We have always characteristically been a team
that has not given the game to the other team,”
Johnson said. “I think we have fallen into a category
where we are giving games up.”
En-route to an 8-3 loss to the Cougars Saturday
night in the series finale, A&M made four errors.
■ ' - ; •' ..A;,: - v .: A'-: ■
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Roger Hsieh/Y/ir Battalion
Texas A&M designated hitter Billy Harlan (middle) slides into third past UH's J.J. Matzke (25) during the
second game of the A&M-UH doubleheader on Saturday. Harlan stole third safely.
Johnson said that he expects improvement in the
team’s play tonight against the Bearkats.
On the mound for the Aggies will be freshman
Kevin Beirne. Beirne enters the contest with a
record of 0-1 and a 5.65 ERA in six appearances.
Much of Beirne’s troubles on the mound this season
have stemmed from his control problems. He has
walked 16 batters in 14 1/3 innings of work. How
ever, when Beirne stays in the strike zone, he is
tough on batters, holding them to a meager .196
batting average.
Johnson said that Beirne will not pitch the entire
game and said that he expects junior All-American
Chris Clemons to see some time in relief.
See Baseball/Page 10
LSU pulls out of football
contract, owes A&M $400,000
By Kristine Ramirez
The Battalion
Texas A&M’s annual football bayou
bash with Louisiana State University
will end after the 1995 football season
and will cost LSU $400,000.
LSU has decided to pull out of the
last two years of the remaining four
years of its contract with A&M that
runs through 1997.
A&M Athletic Director Wally Groff
said if LSU will not play A&M in 1996
and 1997, then A&M will exercise the
penalty clause of the contract. He said
LSU will have to compensate A&M
$400,000 because the clause in the
contract stipulates $200,000 a year.
Groff said he was shocked when
LSU Athletic Director Joe Dean called
and said they wanted out of the last
two years out of the contract. Getting
out of the contract would be fine if
LSU could find a comparable replace
ment for A&M to play instead, Groff
said.
After 200 phone calls, no suitable
See LSU/PagelO
Arkansas gets first national
title with 76-72 win over Duke
The Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Arkansas won
its first national championship Monday
night, keeping a president happy and
placing its coach where he always felt he
belonged.
Scotty Thurman’s 3-pointer with 50
seconds left as the shot clock expired
gave the Razorbacks a 76-72 victory and
deprived Duke, the dominant team of
the decade, from a third title in four
years.
With President Clinton once again
watching his beloved Razorbacks in per
son, Arkansas came up with a gutty per
formance to give coach Nolan Richard
son a championship ring to wave in
front of his critics whom he openly
challened throughout Final Four week
end.
It also offset an unbelievable final col
lege game by Grant liill, one of three
Duke seniors looking for a third title. He
engineered an early second-half run that
gave the Blue Devils a 10-point lead, but
See NCAA Champs/Page 10
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Through
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