• M' »" •\^t. 6 - PLAIN DEALER • FRIDAY, JULY 31,1981 m m HE'S IN THERE - Matt Oik of Doherty's slides in safely as he turns a base hit into a hustling double in 12-inch softball Wednesday night. Waiting for the throw is Jewel Park shortstop Joe Schwarx. Oik's hit drove in two runs on the play Legion and Doherty's went on to win 12-3 keeping It's record [ at 12-0. Oik will be the starting shortstop for the Western Division in the AU Star douMeheader JMs Sunday at Peterson park. STAFF PHOTO - CARL MOESCHE It All McHenry's American Legion team has ex perienced just about everything this season from home runs that were taken away to games that were protested. In the last two weeks another wrinkle was added to the story, the forfeited game. Fortunately this time McHenry was the benefactor. Surprisingly, once was not enough as a second forfeited game was handed to them. McHenry also dropped a doubleheader to Rockford Boyland and lost a single game to Algonquin before winning their "Old Timers Game" last Saturday. On Friday, July 17 McHenry traveled to Lake- In-The-Hills but their team didn't have enough players to start the game. The following night, Richmond had the same excuse and McHenry recorded another 7-0 game in their scorebook. On Sunday, McHenry found Rockford Boyland to have more than enough players as they swept McHenry in a Connie Mack doubleheader by scores of 5- 4 and 13-5. In the first game, McHenry's leadoff hitter Joe Bauml got thy game styled quickly ashe tetfAtt on an error. After B«b* Bryn- iarksi struck out, Dave Maurer walked, and John Doesel advanced both runners with a ground out. With two outs, Dave Smith delivered a clutch single that sewed both runners. Rockford came back to score once in each of the first two innings to tie the score. In the fifth inning, Rockford scored three times off of losing hurler Tim Evans for what proved to be the win ning runs. McHenry rallied, scoring twice in the top of the seventh inning on a two-run double by Maurer, but their rally fell short as the tying run was left on base when the last out was made. McHenry outhit Rockford nine to six, but three costly errors led to their downfall. In the nightcap, Rockford pounded out 15 hits including six extra base blows off of three McHenry pitchers for the win. They scored in all but one inning. Through three innings, McHenry had the game tied at three runs apiece as Smith drove in two runs ith a single and Dillon scored on a fielders choice by Jeff Major. But in the fourth innings, Rockford scored twice off of Smith, who was in relief of Dillon. In the fifth inning the roof fell in as ten Rocfeford batters went to the plate scoring five runs. McHenry tallied twice in the sixth to conclude their (as Smith knocked in reVe and Maurer Tjjffilng him four runs batted in for the game. Against Algonquin last Wednesday, McHenry never got going as they lost 6-0. John Bazan knotched the first hit of the game for McHenry in the third inning as he doubled to right field. That and a double by Maurer were the only serious threats throughout the first five innings. In the sixth inning, McHenry collected three hits, but a double play wiped out the opportunity to score. In the bottom of the sev< McHenry came up again stranding three runners on base as the final putout was made. Algonquin scored three runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings on six hits and two walks to win. It was a tough loss for Smith as he didn't allow a base hit until the fifth. But in the fifth, once again the roof caved in and he was tagged with the decision. McHenry collected seven hits in the contest with Maurer being the only player to have two. Saturday at the "Old Timers Game," McHenry downed the former stars 10- 5. The "oldies" came to play in everything from ber- mudas to full uniforms, and one player even wore football spikes. The game was played for nine innings and the veterans had an early 3-1 lead after three innings. But the legion team, banged out nine nits in the next four innings scoring nine times to put the game away. Major led the legion squad with four hits including two doubles, three runs sewed and four RBIs. Henry Glick led the veterans with three hits in five appearances, Sox Win Mini Title The final rounds of the playoffs in the McHenry Junior Youth league mini division were concluded the past week with the Sox edging the Cubs in the championship game last Saturday. In second round action the Cubs and Sox drew byes and the Tigers and Yanks won their games setting up the four semi-finalists. The Tigers got to the semi's with a 3-1 defeat of the Astros. Steve Aleckson pitched for the winners and Brain