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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1997)
* ♦ * I., »'»ir .■». 4. r. ■ 'i' A prii 16, 1997* Tm P oru and O hm kvi k P agi A6 urvllTW BRIEFS Baseball honors Jackie Robinson Baseball took note of one of the greatest moments in its history Tuesday night with an anniver sary celebration that has gener ated more fanfare than the actual event. Tuesday m arked the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first game in the major leagues and the baseball world fittingly paid tribute at Shea Stadium dur ing a game between the Los Ange les Dodgers and the New York Mets Robinson broke baseball's color barrier on April 15. 1947 by playing first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. Only 25.623 fans showed up in the 34,000-seat park to watch Robinson go hitless in three at-bats in the D odger's 5-3 victory. The major New York area papers virtually ignored the sig nificance of the event with some writers skipping it entirely and others mentioning the debut only as a footnote. The scene will be different at Shea Stadium on Tues day night. The gam e will be stopped after the fifth inning and P re sid e n t Bill C lin to n and Robinson's widow, Rachel, took part in a ceremony at second base, the position w here R obinson played most of his career. Acting C o m m issioner Bud Selig and N a tio n a l L e a g u e P re sid e n t Leonard Coleman are among the dignitaries who were in atten dance. Top seeded Fernandez pulls out Top seed Mary Joe Fernandez of the United States today with drew from the $1.1 million Japan Open tennis tournament in To kyo, Japan due to lower back strain. Fernandez hurt her back last week during a q u a rte rfin a l loss to Amanda Coetzer at Amelia Is land. The 1990 champion will be replaced in the draw by Annabel Ellwood of Australia as the ninth seed while a lucky loser or quali fier takes her place. The Japan Open is the fourth non-Grand slam tournament to mix the m en's and women's tours. Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands is the top m en's seed and is looking to rebound from a second-round loss in India last week. Five seeds ousted Five seeded players, including two-time finalist Sergi Bruguera of Spain, were opening-round ca sualties today at the $825,000 Open Seat-Godo claycourt tour nam ent in B arc e lo n a , Spain. Bruguera, the I Oth seed, was e lim in a te d by M a rc -K e v in Goellner. 6-4, 2-6.6-2. Bruguera. ranked 21st in the world, has reached the finals of the Italian Indoors and l.ipton Champion ships this year. In a d d itio n . Fernando Vicente upended num ber 12 Jan Siemerink of the Neth erlands, 6-4,6-3, Julian Alonso of Spain, a wild card entry, ousted 14th seed and 1992 fin a list Magnus Gustafsson of Sweden, 7- 6(8-6), 3-6.6-3; N orw ay's Chris tian Ruud ousted num ber 13 Bohdan Uhhraeh of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 6-4; and Austria's Gilbert Schaller stormed past 15th seed Michael Stich of Germany, 6-2, 6-2. COMMUNITY TIGER WOODS, CALL HIM "MASTER Tiger dons the jacket of the elite Master's Series has been 50 years, almost to the thal Jackie Robinson broke n the racial barriers in baseball. v, a last vestige has fallen in golf, jghtdow n in record fashion here ic middle of the Old South, by a ng man of color. iger Woods, 21. who is of Afri- and Thai heritage, on Sunday line the youngest golfer in his- to win the Masters at the Au- la National Golf Club. In doing complished, but for its social sig- nifieanee. As the first man of color to put on the green jacket emblem- atic of a Masters victory, he finished what other people had started, "It means so much," Woods said, "1 m the first, but I wasn t the pio- neer. Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder, Teddy Rhodes, those guys paved the way for me to be here. I thank them, If it w asn't for them. 1 might not have had the chance to play here." myths and broke records and again altered the face of the game. W o o d s’ final round of 69 gave him a total score of 18-under-par 270. the lowest in the 6 1-year history o f the event, breaking the record held jointly by Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd. His 12-stroke victory overTom Kite, 47, was the widest margin ever in the Masters —- indeed, the widest in any major championship conducted in America — and it made him the first man of African heritage to win a professional major championship. That it was accom plished in Woods' third appearance at Augusta, and his first as a pro. comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career. This is the most recent in a long string of firsts. He was the first golfer to win three U.S. Junior Amateurs and the first to win three straight U.S. Amateurs. This one. though, means the most to Woods, not merely for the re markable way in which it was ac- This old golf course has seen dis plays