Word: baller
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...righthanded fast-baller (wearing a CAN'T MISS tag), Armstrong arrived at the Reds' camp this spring full of enthusiasm and good deeds. "I've waited 22 years for an opportunity to pitch in the major leagues," he says, meaning he must have been contemplating it at the age of one. "He'd run through that wall if you asked him to," smiles Manager Pete Rose, who has finished running through walls himself. But Jack Armstrong will probably begin the season in the minors, in some small and scrubby place appropriate to bright starts...
...last at-bat, the Giants were five behind Cincinnati and facing a four-game Reds series and maybe the end. But Pitcher Mike LaCoss, a Reds reject, shut Cincinnati down in the first game, and Atlee Hammaker, Mike Krukow and Kelly Downs followed suit. Adding the old sinker baller Rick Reuschel for seasoning, the Giants pulled away...
Meanwhile New York had a game's lead over Houston after five, but the Mets were blessed to be alive. The best team in baseball, self-appointed, batted .189 and struck out 57 times. Split-Fingered Fast-Baller Mike Scott dismayed the Mets twice; all they could do with Scott was collect allegedly scuffed baseballs and cry to the press. Dykstra's ninth-inning homer saved a third loss, and Umpire Fred Brocklander's mistaken out call at first base forestalled a fourth. Houston's essential run was lost. Slumping Catcher Gary Carter eventually won that one in the twelfth...
Patterson (2-0) scattered eight hits, allowed two runs, walked three batters and struck out two in 6 2-3 innings. Jay Baller surrendered Mike Brown's leadoff homer in the eighth, then Lee Smith took over and earned his 33rd save. Rick Reuschel, who had won four in a row, gave up three hits, walked one and strick out six in seven innings and fell...
Needless to say, this is an allegory for Steinbrenner's New York Yankees, once the proudest team in baseball, now merely the highest paid. Bringing back that "reformed" fist baller and dehydrated bibber Billy Martin for a fourth term as mismanager, Steinbrenner has taxed the credibility of even the New York Post. Sometimes it seems that this former anonymous shipbuilder from Cleveland owns more than 37 1/2% of the Manhattan tabloids. He hovers over the + city like the Hindenburg. In quivering type befitting a disaster, his name is a standard headline: GEORGE EXPLODES. NO SURVIVORS...