National League / Gordon Edes : Padres’ Nettles Gets Rose-Line-of-Week Award

The award for the best Pete Rose line of the week goes to Padre third baseman Graig Nettles, who said:

“Eric Show may be drummed out of the John Birch Society for making a Red famous.”

Runner-up award goes to Steve Garvey of the Padres, who said: “(Rose) should bypass the Hall of Fame and go straight to the Smithsonian.”

Honorable mention goes to Rose himself, for his crack about the “4,192” circle that now adorns the field at Riverfront Stadium. Said Rose: “They usually paint seats. Now we got ‘em painting the AstroTurf.”

One more honorable mention, to the press box observer who said that it was Show who painted the circle so Carmelo Martinez would know where to play left field. Show and Martinez had to be separated in the Padre dugout last Wednesday night after Show criticized Martinez for not catching a line drive hit by Dave Parker.

Cub Manager Jim Frey still has trouble figuring out how pitcher Steve Trout fell off his bicycle last Sunday, giving Rose the chance to tie Ty Cobb’s hit record in Chicago.

“It seems like one thing after another with him,” Frey said of Trout. “I mean, after a while, you’ve got to wonder. Bicycles, shoveling dirt . . . I mean, it makes you wonder. We should add a common-sense clause to his contract.”

Manager Bobby Wine of the Braves, asked about the Dodgers’ postseason chances after watching Los Angeles score 47 runs in five games: “If the Dodgers play like that in the playoffs, the other team shouldn’t even show up. They wouldn’t have enough fielders.

“It was amazing--you couldn’t take a fungo bat and put the ball in play any better than the Dodgers did.”

Did you know . . . The Dodgers were the last team to beat the Mets’ Dwight Gooden before he won 14 in a row, the first team to beat the Padres’ Andy Hawkins after he’d gone 11-0, and the only team to beat the Cardinals’ John Tudor in his last 18 decisions? Tudor started the season 1-7 and has gone 17-1 since, losing only to Fernando Valenzuela on July 20 in Los Angeles, 3-0.

The Dodgers also were the only team to beat the Cubs’ Rick Sutcliffe during the 1984 regular season.

Add Tudor: After Tudor had thrown a three-hitter to beat the Mets, 1-0, last Wednesday, New York’s Keith Hernandez said:

“There are a lot of good left-handers in this league, but he’s the best. There’s no doubt about it.

“You can take your Valenzuelas, your Carltons, your Candelarias, your Matlacks--this guy is the best I’ve faced in my 11 years.

“He knows when to change speeds, when to throw hard. He has a great changeup, and he paints the corners.

“I admire him. He’s nasty.”

Nasty, continued: Tudor wasn’t the only one who came down hard on Hernandez last week. New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote a piece about the Met first baseman that had this headline: “A Cocaine Hero Can Get a Stadium High.”

The same night that Hernandez, who had admitted to former heavy cocaine use in testimony during the Pittsburgh drug-trafficking case--”Pigeons Square,” Breslin called it--was receiving a standing ovation upon his return to Shea Stadium, a small-time drug dealer from the Bronx named Lawrence was being escorted to prison on Rikers Island.

Lawrence’s crime, Breslin wrote, was “cocaine dealing while not wearing a first baseman’s glove.”

Added Breslin: “The only way you could get a baseball player from Shea Stadium to (prison) would be if you had equal justice which, of course, we don’t.”

Future payment: Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog, on Cub rookie shortstop Shawon Dunston: “I always wondered why the Cubs selected Dunston No. 1 in the draft instead of Gooden in 1982. After watching Dunston play shortstop, I know why: Dunston has a stronger arm.”