of power and it has seen dis plays of finesse. But it has never seen anything like the combination of both — and the added element ol mental toughness — that Woods showed this week. For starters, he played the par-5 holes in 13 under par for the week. That is the power. He holed more than 70 feet of par putts during the four rounds. That is the ultimate in finesse. And after shooting a front-nine 40 on Thursday, he played the re maining 63 holes at Augusta Na tional in 22 under par. No one has ever done that. No one has ever played the final 54 in 200 strokes. No one has ever played the middle two rounds in 131 strokes. That is mental toughness. “Let’s face it.” said Jack Nicklaus, “ lt was quite a difference from the first time Woods came here, when hate mail arrived at the clubhouse and when one letter in particular said to him, ‘Just what we don’t need, another nigger in sports. ” Limited Time Offer V b K Call now for your Wk Free Sony Cellular Phone Calling plans to fit your needs. Special features and accessories also available Special discounts may apply. H U R R Y SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED DIVERSITY who, until now, has played this course better than anyone else, “it’s his time now.” It surely is. It was from the time he stepped to the first tee on Sunday morning, ready to face a challenge almost as difficult as playing with a two-stroke lead. Lined up on the porch outside the manor clubhouse to watch him tee oil were at least 20 African-Ameri can employees of the club. Farther dow n the hill were some of the black A ugusta caddies, people like Ja ria h Beard, who cad died for Fuzzy Zoeller back in 1979. Watching on te le v isio n were Jim Thorpe and Cal Peete and Charlie Sifford and countless other black pros. Just before Woods teed off, right after he had worked on the chipping green, Lee Elder, the lirst black player to compete in the Masters, in 1975, approached him and wished him luck. “That really reinforced what I had to accomplish,” W oods said. "He was the first. It was because of people like him that I was able to turn pro, to get this opportunity.” Woods killed the first tee shot of the day, rilling it into the wind well up the hill to the left of the bunker. He hit the green and two-putted for par. "That was big, to settle down like that with two good shots and a solid par," Woods said. He birdied the second hole and For details contact M ichael 680-1367 showed no sign o f nerves. His lead dropped to its lowest point — eight strokes over Costantino Rocca and Tom Watson when he bogeyed the fifth hole, his first bogey in 37 holes. He also bogeyed the seventh after hooking his drive into the trees, punch ing his approach into the front bunker and failing to get up and down. Those were the last scoring errors he made. After a birdie at the eighth hole, his lead at the turn was nine strokes, just one fewer than Seve Ballesteros had in 1980 when he ran away from the field. But Woods played the back nine much better than Ballesteros did that year. "To me. the way l iger played this week was really unbelievable,” said Mark O 'M eara, his neighbor and playing partner from Orlando. Pla. I he cliche about the Masters is that it is not won until the back nine on Sunday. That was not the case this year. It was won on the back nine on Thursday, when Woods changed a (law in his swing and shot a 30 coming in that set the tone for the rest o f his week. He had that security in mind on Sunday when he birdied the I Ith. nearly eagled the 13th and then made a 12-footerupthehillat 14 for birdie to get to IX under. At the 15th, after pushing his drive way right, he had to scramble for par on the hole he dominated all week. But his 7-footer for par was nearly as impressive as his driver-wedge play on the 500- yard hole had been all week. I, secured the record, if he could just get past the last three holes. It capped the coronation, and it set up one o f the loudest, most raucous final walks in the event’s history. He waded through the crowd at the last hole, looking for his ball, which had hooked over to the same spot where Ian Woosnam hit his drive when he won here in 1991. A quick finger on a photographer’s motor drive when Woods was at the top of his backswing caused the er rant drive, but it gave Woods a chance to mingle with the gallery for the first time all week. And as he walked down the tun nel o f applause, he began to slap palms with the gallery, first one and then another, until soon they were all extending their hands toward his. It was quite a difference from the first time Woods came here, when hate mail arrived at the clubhouse and when one letter in particular said to him, "Just what we don’t need, another nigger in sports.” Woods kept that letter. And now it serves as a symbol o f what he has overcome here and the way he over came it. 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