Kicker Couldn’t Kick About Training Rules

Michigan State won the football game, 19-12, and the hero was Dirk Krijt. It happened 15 years ago, but Duffy Daugherty remembers it as if it were yesterday.

“It was against Ohio State in 1972, the game was on national TV and Ohio State was No. 1,” Daugherty recalls. “We had a small young man from Holland, a soccer player weighing 130 pounds. It was his first kicking assignment. He kicked four field goals in the first half, helping us to win.

“About an hour after the game, during a press conference, this young man stuck his head around the door. He was smoking a cigarette and he said, ‘Hi, coach, I’m going out with the girls tonight and have a few beers. Do you want to come along?’ I said no thanks.

“Unfortunately, one of the local writers recognized our Dutch kicker and asked what kind of training rules we had. I answered that we had some new ones now--that permitted anyone kicking four field goals in the first half to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and go out with the girls.”

A couple of quotes out of the past on Bill Buckner:

--Mark Heisler, The Times: “The last guy who ran as badly as Bill Buckner was Long John Silver.”

--Herman Franks, former Chicago Cubs manager: “I thought he was the All-American boy. I thought he was the kind of guy who’d dive in the dirt to save ballgames for you. What I found out, after being around him for a while, is that he’s nuts. He doesn’t care about anything except getting a hit. He goes berserk if he goes through a game without getting a hit.”

--Buckner, describing Franks, after being traded: “A fat clown.”

Trivia Time: Who is the only player in major league history to hit 50 or more home runs in a season and also hit 50 or more doubles in a season? (Answer below.)

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: At Montreal, first baseman Andres Galarraga, second baseman Vance Law, third baseman Tim Wallach and shortstop Hubie Brooks all were hitting more than .300 last week, and somebody wondered if any team had ever finished the season with all four infielders batting more than .300.

The answer is yes, but you have to go back awhile. The last team to do it was the 1930 St. Louis Cardinals. The infielders were Jim Bottomley, first base, .304; Frankie Frisch, second base, .346; Sparky Adams, third base, .314, and Charley Gelbert, shortstop, .304.

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, on the bat control of Wade Boggs: “His father was a renowned fast-pitch softball player in Florida, so the little boy had to master the quick inside-out swing needed to hit a 100-m.p.h. pitch from just 45 feet away.”

From General Manager Bill Lajoie of the Detroit Tigers, calling ex-Dodger Bill Madlock a positive force in the clubhouse: “I remember the first day he joined us in Cleveland. He was happy, folksy, calm. He looked so comfortable.”

Why not? Look at what he had just escaped.

Trivia Answer: Hank Greenberg of Detroit. He hit 58 homers in 1938 and 63 doubles in 1934. He also had 50 doubles in 1940. Coming close were Lou Gehrig with 52 doubles and 49 homers, twice, and Frank Robinson with 51 doubles and 49 homers.

Quotebook

Cleveland Indians catcher Rick Dempsey, recalling his home plate collision with Kansas City’s Bo Jackson: “He went through me like I was whipped cream.”