Condon for the Astros, each allowing only two hits and striking out 12 batters. The difference in the game was the fine defense of Ryan Huinker at second base and the game winning two-run double off the bat of Jamie Keller. The Yanks eeked out a 5-4 win over the Braves coming from behind in a 4-2 game in the final inning to score three runs off Jamie Franklin who pitched a superb game. The semi-final games saw the Sox maul the Tigers 20-3 as Todd Busche did a fine job of pitching and also hit a home run. The other semi-final game was a much closer contest as through four innings the Cubs' Dave Cable and Yanks' Brandon Pasternock were locked in a 2-2 tie. The Cubs then erupted for six runs in the top of the fifth for a 8-2 victory. The championship game between the Cubs and Sox was a fine pitchers duel between the Cubs' Kelly Roach and the Soxs' Matt Hopp. The Cubs had numerous chances to score .the first four innings but the fine fielding of Matt Kamrat at second choked off several rallies and Matt Hopp's pitching kept the game at 0-0 through five innings. In the top of the sixth inning Matt Carson pitched fine relief to preserve the shut out and victory as the Sox scored the winning run in the bottom of the inning on a walked-in run. Buy four, get one more. Free. CUPRIIV Sain&wck *E5ERVATIV Limited time only. <r Free Cuprinol. Now buy 4 gallons of Cuprinol" Stain & Wood Preservative or Cuprinol* Weathering Gray Stain and get one gallon Free. Cuprinol Stain&Wx>d Preservative When it's wood against weather.* Main Paint & Decorating Inc. 3819 W. Main St. 385-1115 scoring a run and knocking in a run. LEGION ab r h bt J. Major 4 3 4 4 B. Bryniarksi 4 1 0 0 D. Smith 2 1 K.Williams 0 0 0 0 D. Mauer 2 0 0 0 J. Doessel 5 1 2 2 M.Dillon 4 1 1 1 S.Zalke 3 1 1 2 K. Bow en 3 0 1 0 J. Bazan 4 1 1 0 M.Leon 3 1 0 0 T.Evans 1 0 1 0 D. Williams 2 0 0 0 37 10 12 10 VETERANS ab r h bi H. Glick 5 1 3 1 L. Wronski 4 1 1 2 J.Sytsma 5 1 1 0 M. Lincoln 2 0 0 0 R.Rodick 4 0 1 1 J. Bellich 4 0 0 1 R. Smith 2 0 1 0 M. Ruhnke 3 1 0 0 H. Glick, Sr. 1 0 0 0 P. Schomer 2 1 1 0 32 5 8 5 Ed's Rental 346»%»•• bitii 12 0 In 16" All Star Games In 12" McHenry's Annual Men's Twelve Inch All Star doubleheader will be held at Peterson park on Sunday, August 2, beginning at 12 noon. The games feature the top twenty ballplayers from each division. picked by player representatives from each of the twelve ball clubs. This year the Western Division All Stars will again be the underdogs as their counterparts from the Eastern Division boast part in the mid-season classic. Dehn leads the league with 28 RBIs and sports a .843 batting average. Greg Freund was chosen to play at second base. The .545 hitter has played a number of positions this season including outfield and pitcher and probably will do some work on the mound on Sunday. John Michels will be head coach. The Fox Hole skipper led the Tap to last season's higher batting averages plus undefeated season. Michels a slight edge in home run strength. . The Eastern All Star starting lineup includes four members from first place Fox Hole Tap. Twig Miller, the Tap's left center fielder, was one of two unanimous choices on the team. Miller has played on All Star squads continuously since joining the league in 1975. Brother Ron Miller will be at shortstop. Ron currently leads the league with a .724 batting average Don Bentz, a .657 hitter, will be at first while Rich Meyers, a .541 batter, will start in the outfield. Second place Wayne's also placed four players in the starting lineup. Their bat tery of Pat Burke on the mound and Wayne Roewer behind the plate will add power to the East lineup. Roewer has nine home runs and 22 RBIs while Burke has five roundtrippers with 17. RBIs. Tom Burke will be at thrird base. Tom leads the league with ll home runs, has 23 RBIs and has scored 22 runs this season. Don Prazak will be starting in the outfield. Prazak, a unanimous pick, has been a leader all season in most batting categories. Currently he has 22 runs scored, seven home runs, 24 RBIs and an impressive .639 batting average. The Old Bridge was the third team to place starters on the East squad. Perrenial favorites Greg Freund and Joe Dehn will again take will be assisted by Dan Jamieson of the Old Bridge and Tim Whitman of King's Row. The Western Division All Star first team placed three members from each of the top three teams. First place and undefeated Doherty's will have pitcher Irish DeCiccio, shortstop Matt Oik and outfielder Mike Rogers on the first ten. DeCiccio has a .571 average while Oik adds extra base hitting ability. Rogers, a .578 hitter, is one of the finest fielders in the league and adds good speed on the base path. Second place Johnsburg Businessmen placed Tom Spasojevich at catcher. 