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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 1997)
BEST BETS NLCS Florida at Atlanta, NBC(6), 5p.m. Sports Emerald Cleveland ends Yankee quest for 24th World Series The Indians will make their second trip in three years to the ALCS, starting w.ith Wednesday’s first game in Baltimore By Ken Berger The Associated Press CLEVELAND — The Kid started it. The bullpen finished it. And for once, the Cleve land Indians finished off the New York Yan kees. They did it with a rookie who doesn’t pitch like a rookie, and they threw in a little magic left over from their World Series team of 1995. Cleveland finished the job with a 4-3 vic tory in a decisive Game 5 Monday night, ending this dramatic series and the Yan kees’ quest for a second straight and 24th World Series title. The Indians’ second trip to the ALCS in three years begins Wednesday with Game 1 in Baltimore. Rookie Jaret Wright, 21 only on his birth certificate, beat Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte again. Though he lasted only 5 1-3 innings after going six at Yankee Stadium in Game 2, the Indians bullpen took care of the rest. Wright couldn’t snap off fastballs in the high 90s forever, even on this great postsea son roll that brings to mind names like Mike Boddicker, Fernando Valenzuela and Dave Righetti. The bullpen had to complete it. Mike Jackson, the winner in Game 4’s ninth-inning comeback, got the last two outs of the sixth. Left-hander Paid Assenmacher pitched 11-3 innings. And Jose Mesa, who began the season in the courtroom instead of the bullpen, closed it out for his first postseason save since Game 5 of the 1995 World Series. Mesa gave up a two-out double to Paul O’Neill in the ninth before getting Bernie Williams on a fly to left field for the final out. The AL Central champion Indians, who had the fewest wins of any AL playoff team with an 86-75 record, now have a chance to get back there. “It’s amazing,” Wright said as Jacobs Field rocked behind him. "It’s awesome. It’s a great feeling.” The Yankees, who won four more games than last year and looked so dominant at times in this series, have lost the only two Game 5s since division series play started in Turn to INDIANS, Page 8 Up Next ■ NLCS: Florida at Atlanta, Oct. 7, NBC (6), 5 p.m. ■ ALCS: Cleveland at Baltimore, Oct. 8, * Fox (5), 5 p.m. * Lear should be Heisman trophy front runner If it seems to you that New York’s Downtown Athletic Club engraved Peyton Manning’s name on the Heis man Trophy in August, you might be right. East Coast sportswriters and football gu rus have tried for three seasons to unload Joel Hood the Heisman to Ten nessee's star quarterback. This season, it’s the same tired story: give Manning the Heisman, give the Pa cific-10 Conference the shaft. Well it’s not going to happen this year. The Pac-10 is one of the na tion’s toughest confer ences top to bottom, and this season there are four legitimate Heisman trophy candidates to look for. Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf has had as good a season as anyone in the country at his position, despite what the East Coast media might want you to be lieve. This season, Leafs 309.8 yards per game rank him sixth in the country in total offense. His 1,553 yards passing and 14 touchdowns are just slightly ahead of the numbers Drew Bledsoe had in his junior season at Washington State. Everyone re members Bledsoe, right? He’s currently second in the NFL in quarterback rating. Leaf is also No. 10 in the country in pass ing efficiency with a 157.5 rating. This sea son, he has thrown for more yards, more touchdowns and has a better completion percentage than Manning. More important ly, Leaf has shown great touch and deci sion making in leading Washington State to a 5-0 overall record and one of its best Pac 10 starts in decades. People laugh when I mention Washing ton quarterback Brock Huard’s name as a possible Heisman candidate, but there are statistics to back this up. Huard leads the country in passing efficiency with an amazing 182.9 rating. Passing efficiency is probably the best tool to rate quarterback performance because it takes into account completion percentage, yards, touchdown and interceptions. Through five games this season, Huard has thrown only one interception; that’s the type of stat that voters should take a se rious look at because it has kept the Huskies in the national title hunt. With Karim Abdul-Jabbar now running rough shot through the NFL, Skip Hicks has had to carry the load for the UCLA rushing attack. Hicks, in his senior season, has run his way into the country’s elite running backs. His 515 yards rushing and 187 yards re TurntoHOOD, Page 12 -J MICHAEL CRISP/Emerald The Oregon offense will most likely need to more effective inside the 20-yard line to heat VCIA this weekend. Bellotti: Mistakes well within team’s control Although their last five games show signs of a repeat season, the Ducks feel they have a better team than a year ago By Chris Hansen Assistant Sports Editor If you are beginning to think the Oregon football team is heading down the same path as last year, you are not alone. There is a definite dejh vu quality to the season’s first five games. For all newcomers, that’s the road that led the Ducks to a mediocre 6-5 record af ter a 3-0 start, which was followed by five straight losses, no bowl game after back to-back Rose and Cotton Bowl appear ances and a lot of heartache and frustra tion. Similarly, this season’s version of the Ducks also started out 3-0, but has now lost two close games against high-ranked opponents and is days away from facing a third in No. 18 UCLA. But Oregon players and coaches alike have said all season long that this team is different from the one last season. And head coach Mike Bellotti is still sticking to that, whether or not the two teams look similar on paper. "We’ve lost to two top-ranked teams back to back and both games we could have won,” he said. “We have made some mistakes that are well within our control. We didn’t make all the plays, but we are capable of making those plays. It is well within our grasp to catch a couple dropped balls. It is well within our grasp to make a couple tackles.” Unlike last season’s squad that was sim ply outplayed by the teams that it lost to. But with the two losses, Saturday’s Turn to FOOTBALL, Page 12 Oregon tenth, BYU first at OSU-Nike Invitational Junior Ben Crane led Duck golfers after shooting an opening round 146for 36 holes at Trysting Tree in Corvallis By Rob Moseley Sports Reporter Trysting Tree Country Club in Corvallis is the sight of this year’s Oregon State-Nike In vitational, which has attracted 22 collegiate golf teams, including 19th-ranked Brigham Young, the tournament’s defending cham pion. BYU is in first place after shooting three over par as a team for Monday’s first round of 36 holes, and holds a two-stroke advan tage over Stanford. Host Oregon State is tied for third at six-over, while Oregon stands 10th at 21-over. The Ducks finished 10th at last year’s Nike Invitational. Oregon's top individual performer was junior Ben Crane, who fired back-to-back 73’s and is tied for 18th at two over, five shots back of leader Dusty Brett of Stan ford, who shot 68-73. Sophomore Ryan Lavoie shot 74-74 and is tied for 30th at +4, junior Derek Croskey is tied for 39th at five-over, senior Chris Cone is tied for 70th at 10-over par, and freshman Nick Davey shot 15-over to round out the scoring for the Ducks. Stanford’s Joel Kribel, who finished sec ond at this year’s U.S. Amateur Champi onship, is tied for 10th place with seven oth er golfers at one-over. The field will play another 18 holes Tues day to decide the winner of the individual and team competitions. * After tomorrow’s play, up next for the Ducks is the Nevada Wolfpack Classic, to be held Oct. 13-14. The tournament will be held at Edgewood Country Club in State line, Nev., which has been the sight of nu merous professional events.
