sports
mu
they
return?
Baseball has best shot
at being resurrected
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University •nnouZJd°S>'neca^„'ZSS1,> S'"°e
intercollegiate sports Of thn!L eliminate four
hisappearlo compltfeiy ’h™ h•«
on af the dub sport level * S°CCer has
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surprise, shock ana outrage then n'""9 °' ,he
announced, and the fructrF* when the cuts were
they were earned out 0" and sad"**s when
sport orFthe O^goncampus" *" **fUtUre ofeach
•ng golfS cTubs^or^ny1 meiTo0^?0" VVOmen swin9*
apparatus for the Ducks 9yrating on gymnastic
^,na Zl7stktLb:F^re9°" baseba" 'earn
now tZZ?Zat,?lCue‘maaa las» M*> are
coaches chopped from the Jthtet* °Ith* ath,etes and
now turned to eitt,er hil e,'C department have
they're feeling the cuts * 6SS °r res'9nat,on Now
by meT^vae?sfty°adm!mstrahonn°hnCement May 7
reviving some of the sports Jan. there was talk of
for cuts in the athletic budol oTh^ alterna,,ve Plans
"'Nng Dump me neXZLbgT''a,e SP°"S°"
down "me haS gona b>. that talk has quiete0
<v
Oregon athletic
director R,Ck Bay has
gone on the record
very early jn his
administration con
cernmg the four
eliminated in
las? spring s cut
As 1 have stated
priorities down the
Graphic by Max Defiungs road, once we have
Jrissr,s ,o res,ore ~aa, tt
John CainrwaTnSoUfma7oreaonCCehed ,ormer director
were made to cut yet he tru^StH When fhe decisions
who made the fmalVho.ce 6 Jud9emenf °f those
a lot ofkso0uT searching9 A fof '^USSio.ns thaf there was
they were treated unfa.rfvl 6 m'9hf ,eel ,hat
nature y’ but that s just human
were as tr.ra^hPeey0cieu^be9ed th6 resP°nsibil,ty
elim,natededepe^dhseupony0nenfhmq9 baCk the sports
"When wp na,n „ e rn,n9 — money
we have lost then weCcanadoath,sUm °fr6Venue ,hat
9»ve no timetable on when this I h S3'd Bay can
a goal | can't tell you how long this wT^ke th'S
Prom most observers st«nHr!J <ake
~ ^hSsis' ara ---
U>ay have the longest ?m? ^E'^09'3™ Cut
knew the sport even existed iaTt b Relatively few
_|ewer s„„ were benefited fay ^ y*a/^st year and
wc.
Photo by Mark Pynas
Athletic director Rick Bay is committed to bringing the sports back to the campus "One of the priorities, down
the road, is to restore the sports that were cut."
Successful with or without varsity sport funding,
women’s soccer may have a much shorter wait for
reinstatement Relatively inexpensive — $19.406 — the
team could well make the national playoffs this year,
barring a disasterous streak of luck The sport would
be an attractive addition to the women s program
If Bill Ballester had his way, men's gymnastics
might never be back "It would be a great injustice to
tear it down and then try to build it back up again,"
said Ballester, the coach of Oregon's winningest sport
in history
"It would take a long time (to build it back up)
When the University cut the sports it was un
precedented for a university to cut a nationally ranked
program "
"Now don't get me wrong I love the University,
and I'm proud of the athletic department, but it doesn't
change the fact that they screwed up ”
Still Ballester believes that gymnastics may one
day be resurrected It would take at least five years for
effective recruiting and an additional five years to get
back on the championship level
"But the credibility is gone," added Ballester, who
said he'll never be involved in gymnastics at the
University again
The one sport with a good shot at returning this
year is baseball — ironically the least successful o< the
sports cut
As soon as the decision to eliminate baseball was
announced, a group of interested citizens began
formulating a way to bring the national pastime back
to the campus Bill Triplett, a Portland businessman
and former college baseball player organized the
Save Oregon Baseball Committee last spring to
finance the return of baseball
Triplett and committee chairman John Elorriaga,
chairman of the board of U S Bancorp, talked with
University officials about their goal
“I went down to Eugene to investigate the pos
sibilities," said Triplett a graduate of Stanford "I
talked with Ray Hawk (vice-president for administra