'Spas' leads the West in four separate batting categories including doubles (7), home runs (7), RBIs (28) and batting average (.688). Harry May was a unanimous pick at second base. May has a .591 batting average on the season. Wayne Hiller is the third Businessman in the N starting lineup. Hiller will be in the outfield, boasts a .568 average and leadte the West in runs scored wtih 23. The Rusty Nail Inn had the only other unanimous pick in the West in Kevin Freund. Freund will be in the outfield and adds home run hitting ability to his .559 average. Rick Wakitsch and Gary Schmitt will be on the cor ners, third and first, in the infield. Wakitsch can hit the long ball while Schmitt has been an All Star each year since 1974 except in *78. Joe Huemann from Huemann's will join the other nine on the First team. Huemann adds speed and a good throwing arm to the lineup. Huemann will start in the outfield. Dick Doherty will be in charge of the West, Doherty, owner and manager of last season's Western Division leaders, will have Wayne Frantz from the Johnsburg Businessmen and Kevin Bauer from the Rusty Nail Inn as his assistants. EASTERN DIVISION FIRST TEAM h r Pat Burke, P 20 18 Wayne Roewer, C 26 Don Bentz, IB 23 Greg Freund, 2B 18 Ron Miller, SS 21 Tom Burke, 3B 22 Twig Miller, OF 17 Rich Meyers, OF 20 17 .541 Don Prazak, OF 23 Joe Dehn, OF 27 King's Row: Chuck Marke. WESTERN DIVISION FIR8TTEAM * h r aver Irish 17 17 9 13 22 15 22 18 aver .513 .619 .657 .545 .724 .505 .654 639 643 DiCiccio, P '20 17 .571 Tom Spasoievich, C 22 16 .888 Gary Schmitt, ' j IB t 16 10 .457 Harry May, 2B 13 7 .591 Matt Oik, SS 19 18 .514 Rick Wakitsch, 3B % 17 15 .531 Kevin Freund, OF 19 11 .559 Wayne Hiller, OF 21 23 .568 Mike Rogers, OF 26 18 .578 Joe Huemann, . OF 12 3 .462 SECOND TEAM Fox Hole Tap: Bill Meyers, Myron Bentz, Jim Yaworski. Wayne's: Kevin Horner. Old Bridge: Gary Gilpin, Tom Ludwig, Doug Freund. Little John's: John Griffith. Whale's Tail: John Syt- sma, Jack Spindler. SECOND TEAM Johnsburg Businessmen: Jim Meyers, Scott Letzter, John Meyers. Rusty Nail: Len Acker- man. Doherty's: Randy Vauk, John DiCiccio, Tom Roach. Jewel Park: Steve San ders. Hainesville Inn> Don Prorok, Pat Zwillingi Games of August 3 6:45 p.m. Wayne's vs. King's Row. 7:30 p.m. Whale's Tail vs. Old Bridge. 8:15 p.m. Fox Hole Tap vs. Little John's. 9:00 p.m. Whale's Tail vs. Fox Hole Tap. Pat Wirtz Plaindealer More Playoffs, Better Payoffs Ed's Rental chalked up its twelfth consecutive win in Women's Tuesday night 16- inch softball by beating Dr. Frymark 6-1. Ed's batted around in the first inning scoring all six of their runs. The big blow of the inning was a three-run home run by Diane Michels. Dr. Frymark tallied its only run on a bases loaded single by pitcher Cindy Diedrich. But Ed's managed to escape from what could have been a big inning for Frymark when second baseman Jackie Raycraft turned in two excellent defensive pl*ys. In a game called because of darkness, Sunnyside defeated N and ll 7-3. Behind Kathy Carey's double, Sunnyside jumped off to an early three-run lead in the first inning. N and R scored twice in the fourth frame to tighten the score, but then Sun nyside came back to score four times. N and R managed to score once more, but it was not enough as pitcher Jeanne Markovic picked up her fifth victory. Gearmaster collected 15 hits and shutout Four Winds 6-0 for their third .whitewashing at the season. Marie MeUum scored the initial run in the fourth in ning on a hit by Mary Anne Knudson. In the fifth frame Gearmaster exploded for five -runs as Kathy O'Donohue and Laura Bole smacked run-scoring doubles. Sports and politics are probably the most talked about issues that Americans contemplate. But today's sports pages are culminated with tennis and golf, and what the preseason football camps are up to. Our missing ingrediant, major league baseball, has left a sour taste in many people's mouths as the strike approaches Day 50. It is not surprising that most Americans could care less if baseball is played anymore this year. Let's face it, you can forget about baseball until next spring. This Saturday, August 1, nearly 400 games will be erased. Saturday also marks the beginning of the pro football season as the Atlanta Falcons will square off against the Cleveland Browns in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. It's time for those aging sluggers and sore-armed pitchers to sit back and wonder if they'll be around next season. But it is not my purpose in this column to rehash why the owners should be