Left-Handed Strategy Turns Out All Right

Somebody should give Boston Manager Joe Morgan a Chicago roster for the next time the Red Sox play the Chicago White Sox.

Last week at Comiskey Park, Morgan decided to start catcher Rick Cerone, a right-handed hitter, instead of slumping left-hander Rich Gedman against right-hander Shawn Hillegas, the former Dodger.

Cerone proceeded to break a 3-3 tie in the sixth inning by hitting a two-run home run, and the Red Sox went on to win, 8-4.

Good strategy by Morgan, right?

“When I came to the park, I thought Hillegas was a left-hander,” Morgan admitted. “So I decided to put Cerone in there. Then I found out he’s a right-hander about an hour-and-a-half before the game, and I said, ‘What the heck,’ and left him in there.

“It turned out to be a good gaffe.”

Add gaffe: Said Cerone: “I didn’t know what Joe was thinking when I saw my name in the lineup. But then I thought about it, and I said, ‘I bet he’s confusing Hillegas with Paul Kilgus.’ ”

Kilgus is a left-hander, but he pitches for the Chicago Cubs.

Trivia time: What was the site of the first major league baseball game on the West Coast?

Breaking up: Rick Cushing of the Louisville Courier-Journal reported a story from Arthur Hancock III, part-owner of Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence, about songwriter-singer Burt Bacharach and trainer Charlie Whittingham.

“Bacharach had a filly trained by Charlie that was favored to win a stakes at Santa Anita,” Hancock said. “She finished fourth, and Bacharach came back to the barn after the race and told Charlie, ‘Looks to me like she needs to be wormed,’ a reference to a medical treatment to eliminate worms from a horse’s system.

“Charlie said, ‘Looks to me like your piano needs to be wormed; there haven’t been many hits come out of it lately. And while you’re at it, you can take your horses out of my barn and find yourself another trainer.’ ”

Name game: When pitcher Michael Anthony Smith from Jackson, Miss., was assigned to the Baltimore Orioles’ triple-A farm team at Rochester of the International League this season, he joined a staff that included another Michael Anthony Smith, from San Antonio, Tex.

Obviously, this presented a problem for official scorers, team statisticians and the wire services which provide the linescores to the media: When Michael Anthony Smith pitched, which one was he?

The club came up with a solution: Mssrs. Smith are now known as Mississippi and Texas.

Trivia answer: Seals Stadium, San Francisco. The Giants blanked the Dodgers, 8-0, on April 15, 1958, before a capacity crowd of 22,900.

Standing pat: After the Sacramento Kings announced that the team was extending the contract of Coach Jerry Reynolds for another two years, Gregg Lukenbill, managing partner of the team, which finished 30 games behind the Lakers in the Pacific Division, had this to say: “He’s committed to us, and we’re committed to him. We probably all ought to be committed.”

Quotebook: New York Yankee pitcher Tommy John after giving up back-to-back ground ball run-scoring singles to the Kansas City Royals: “I can only throw them, I can’t direct them.”