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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1982-09-29, Page 141CHRYSLERI P Times -Advocate, September 29,1982 Sports Spotlight By Ross Haugh Reasons for the great improvement of the Toronto Blue Jays this year are at least two fold. Over the first five years club officials have been taking considerable abuse for not getting into the free agent market for big name ball players and also going along with just ordinary managers. The reasons given have been that their own minor league system is eveloping and when enough potential stars come along they would go for an experienced manager. These things have already happened: The Jays are just completing their best ever season. At the time of writing they have won 72 ball games which eclipse their previous season high by five games. In his first year Bobby Cox who gained a good managerial reputation with the Atlanta Braves has brought the team along well and used a number of methods which were not used by his predecessors Roy Hartsfield or Bobby Mattick. Thursday, Jays management announced that Cox and his four man coaching staff will return to guide the club through the 1983 season. The staff includes first base coach John Sullivan, third base coach Jimy Williams, batting instructor Cito Gaston and pitching coach Al Widmar. Sullivan and ,Caston came to Torontoatthe same time as manager Cox while Widmar and Williams are completing their third season with the Blue Jays. In making the announcement of the re -hirings, Jays vice-president Pat Gillick said, "We are very pleased with the performance of Bobby Cox and his coaching staff. They have worked hard to instill a spirit of pride in the players and have had the club playing com- petitively all season." Gillick continued, "The Blue Jays are beginning to make a move, thanks to Bobby Cox and his coaches and our goal is to continue the improvement of the club through the end of this season and make plans for fur- ther gains in 1983." Now that the minor league program is paying off and a top flight manager is in place, the securement of a couple of name players would certainly slake the Toronto club a contender. It has become common knowledge through the last few weeks of the 1982 season that a number of the con- tending clubs in the various pennant races would be very happy to swap their starting pitching staff for the fellows Bobby Cox sends out on a regular basis. Dave Stieb, Jim Clancy, Jim Gott, Luis Leal and Mark Eichhorn have given the Jays a good pitching basis. Also coveted by many other teams are their dou- ble play combination of shortstop Alfredo Griffin and second sacker Damaso Garcia. In addition Garcia has been leading the club at the plate. Currently he is hitting .315, good for about sixth spot in the American league and until he was forced out with injuries a few weeks ago was leading the league with the most hits. Defensively, Jesse Barfield has been starring for the Jays and his reputation of throwing runners out at the plate trying to score from second base on singles • to right field is quickly getting around the league. What the Blue Jays need to add to become a con- tender would be a strong designated hitter, a good average hitting third baseman and a left handed pitcher. While the Jays lost a lot of one run "games earlier in the season, they have corrected that problem a bit lately and are winning their share in come -from -behind fashion. A good example of this was Wednesday night when they fell behind the Minnesota Twins by a 2-0 score and came back to force the game into extra innings and won 3-2. The improved play by many of the Toronto team's youngsters has had a lot to do with their improved record, but, a lot of the credit must go to manager Bob- by Cox. He has instilled a winning spirit into his players and his managing methods are progressive and first class. His platooning of right and left handed batters depending on which side the opposing pitcher throws from has been very successful. In many instances he has been able to platoon in as many as five positions. Those being two outfield spots, third base, catcher and the designated hitter. We would certainly hope the Jays go all out in the free agent market and come up with at least two solid performers and that may be enough to do the trick. Don't be surprised if the World Series in two or three years is played entirely in Canada. Wouldn't that be great. Now it would appear for that dream to become a reality, it's the Montreal Expos would have to pull up their socks. Over the last couple of years, the Blue Jays have sort of been treated as a joke and the Expos as the World Series contender. We would hope the Jays take better advantage of their future opportunities than the Expos have. Over to hockey Switching sports for a moment, the prospects for success for the professional hockey team do not look too bright. The Leafs have failed two in their first four ex- hibition starts. We caught the last period of Wednesday's exhibi- tion game against the Canadiens on CHCH Hamilton and most of the Leafs looked pathetic. In a summary after the game, Dick Beddoes sug- ' gested the Leafs had only five players who have shown so far this season that they belong in the National Hockey League. The five listed were goalie Vince Tremblay, defenceman Borje Salming and the complete forward line of Ricit Vaive; Bill Derlago and John Anderson. In talking about the recent Montreal trade with Washington Beddoes suggested Washington got by far the best of the deal whereby they received four players Rebuilding year Hawks fie Hanovor i oxlulbftlon The Exeter Hawks had an behind to gain the draw in seasonal opponents in exhibi- been signed and include Tadgell was joined by auspicious debut in their ex• their first encounter of the tion games this week. goalie Mike Tadgell, Kevin Oke, Zurich and Pete hibition schedule when they season. Seaforth will visit them at defencemen Jamie Chaffe, Dearing, Exeter, in sharing travelled to Hanover, Sunday, Coach Bob Rowe and Huron Park on Thursday at Bill Glover and Steve Prout, netminding duties for Sun - to battle Boom Gravett's manager Don Campbell had 9:00 and they'll travel to along with forwards Pete day's game and Huron park's Junior "C" squad and came 24 players in the lineup and Thedfm'd for a Friday night Tuckey, Tony Underhill, Paul Dave Rook is also still in home with a 5-5 draw. used the tilt as part of their contest. Johnston