Orioles Can Count on Nancy’s Support : Lopez Is Happier Now Knight’s in Baltimore

There was a time, back when public golf courses outnumbered private, back when you had actually heard of the people who played on the PGA Tour, back when pay-per-view boxing cost $10, that Nancy Lopez could be talked about all by her lonesome.

Putting pundits called her a fairway queen, a term which has also changed a bit through the years, and bestowed upon her the task of making the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. tour a viable and exciting product.

See Nancy drive. See Nancy chip. See Nancy putt. See Nancy smile while doing all of these.

But, as one might guess, some of that has changed. In horse racing terms, Nancy Lopez has become part of an entry.

No longer can you read or hear about Nancy Lopez without the mention of her husband, Ray Knight, a former Met who has taken up with the Baltimore Orioles.

So if you think this troublesome treatise is going to be different, you just don’t know sportswriting.

Beyond the fact that Nancy Lopez is an outstanding golfer, a wonderful person and a caring mother what more can you say?

Where’s the flaw in the fabric? The tear in the tape?

It’s more fun to talk about how tough it is to make a sports marriage work. It’s time to resurface the usuals, Tommy Mason and Cathy Rigby; Olga Fikotova and Harold Connolly; Terry Bradshaw and JoJo Starbuck. Why, even Nancy and Ray were each married previously, although to none of the above.

But instead, Nancy Lopez seems to be trying to give her life some semblance of order. Even with two young children, the traditional family module this isn’t. But these days, what is?

Lopez is here at the Mission Hills Country Club, preparing for today’s start of the $500,000 Nabisco Dinah Shore golf tournament, one of the four major events on the LPGA tour.

On Monday, though, Lopez will become a baseball groupie, flying to Baltimore to witness her husband’s opening game with the Orioles.

Lopez plans to stretch the airline mileage programs this summer, trying to coordinate her golf schedule with Knight’s road schedule. The goal, a lofty one indeed, is to be home in Baltimore at the same times the Orioles are there.

“I’d like to play about 19 tournaments,” Lopez said.

This is her sixth tournament of the year, which includes a win in Sarasota, Fla., the second week of the season.

Lopez played in only four tournaments last season, choosing instead to stay at home with her second child, Errin, who was born in May.

“I didn’t miss it,” Lopez said. “I enjoyed being me. Being a baseball wife, doing nothing without any pressure. It’s nice just to get up in the morning and fix breakfast.”

Being stout of heart, though, Lopez decided to shun the simplicity of home-cooked breakfasts in favor of the fast life of room-service breakfasts. She rejoined the tour eight months later.

“I have to keep reminding myself I didn’t play for a year,” Lopez said. “But I won at Sarasota (in February), which was really too quick.”

Only Nancy Lopez would complain about winning too quickly. She seems to enjoy ducking and jabbing questions. Her answers could take the edge off a Las Vegas betting line.

“I think I’ve become a softie,” Lopez said. “When I had Ashley (her first child) I didn’t know how to act. I was a golfer, yet I was a mother, also. It was definitely a conflict of personality. When was I supposed to be tough? I just didn’t know how to act.”

Lopez also had trouble adjusting to New York, when Knight played for the Mets.

“After they stole all my jewelry and broke into my house, I knew I didn’t want to stay there,” Lopez said.

“He (Knight) deserved better than what I saw. A lot of people wrote him nasty letters. But those are the same people who feel money is more important than happiness.”

With that premise in mind, Knight ought to be mighty happy, because he signed with Baltimore for less than half of what the Mets offered.

“To go back to New York with the attitude he had wouldn’t have been good,” Lopez said.

She recalled one incident where a fan was yelling at Knight, suggesting he use Lopez’s putter to hit with, which most certainly would have raise more eyebrows than putting pine tar too far up the handle of your bat.

“(The fan) was sitting two rows in front of me,” Lopez said. “So I asked the person in front of me to tap him on the shoulder. He turned around and just looked at me. He was embarrassed. I said to him, ‘He can’t use my putter. I’ve got it right here.’ He didn’t say anything the rest of the game.”

Lopez and Knight met in 1978, when Knight was with the Cincinnati Reds. Since meeting in the United States would have made too much sense, Japan was the site of their first get-together. Both were on promotional tours.

“I knew who she was because she won all those tournaments,” Knight said through a public relations interpreter. “She came to a game with her nephew, Bernie, and sent a note to me, asking for an autograph for him. I wondered why she wanted mine when the Reds had big stars like Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan.”

Good question, Ray.

“I got him (Bernie) on the field to watch batting practice and the following year, when we went to play the Dodgers, where Bernie lived, I got tickets to the games for him and met Nancy’s family out there.

“We were both married at the time but were having marital problems. I was divorced in 1980 and Nancy and her husband broke up shortly after.”

To get to the point, they were married in October, 1982.

Lopez’s return to Mission Hills is billed as a battle between her and Pat Bradley, the golfer who bumped Lopez off the cover of the LPGA media guide.

Is this a grudge match? A fight to the finish?

Don’t be silly. This is Nancy Lopez we’re talking about.