Baseball : To Surprise of Some, This Season’s Tigers Have Racing Stripes

They were 11-19 on May 12, leaving the cynics feeling smug. Who could survive the loss of Lance Parrish, or the uncertainty concerning Dan Petry’s elbow or the inconsistency that relief ace Willie Hernandez had displayed since the big summer of 1984?

“If you went to sleep in May and woke up today, you wouldn’t believe the standings,” Detroit Tigers coach Dick Tracewski said the other day.

By going 60-28 since May 12 and before dropping a doubleheader to Cleveland Friday night, the Tigers surged into first place in the American League’s Eastern Division race and confounded the cynics.

That 60-28 record over an 88- game span was the same record the Tigers registered over the first 88 games in 1984, when they virtually wrapped up the division title by the end of May.

“To get where we are, we had to burn a torch,” Manager Sparky Anderson said.

Anderson, the only manager ever to win a World Series in both leagues, added:

“If I get into the playoffs, this will be the most special season I’ve ever had because everyone said we were (manure). Now they know we’re not (manure). Even the Yankees said they were worried about Toronto and not us. I think they know now that we’re around.”

In the wake of last week’s three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins, in which the Tigers outscored the Western Division leaders, 26-3, Detroit was averaging 5.7 runs a game, was leading the majors in runs and was on a pace to break the club record for runs and home runs in a season.

“Basically, we have a whole team of regulars,” first baseman-designated hitter Darrell Evans said. “We can put anyone in there, and we’re not going to go from an overwhelming strength to a weakness.”

Tiger General Manager Bill Lajoie has taken the play away from his New York and Toronto counterparts by strengthening his team with the acquisitions of infielders Bill Madlock and Jim Morrison and pitcher Doyle Alexander.

Alexander’s personality doesn’t win him many friends--”I don’t think I’ve ever met a more miserable human being,” Oriole General Manager Hank Peters once said--but he knows how to influence September games, boasting a 15-3 September record for the last three years.

“I love a pitcher like Alexander,” Sparky Anderson said. “Like I told (Alan) Trammell, any time he wants to throw a strike, he can do it. I love a guy where I don’t never have to worry about no ball fours.”

Arbitrator Tom Roberts has scheduled a meeting with representatives of the owners’ Player Relations Committee and the Major League Players Assn. for Aug. 31., presumably to announce his decision in the collusion case regarding Donnie Moore, Kirk Gibson and the free agents from the winter of 1985-86.

On Monday, arbitrator George Nicolau will resume his hearing on the union’s second collusion grievance, regarding the free agents from last winter.

Six weeks remain in the 1987 season, but the Angels are already finished playing the Twins and Oakland A’s, two of the three teams ahead of them in the American League West, and the A’s are also through with the Twins.

“The way we play Minnesota and with what we have to do, I wish we played Minnesota the rest of the way,” Angel General Manager Mike Port said, referring to the gap that separates the teams.

A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson isn’t sure he would want to play all 40 or so remaining games with the Twins, but he would like two more cracks at them--home and away.

“But we’d have to ignore the bottom line to do it,” he said. “We’re also happy having the Yankees here (in Oakland) this weekend. We’re hopeful of drawing 110,000 people for the three games,”

There’s the rub.

Although each of the 12 teams in the National League plays 90 games within its division and 72 out of it, each of the 14 teams in the American League plays more games, 84, out of its division than in, 78.

The Eastern Division has long wanted to change that, citing a thriving franchise in Toronto and the historic and geographical rivalries among the Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians.

The seven Eastern teams would prefer to play three series at home and three away with each of their division rivals. The current format calls for each of the 14 teams to play two series at home and two away with the other teams.

The West, struggling for economic and artistic parity, has opposed change on the grounds that it would have to yield lucrative dates to the East.

Or as Port asked, do you give up profitable matchups for the sake of competitive matchups?

“Hopefully, the competitive match-ups will breed profit, too,” he said. “But we’ve traditionally drawn better with the Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers.”

American League President Bobby Brown, viewing it in those same economic terms, has broken previous deadlocks between the two divisions by supporting the West, a league official said. Now, with the East continuing to clamor for change and the West boasting a degree of balance and an array of strong young players, the prospects for a new format are said to have improved.

