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Met Tourists Meet the Green Monster

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If nothing else, the New York Mets’ exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox Thursday night at Fenway Park gave the Mets a chance to do a little sightseeing.

Few of the Mets had ever been to Fenway.

Said pitcher Roger McDowell: “It’s beautiful. (Carl) Yastrzemski and (Ted) Williams played here; it’s so full of nostalgia”

McDowell, camera in hand, then played the part of the tourist, taking snapshots of the fabled Green Monster in left field.

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Howard Johnson, who played three seasons in the American League, was moved enough to act out Carlton Fisk’s famous 12th-inning home run over the Monster in the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. Johnson waved both hands overhead, steering the imaginary ball fair, then leaped with joy, a la Fisk.

Add Mets: The trip was not without some misadventure. The team bus broke down on the way to Fenway from the airport, but a passing motorist came to the rescue of Gary Carter and several of his teammates. “They told us to flag down cabs,” Carter said. “But we ran into a guy who is a super fan. This guy was ecstatic just giving us a ride. We tried to give him money, but he wouldn’t take it.”

Last Add Mets: The Mets have a history of such pregame disasters. Before their first game, in St. Louis on April 10, 1962, several players got trapped in the hotel elevator when it became stuck between floors. When it was finally freed, the players boarded the team bus to the stadium, only to learn that the game had been rained out. It never rains but it pours.

Harvey Salem, the Houston Oilers’ unhappy holdout tackle, returned to practice Friday, but he did not get a warm welcome. First, Salem, who missed 44 days, was told he would have to pay $68,000 in fines. Then he had to listen to Coach Jerry Glanville’s harsh comments.

“We’ve got all these players on the team working hard to beat Green Bay Sunday,” Glanville said. “Now the city’s media is focused on Harvey Salem. Until today, I hadn’t given Harvey a thought. Harvey is yesterday’s news.”

Wonder what Buddy Ryan would have said.

Ken Stabler, who led the Oakland Raiders to a victory in the 1977 Super Bowl, has written a tell-it-all autobiography called “Snake.”

In it, Stabler writes that his hard-drinking, hell-raising days are over. “I stayed 18 for the last 20 years of my life,” said Stabler, now 40. “I haven’t had hard booze for the past three years, I don’t eat red meat anymore and I work out three days a week. . . . I owe it all to my wife, Rose.”

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Add Snake: About Houston Oiler backup quarterback Gifford Nielsen, Stabler writes: “He was just as straight as a string--didn’t smoke, didn’t drink. I don’t think I ever got used to the smell of milkshakes on his breath. (My) huddles were always 90 proof.”

Quotebook

John McGrath of the Denver Post, on the Goose Gossage controversy: “Ballard Smith (the Padres’ president) has painted himself as a hypersensitive little dictator who, if nothing else, is going to keep me from frequenting his family’s hamburger stand again.”

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