Fehr Says Baseball Strike Is Closer

Major league baseball players and owners emerged from a negotiating session in New York Wednesday closer to a strike than at any time during their 25 previous meetings, according to Donald Fehr, acting director of the players’ association.

He said that written proposals submitted by the owners were no surprise to players but that the oral exchanges between the sides had led him to conclude that “the likelihood of a confrontation, whether a strike or not, is quite high.”

Responding to Fehr’s assessment that the two sides are “as far apart as New York and Los Angeles,” Lee MacPhail, chief negotiator for the owners, said, “That’s better than London and Peking.”

Fehr said that a strike date would probably be set before the All-Star Game, July 16.

Jockey Robert Adair, Los Alamitos Race Course’s all-time stakes-winning rider, has filed a $500,000 suit in Orange County Superior Court, claiming that race track negligence led to an accident last December in which he suffered a broken shoulder and facial cuts.

The suit alleges that Los Alamitos was negligent in allowing the race to be run in fog, and it charges a breach of an oral contract that guarantees safe riding conditions for jockeys.

Adair, 41, has not ridden since the accident more than six months ago. Jockey John Creager’s horse ran into a fog bank on the track and bolted to his left, tossing Creager and bumping into Adair’s horse. That bump knocked Adair out of the saddle, and he was stepped on by several horses.

Detroit Lion punt and kick returner Robby Martin was sentenced in San Luis Obispo to two years’ probation for punching out windows in the home of his estranged wife’s boyfriend and then chopping up the boyfriend’s Corvette sports car with a machete.

No one was near the windows when Martin broke them with his fists, according to testimony, and the car was unoccupied when Martin hacked it to pieces with the machete.

Along with the probation, Martin, who said he was angered by his estranged wife’s refusal to allow him to see their 2-year-old son, was ordered to pay $1,450 in restitution for damage to the house and about $3,000 for damage to the car.

The lightweight title bout between World Boxing Council champion Jose Luis Ramirez and undefeated North American Boxing Federation champion Hector (Macho) Camacho has been rescheduled for Aug. 10 at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. The bout was scheduled for June 6 but was postponed when Camacho complained of a leg injury.

In qualifying for the Le Mans 24-hour auto race, Italy’s Alessandro Nannini was fastest in the Lancia he will share with France’s Bob Wollek, lapping the eight-mile road circuit at an average speed of more than 155 m.p.h. and beating the track record set by six-time winner Jacky Ickx of Belgium in 1983. The race will start Saturday morning.

Colorado Springs, Colo., will be the site of the 1986 World Cycling Championships--the first time the event will be held in the United States. The U.S. Olympic Training Center will serve as host to the cyclists, who will compete Aug. 27 through Sept. 7, 1986. Road competition will be held at the Air Force Academy, track events at the 7-Eleven velodrome.

Alan Rothenberg, president of the Clippers, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington as the committee considered bills that would give professional sports leagues exemptions from antitrust laws.

Rothenberg said: “It is especially ironic that the free-wheeling, robust entrepreneurs, who tend to own teams and normally rail against congressional interference with the free enterprise system, are today running to Congress for special legislation to vest their illegal monopolies.”

Russell Granik, executive vice president of the NBA, spoke in favor of the bills.

The Justice Department remains opposed to any of the bills that propose to give leagues immunity from antitrust laws. None of the bills would apply retroactively to the Raiders, granted the right to move from Oakland by a federal court that found the NFL could not legally block the move.

The U.S. Ski Team has named defending Olympic downhill champion Bill Johnson to its 1986 national squad, despite Johnson’s announcement last month that he will turn professional. “The situation is now basically what Billy wants to do,” team spokesman John Dakin said.

Names in the News

Nancy Darsch, an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team that won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, was named women’s basketball coach at Ohio State. She replaces Tara Van Derveer, who is moving to Stanford.

Pitcher Milt Wilcox of the Detroit Tigers has been put on the 21-day disabled list, retroactive to June 7, because of tendinitis in his right shoulder.

The Toronto Blue Jays signed 17-year-old catcher Greg David of Naples, Fla., their first-round selection in last week’s free-agent draft.