Oklahoma St. Vaulter Sets U.S. Mark: 19-1 1/2

Joe Dial, an Oklahoma State pole vaulter, soared 19 feet 1 1/2 inches at the Big Eight outdoor track meet at Kansas State, breaking the U.S. record by half an inch.

Dial, 22, a senior and a three-time NCAA pole vault champion, set the record on his first attempt at that height, barely brushing the bar.

His vault beat the American record of 19-1 set last year by Mike Tully of the New York Athletic Club. After consulting with his father, Dial decided not to go for the world record of 19-5 3/4, set by the Soviet Union’s Sergey Bubka, but said he would try to break it at this year’s NCAA meet.

In a track meet at the University of Tennessee, Sam Graddy, silver medalist in the men’s 100 meters at last summer’s Olympics, ran the 200 meters in 20.30 seconds, which is the fastest 200 time this year.

Bay City High’s Joe DeLoach, after being upset in the 100 meters, broke the national high school record in the 200-meter dash in the 75th University Interscholastic League Texas State meet at Austin, Tex. DeLoach’s time of 20.4 seconds bettered the mark of 20.5 set by Dwayne Evans of South Mountain High in Phoenix in 1976.

Byron Grant of Corsicana, second in the 200 in 20.8, beat DeLoach in the 100. Grant was clocked in 10.1 seconds, DeLoach in 10.2.

Bobby Brown, American League president, denied the New York Yankees’ protest of the playing conditions inside Minneapolis’ Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome .

The Yankees, after misplaying several high fly balls that they claimed got lost in the lights during an 8-6 loss to the Minnesota Twins Tuesday night, played Wednesday’s game under protest, contending that lighting at the Metrodome was “not up to major league standards.”

Director Jerry Bell of the Metrodome said that new lights will be installed to better illuminate the building’s gray fabric ceiling.

A man accused of swinging a tire iron at Reggie Jackson of the Angels last month pleaded no-contest to a charge of disturbing the peace in Desert Municipal Court at Palm Springs. Tim C. Williams, 20, of Glendora was fined $95 and put on a year’s probation.

Major league umpires will consider whether to go along with baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s call for mandatory drug-testing.

“We haven’t decided yet,” said Richie Phillips, the executive director of the umpires’ union, adding that a board meeting is scheduled for today. “We may have a vote of the membership after that,” he said.

Jack Kent Cooke, who wants to bring major league baseball back to the nation’s capital, has called owner Bob Lurie of the San Francisco Giants and expressed interest in buying the team, the Washington Post reported. Lurie said he has spoken to Cooke twice, at baseball’s winter meetings in December and again Thursday, according to the newspaper.

Lurie said, however, that he told Cooke he wants to keep the team in the Bay Area, that he has taken it off the market, and will reassess the situation at the end of the season.