hung from the highest tree. Rather it is to respond to an idea brought forth by White Sox president Ed Einhorn on how the game can be im proved for the players and the fans. Kind of ironic isn't it? If indeed we ever play baseball again, Einhorn has devised a scheme that would improve the playoff system, making it more demanding, and hopefully weeding out the best representative of each league to make it to the World Series. His plan, or rather three of them would allow more than only the division winner in the playoffs. With the tight Baltimore hea race^over th« lopg, ttueftng 162 game schedule the fdea has its attractions. ' The old baseball adage that "The team in first place by All Star break will win the pennant" doesn't leave much incentive for a team that's already 20 or more games out of first. By mid the list with second at .602 (292-193), Boston third at .565 (273-210), and Milwaukee is fourth at (274-211). There should be some reward for finishing so high in the standings. Einhorn offers three different plans for getting Bullpen By Carl Moesche SEASON OPENING ATTENTION AREA W6H SCHOOL ATHLETES.. * WARRIORS * ROCKETS ¥ SKYHAWKS * HORRKANES YOn SNT*MLT FOOTBALL SHOES-- WITH REPLACEAILE CLEATS ARE HERE! SPECIAL TEAM DISCOUNT TO AREA FOOTBALL PLAYERS! NUN'S SPORT STOP Across from A4P -Next to Eby Brown McHENRY • • . 344 3510 August, you can start scratching many teams from the races as they become mathematically eliminated. Surely teams that finish a close second or third don't deserve to go home emp- tyhanded the way Toronto or Seattle would after finishing in last place 30 or more games behind. Look at the 1979 Milwaukee Brewers for instance. That year the Brew Crew finished with a 95-66 record, good for the second best record in all of baseball but unfortunately also good for second place in the American League East behind Baltimore. The Brewers could only watch as the Orioles manhandled the California Angels, winners of the West for the pennant. Had the Brewers been given a chance in the playoffs there may have been a different American League champion that year. During the last three full seasons, the top four teams with the highest winning percentages are all from the American League East, regarded as the toughest division in baseball. these darkhorses into the playoffs. I^an A--The first- and second-place teams would play a best-of-five series with the first-place team getting the odd game at home. The winner would advance to the league playoffs. Plan B--The first- place team would get a bye. The second- and third-place clubs would play a best-of- three series. That winner would play the first-place team in a best-of-three sries. Plan C--The first four teams would qualify, with the first-place club playing the fourth-place club and the second- and third-place clubs facing each other in a best-of-three series. The winners would play a best-of- three series. Miit. My plan, call it Plan D, would pit the division Man ners against the second place teams in the other division in a best-of-five series. The two winners would then meet in a best-of- five series for the pennant. If the two best teams in the same league are in the same division, then they'll have a chance to fight it out. It would only make the in- terdivisional rivalries stronger. Baseball is the only major sport that only allows division winners into the playoffs. Basketball has become rediculous as only seven of the 23 teams don't make the playoffs. In football, another wild card representative has been adopted giving each league five playoff candidates. And they only play 16 regular season games. I believe that baseball will soon adopt a new playoff system, one that will give the fans a little more and make the game stronger. This is something to look forward to. But then perhaps the season should be shortened also to compensate for the extra games. But that's another matter. First, let's play ball. 16" Tourney Set The Amateur Softball Association will hold a 16-inch sir- elimination Invitational Sectional Tournament at the V F this Saturday, August 1. Hiller and Hamm of McHenry will be among the eight teams in the tournament. Three teams from Grayslake and four teams from Round I*ke will also be competing. The first game is scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday with lent games to be played every hour and 15 minutes Concessons will be available and the public is welcome to 3. it- The winner oi the tournament will advance to the Metro State Tournament to be held in Schaumburg on August 21-23. Acar dealer isacar Callus. of Crystal Lake APPEARANCE « PROTECTION SERVICES 3939 Northwest Hwy. (312)639-5333