BASEBALL / NATIONAL LEAGUE REPORT : CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Walk Replaces Jackson as Starter in Fifth Game

In what amounted to an admission that he made a mistake by starting Danny Jackson in Game 2, Manager Jim Leyland announced Friday that Bob Walk will replace Jackson as the Pittsburgh Pirate starting pitcher for Game 5 Sunday.

Jackson is 0-4 against the Atlanta Braves this season, including an awful performance in Game 2 during which he allowed four runs in 1 2/3 innings.

“Bob is good against some of their key people,” Leyland said. “The reason we went with Jackson is that he is not used to coming out of the bullpen, where Bob has some experience with that. And Danny had been on some winning teams in the postseason.

“But Danny is now 0-4, so we’re going with Bob.”

Walk, who gave up the grand slam to Ron Gant in Game 2, has held David Justice to a .125 career average, and Otis Nixon has a .143 average against him.

However, Jeff Blauser is batting .357 against Walk and Terry Pendleton is batting .320, including two hits in three at-bats this season.

Walk battled groin injuries this season but was 10-6 with a 3.20 earned-run average.

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The Pirates say something was proved by the sellout crowd at Three Rivers Stadium for Game 3 of the National League championship series.

“The perception that Pittsburgh is not a baseball town will die,” said Rick Cerrone, the club’s vice president of publicity. “All of that talk is over.”

The talk began when there were 11,000 empty seats in the 58,729-seat stadium for Game 7 of the playoffs last season.

The talk continued this season when the Pirates drew fewer fans for a three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals than the Cardinals drew for one game with the Pirates the next week in St. Louis.

At the time, even Leyland said, “I can’t understand what the problem is.”

But the Pirates have sold out Game 3 and Game 4 and are close to selling out Game 5. This season they sold 2.1 million tickets, despite an area population of 2.8 million, the second smallest in the National League.

“This is a tiny area, and look at the size of our stadium,” Cerrone said. “There is a reason nobody builds stadiums our size anymore. If we had a 45,000-seat stadium, it would be a different story.”

Cerrone said that last year’s embarrassment happened because the Pirates sold their playoff tickets on an individual-game basis, unlike many teams that force fans to purchase tickets for all home playoff games in advance.

“As you can guess, not a lot of people walked in asking for Game 7 tickets before the series started,” Cerrone said. “Nobody knew there would be a seventh game until about 2 a.m. on the morning of the game. That’s not a lot of time to sell out the stadium.”

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Deion Sanders, who doesn’t speak with reporters, continues to tell teammates that he will play for the Atlanta Falcons and Braves on Sunday.

Sanders would charter a plane from Pittsburgh early Sunday morning after Game 4, arrive in Miami about three hours later, play for the Falcons against the Dolphins at 1 p.m., then return to Pittsburgh. He would probably arrive at Three Rivers Stadium 30 minutes before the game.

All of this has Manager Bobby Cox confused.

“I don’t know if (Falcon Coach Jerry) Glanville would let him play,” Cox said. “But everything keeps changing. I don’t know anything about the contracts, but I think he is obligated to both teams.”

Sanders has contractual obligations to both teams and would lose around $118,000 if he misses the football game. It would cost considerably less to charter a plane. There have been rumors that Sanders’ shoe company would pay for the charter.

With only two left-handed pinch hitters, Jeff Treadway and Sanders, Cox could be in trouble if Sanders became stuck in Miami and missed the baseball game.

“We need him on our bench,” Cox said.

When asked if any manager has had this problem before, Cox shook his head. “But then, there’s never been a Deion before,” he said.

Said John Smoltz, the Braves’ starter tonight: “I think if you talked to everyone on our team, they’d love to have the talent to play two sports, like Deion does. We respect him for that and accept what he has to do, but it’s a good feeling when he’s with us because he adds another threat to our arsenal--whether he’s starting or coming off the bench.”

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A surprise awaited the Braves when they bused into Pittsburgh from the airport Thursday. Signs had been placed along the highway with tomahawks painted inside a red circle with a slash. . . . Pirate fans countered the foam rubber tomahawks of Braves fans with yellow form rubber hooks that they shook throughout the evening. . . . The Braves are attempting to become the fifth consecutive team from the West to win the playoffs. The West has won 13 of the previous 23 playoffs with the East.