tion and finance) and Curt Simic (vice president for
public affairs), and they told me that the only way that
baseball would be reinstated was if the funds needed
were developed from outside the University "
Two plans were considered One plan involved a
$500,000 endowment fund that, at 15% interest, would
yield $75,000 per year — more than enough to fund a
team
The other was a short-term measure — a stake of
$150,000 to fund the team for three years This was the
plan decided upon by the committee
With 10 or so players from last year's team still in
Eugene, the committee thought fielding a team as
soon as 1982 was feasible But for the team to be able
to play the 1982 season, a deadline of Nov 1 was set
by the Northern Division baseball conference for
Oregon to be included in this year's schedule
And as the deadline approaches, the Save
Oregon Baseball fund is still a long way from suc
cess $50,000 has been raised thus far, but $100,000
must still come in within two weeks
And to compound the problem, Triplett has told
those who have donated thus far that the money is for
bringing baseball back this year — and that the money
will be returned if the deadline isn't met
"It's been tough," Triplett said "It's a tough
economy now, the lumber industry is in horrible
shape People who would normally give can't come up
with the money "
The money that s come in so far has been mostly
in large chunks — Elorriaga s U S Bank chipped in
$15 000, while Pacific Northwest Bell added $10,000
to name a few But Triplett's plan for the final push is a
personal appeal "I sent 500 letters out last week,
asking people to give $150 for three years If we get
200 people willing to do that, we’ll make our goal "
Whether or not baseball will make it back is still up
in the air "I've been in contact with people who
conceivably would be willing to give $40,000 or
$50,000 It could be just a couple of phone calls
away "
Or it could be a lot longer time before baseball
and the other three Oregon sports return to the
campus A plea from a member of the women's soccer
team probably best sums up the feelings of those
athletes now truly feeling the cuts
"Tell them we want to be varsity again "
One more acronym; true-false
In Thursday's Emerald, Steve Spate’s column “Acronyms
in uniform” should have included one more pair of opposites —
true false.
it is hue that Micheal Leander was enrolled at USC from the
tell of 1870 to spring of 1872. However, ft is also hue that OJ.
Simpson graduated from USC In 1869, the year before Leander
even arrived at hie school, and was a member of the NFL's
Buffalo Bills in the tell of that year.
Leander’s claims to have hied out for the same team or to
have been in a class with Simpson are false.
The Emerald Sports staff regrets the error and pledges to
do its utmost to insure against another error of this kind.
1 O
Yankees sweep Oakland for pennant
OAKLAND (AP) — Willie Randolph snapped a
scoreless tie with a two-out homer in the sixth
inning and the New York Yankees captured their
33rd American League pennant by beating the
Oakland A s 4-0 Thursday night to complete a
three-game sweep of the league championship
series
Graig Nettles, who already had driven in six
runs in the first two games of the series, ripped a
two-out three-run double over the head of cen
terfielder Rick Bosetti in the ninth inning to put an
end to the 1981 story of the upstart A's
Dave Righetti, the Yankees 22-year-old rookie
left-hander, held Oakland scoreless through six
innings, but after throwing 112 pitches, he was
replaced by Ron Davis and then Goose Gossage
who finished up for the World Series-bound
Yankees In all, they held the A s to five hits
Former Yankee manager and player Billy
Martin s A s could score only four runs in three
games against New York while the Yankees
scored 20
New York stranded nine runners through the
first five innings, which took two hours to play
Finally, Randolph ended the tension by picking on
a 1-0 delivery by Matt Keough that he lofted high
over the left field wall for his first home run since
April and his first in postseason play since 1977
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