The subject was debated at the June owners’ meeting in Philadelphia and at two league scheduling meetings that followed. The 1988 schedule, using the current procedure, is already in place.

In 1989, however, each of the Western teams may sacrifice one or two dates with each of the Eastern teams, creating a format in which the 14 teams--finally and logically--would play more games within their division than out of it.

Is Bo Jackson’s baseball career coming to a close almost before it has started? Will his hobby as a Raider running back supplant his occupation as a Royal outfielder?

It’s getting more difficult for the Royals to keep Jackson in the game. Lonnie Smith started nine straight games in left field before Jackson played Monday and Tuesday nights against Texas.

Jackson then struck out 6 times in 7 at-bats, running his season total to 148 strikeouts in 355 at-bats. He had 1 hit in his last 19 at-bats at that point and was batting .248 with 20 home runs and 49 runs batted in. His Tuesday night misplay in the outfield led to a 3-1 defeat, and he was back on the bench Wednesday.

Said Kansas City General Manager John Schuerholz: “It’s too late in the year to focus on anything or be sensitive to anything other than what we have to do to win. Playing time, how a player is used . . . any of those areas of normal concern through the year take a back seat now.”

The Philadelphia Phillies’ Kevin Gross has defeated the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals since his suspension for having sandpaper in his glove. The suspension was delayed when Gross appealed.

National League President A. Bartlett Giamatti will conduct a hearing Aug. 27, meaning that the Phillies, even if Gross is suspended immediately, will not really be short a pitcher since rosters can be expanded Sept. 1.

Cub Manager Gene Michael was enraged.

“That’s soft. That stinks. That’s not fair,” Michael said. “I want the ballclub to be punished. We’re in a race with them. I’ll probably get more of a suspension for this than he will, and I didn’t have sandpaper.”

After the Houston Astros’ Nolan Ryan pitched seven shutout innings against the Cardinals Tuesday night, St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog said: “He’s the greatest arm ever to put on a pair of spikes.”

A six-game losing streak that ended Thursday and took the Seattle Mariners out of the race in the American League West seemed to leave Manager Dick Williams convinced that his team was playing over its head.

“I think we have some personnel who need moving,” Williams said. “There is no ‘Win One for the Gipper’ anymore. You just ask the players to go out and do their job. If they can’t do it, they don’t belong here. Most clubs in the majors have players who don’t belong. We have our full share.”

The Texas Rangers have told relief pitcher Mitch Williams that he will be fined if he can’t control his temper. Williams has walked 72 and struck out 92 in 75 innings. He walked three straight Boston hitters the other day, including Wade Boggs, at whom he yelled: “Swing the bat you . . . “ Thus, the threat of a fine.

Smelling a pennant, San Francisco Giants’ President Al Rosen has acquired three veteran pitchers in a span of seven weeks. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Rick Reuschel is the latest, joining recent acquisitions Dave Dravecky and Don Robinson.

Reuschel, 38, complained of a tender elbow in his last three starts and cost the Giants one of their most dependable relief pitchers in 26-year-old Jeff Robinson, but Rosen said: “We’re entering a 40-game season. You can’t see the future. You don’t know when the opportunity will present itself again. You’ve got to go for it now.”

Chutzpah-of-the-week award is shared by pitchers Storm Davis of the San Diego Padres and Neil Allen of the Chicago White Sox.

The oft-injured Davis demanded to be traded after being sent to the bullpen with a 2-7 record and 6.34 earned-run average. Said Manager Larry Bowa: “The problem is that he thinks the S and D on our shirts stands for Storm Davis.”

Allen, who suffered a serious arm injury last year, was sent to Vero Beach, Fla., in the lowest minors as part of his recovery process this year, has also asked to be traded after being removed from the rotation with an 0-7 record.

Of Allen, who makes $1.25 million, Manager Jim Fregosi said: “If he wants to cry, let him cry. He was given every opportunity. The man is 0-7. What am I supposed to do, keep running him out there?”

When the Yankees’ Dave Winfield missed Wednesday night’s game against the Seattle Mariners because he needed a rest, the New York Post headline read: “Winnie the Pooped.”