Yankee Great Bill Dickey Is Dead at 86

Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey, who spent three decades with the New York Yankees as a player, manager and coach, died Friday in Little Rock, Ark., at 86. A cause of death wasn’t immediately disclosed.

Dickey batted .313 with 202 home runs in 1,712 games from 1928 to 1946, all with the Yankees and all at catcher. The Yankees reached eight World Series with Dickey and won the championship seven times.

Dickey began playing during the glory days of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and his career overlapped the start of Joe DiMaggio’s rise to fame. Dickey was Gehrig’s roommate for several years and played himself in “Pride of the Yankees,” the movie about Gehrig that starred Gary Cooper.

Dickey was an 11-time All-Star. His No. 8--also worn by Yogi Berra after he replaced Dickey--was retired.

In May of 1946, Dickey replaced Hall of Famer Joe McCarthy as the Yankee manager. Dickey resigned at the end of the season, then became a coach with the Yankees when Casey Stengel took over as manager in 1949. Dickey coached until 1957.

Dickey had his greatest seasons in 1936-37. In 1936, he hit 22 home runs, drove in 107 runs and batted .362. The next season he hit 29 homers with 133 RBIs and had a .332 average. The left-handed hitting Dickey finished his career with 1,209 RBIs.

Dickey caught 38 games in the World Series, a record later broken by Berra. Dickey batted .255 with five home runs in World Series play.

No funeral services had been arranged Friday night.

Golf

A struggling U.S. team retained the lead in the World Cup of Golf, but Fred Couples and Davis Love III gave up three shots and a profuse apology to Nick Price and Mark McNulty of Zimbabwe in second-round play Friday at Orlando, Fla.

Couples played a blind tee shot over a stand of pines and bushes on the 309-yard 14th hole, driving the green on the par four. Price was lining up a short putt on the green when when Couples’ ball missed him by a few feet. Both Americans apologized.

“I just didn’t know they were on the green,” Couples said.

Price shot a 69. McNulty had a bogey-free 68 and they moved to within one stroke of the lead at 278, 10 under at the tournament halfway point.

Couples, who had a 71, and Love, who had a 69, gave the defending champion U.S. team a 277 total.

John Daly, playing in his first tournament since his suspension from the PGA Tour, shot a 68 and was eight strokes behind leader Donnie Hammond after two rounds of the Mexican Open at Mexico City, a non-tour event. . . . Heather Farr, who has battled breast cancer and related ailments since 1989, was upgraded to fair condition at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., as she continued to recover from surgery to relieve a brain hemorrhage.

Tennis

Cedric Pioline defeated Goran Ivanisevic, 7-6 (9-7) 6-0, at Antwerp, Belgium, to reach the semifinals of the European Community Championships and keep alive the race for the last berth in the World Championships. Pioline’s victory keeps the Frenchman on track for the ATP’s season-ending event. Boris Becker, also a semifinalist in Antwerp, beat Sweden’s Magnus Larsson, 6-1, 7-6 (7-0), to stay on track to defend his world title at Frankfurt next week.

Amy Frazier upset fourth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, in the quarterfinals of the Virginia Slims of Philadelphia. Frazier advanced to a semifinal today against No. 2 seed Conchita Martinez of Spain, a 6-4, 6-4 winner over No. 9 Natalia Zvereva of Belarus. Steffi Graf defeated Amanda Coetzer, 6-4, 6-1, and will play Kimberly Po in the semifinals. Po upset Zina Garrison-Jackson, 6-2, 6-4.

Hockey

Philadelphia’s Eric Lindros has a partial ligament tear in his right knee that will keep him sidelined up to six weeks. Lindros, tied for second in the NHL with 15 goals, was injured Thursday night.

Motor Sports

Larry Roeseler recorded his ninth victory in the Baja 1000, leading a team of three riders over the rugged off-road course in just under 14 hours. Roeseler, of Bloomington, Calif., drove the Kawasaki KX500 across the finished line for a team that included riders Danny Hamel of Boulder City, Nev. and Ty Davis, of Hesperia, Calif. Taking turns on the motorcycle, the team covered the 762.4-mile course in 13 hours, 57 minutes, 22 seconds, averaging 54.63 mph.

Jeff Purvis won the Jiffy Lube 500K ARCA Hooters Cup stock car race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Harry Gant won the pole position for Sunday’s Hooters 500. Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace barely made the cut in the opening round of qualifying.

Miscellany

A dozen dogs trained to find bombs have been imported from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to beef up security at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. . . . Steroid use is endorsed by NFL teams and rampant among players, former Pittsburgh Steeler guard Terry Long charged in a lawsuit filed against the league and the Steelers. Long’s positive steroid test in 1991 led him to eat rat poison in a suicide attempt. He charged that the NFL’s steroid test is arbitrary. . . . The United States won its opening match at Paris in the first day of the Group C qualifying for the 1994 World Men’s Volleyball Championship. The Americans defeated Slovenia, 15-11, 15-7, 15-4. . . . The Dallas Mavericks signed forward Chucky Brown to a one-year contract and put forward Randy White on the injured list because of sore knees. . . . German track star Heike Drechsler has received a death threat from the hometown of the man who stabbed tennis star Monica Seles, her coach said. Erich Drechsler, who is also Heike’s father-in-law, said the threat came after the long jumper made a comment about Steffi Graf. A Graf fan stabbed Seles on April 30 in Hamburg.