and Ed Willis. camp and will play in one of The Hawks, who compete in weeding out process to get the This is a rebuilding year for A couple of other Hawks the games this week. the Junior "D" category, took squad down to more the Hawks with only eight may be back after other Competing for defensive a 4-2 lead after the second, and then had to come from manageable levels. players returning from last junior and college teams have spots with Prout, Chaffe and The '11 tackle their own year's squad. They've all made their cuts. • Glover are Mike Clark and Randy Ford from the Exeter minor system, Ted Hodgins and Dale Timmerman from the Parkhill system, Huron Park midgets graduate George Tomes and Ian Munroe from the Hensall midgets. E`xxeter products seeking forward positions include Scott Brintnell, Mark Vandergunst, Scott Pin- combe, Jeff Rowe and Brent Atthiil. Tony Jones is out from Huron Park, along with Dave Skea, Hensall; and Dean Armstrong, Zurich. Another forward is Dean Kulich, who is living in Hen- sall. He perforfned previous- ly for Bothwell juniors. in Sunday's game, Scott Brintnell knotted the count with 1:22 left on the clock. It was his second goal of the tilt. Other snipers were Scott Pin- combe, Pete Tuckey and E YALS WIN — The Usborne Royals have won the 'B'championship of the South Perth ladies fastball Dean Armstrong. Registering league. Back, left, coach Dove Swan; Cathy Regier, Rose Miller, LauraHern, Laurie De Vlaeminck, Koren Bower- assists were Paul Johnston, man, Brenda Swan, Brenda Iredale and coach Ross Hunter. Front, Ann Morley, Joan Cooper, Kathy Bray, tap- Ted Hodgins, Dean Kulich, tain Donna Kerslake, Jane. MacLean and Karen Brock. Missing were Sheils Penhale, Liz Bowerman, Marg Miller Dave Skea and Tuckey. and Beatrice Hunter. Dave Shaw signs Nordique contract After a very successful training camp with the Quebec Nordiques„ Exeter native, Dave Shaw is back with the Kitchener Rangers. After a good year with the Memorial Cup champions from Kitchener during the 1981-82 season Shaw was drafted eighth overall by the Nordiques. He attended pre -season tr: 'Ili : with the ebec club DAVE SHAW and played in three exhibition games against other National Hockey League teams. Quebec general manager Maurice ,Fillion said this week, "Dave had an excellent camp and in the exhibition game against Minnesota he came up with a plus one performance." Fillion added, "We hat'e- nine other defencemen and we would like to give Dave more experience in Kit- chener. The chances are very good that we may bring him up again sometime during the regular season." Since his return to Kit- chener Shaw participated in the club's first three games and scored two goals and add- ed four assists. In Friday's 12-1 win over Guelph he was named the game's first star. A three year contract plus a one year optioned has been signed with the Nordiques and Shaw's agent Norm Caplan says it is the seventh best of any of the draft choices of this summer. Cross country team off and running The South Huron Cross Cbuntry team has started off the season with several good showings. The boy's contingent ran as well as teams at the Stratford Northwestern Road Race on the 21. John Van Esbroek and Jim Regier had seventh and tenth place finishes to lead the senior boys to second place overall. The midget boys, almost all first year runners captured third place led by Brian Topp a 6th place finish. At this meet with most of the Huron -Perth teams, Irene Dietrich was third in the midget girls and 4th place in senior girls' went to Mary -Lou Rundle. In the rain and mud of Fri- day, the team did better than Coach Fulop expected, at the University of Western Ontario meet, which hosted teams from all over Western Ontario. The midget boys were a real surprise, placing second with the best showing by Ed Thuss who came. in second. Poor marshalling perhaps cost the senior girls a second place spot. • Catherine Patterson who would easily have placed in the top 10 became last out on the trail falling over 50 places behind. Despite this unfortunate in- cident the rest of the girls rallied seventh place finish. John Van Esbroek finished fourteenth in the tough senior boys race helping the team to place fifth in senior boys. Fulop was pleased with the results and predicts great things in. October. Stratford Central has proved the greatest competition especially in the boys divi- sion. South Huron will again see what the Central team is capable of when Stratford hosts a meet tomorrow. Senior cagers lose by two A basket in overtime of the semi-finals perhaps cost South Huron the champion- ship of a Senior Girl's Basket- ball Tournament Friday and Saturday at Saunders in London. They lost the semi-final to • Lucas (44-42) who went on to defeat Medway in the finals. Friday night Beal Secon- dary fell to South Huron 40-18, allowing South Huron to ad- vance to the semis. The following day Exeter. had the lead by quite a margin at the half but were unable to keep it against Lucas, perhaps because of over -play of the starting five, Maja Gans, Lori Brand, Cin- dy Down, Leslie Hunter- Duvar, and Faye Gaiser. South Huron slipped to 42-42 at the buzzer forcing over- time. Maja Gans was high scorer with 18 points. Coach Terry O'Rourke is quite pleased with his team's performance this early in the season. Their skill was tested Monday in the first league game at Stratford Northwestern. Today they journey to Lon- don to challenge the Fan- shawe College team. Former South Huron player, Deb Taylor, will be on the other side of the line in this match. This weekend both senior and junior teams play at the tournament in Wingham. The junior team also played Mon- day at Northwestern. from the Canadiens in exchange for two. Beddoes said if Sam Pollock was still in the Cana - diens front office a trade such as this would have never happened. Mohawks practice The Exeter Mohawks of the South Huron in- termediate hockey league will hold a practice at 11 a.m. Saturday morning at the Stephen township arena. DASHWOOD MIDGETS WIN — The Dashwood Midgets won the Western Ontario Athletic Association Midget "D" championship and were OBA semi-finalists. Back, left, coach Glenn Thurman, Bob Mitchell, Scott Dinney, Dean Watt, Tim Bender, Gary Smith, and coach Mike Rau. Front, Dave Hayter, Darryl Gingerich, Dan Dittmer, Dwayne Laporte and Dan Creces. Missing were Jeff Laporte, Brian Kading and Mark Boogemans. • r. 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