Wadkins Named 1995 Ryder Cup Captain

Lanny Wadkins will go to his ninth Ryder Cup. The question is whether it will be as a player, the captain of the U.S. team, or both.

“I still think of myself first as a player,” Wadkins said Wednesday, after the PGA announced that he would serve as captain of the 1995 U.S. team that will play Europe’s best at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.

“Making the Ryder Cup team has always been one of my main goals,” he said. “If I play my way on, then I’ll have to make a decision about whether I can be a playing captain or not.”

Wadkins, 44, has played on eight Ryder Cup teams and has a 20-11-2 record.

Baseball

The Angels, for what is believed to be the first time in franchise history, will retain the services of an attorney, Mark Rosenthal of a Century City law firm, to negotiate all player contracts during the off-season. The Angels’ biggest immediate concern is resolving the differences in salary negotiations with pitcher Mark Langston.

The Angels also promoted Tim Mead, 35, to vice president/media relations. He has been with the Angels’ public relations department since 1981. Also, Kevin Uhlich is now vice president/operations, and John Sevano is assistant vice president/creative services and broadcasting.

Pro Basketball

Charles Barkley, Phoenix Suns’ star speaking in his most emphatic terms about retirement, said “it’s time to move on” from basketball after this season. He added that his next arena of competition might be politics.

Barkley spoke out in Chicago before the Suns’ 132-113 loss to the Bulls on Tuesday night. The NBA’s MVP cited back problems and recent altercations with patrons at a Scottsdale nightclub-pool hall as reasons he has soured on the NBA.

The Philadelphia 76ers are negotiating with New Jersey officials to move the team across the Delaware River to Camden, N.J.

Miscellany

The United States will be without forwards Roy Wegerle and Eric Wynalda and midfielders John Harkes and Tab Ramos when it plays Germany in an exhibition soccer game Dec. 18 at Stanford. U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic said he didn’t try to obtain most of the European-based U.S. players for the game, choosing instead to go with the group that has been training in California.

A small plane trailing a banner reading “Cubans Defect Now” flew over a stadium in Puerto Rico hours before Cuba’s national baseball team had its 100-game winning streak stopped. The Cuban team lost, 4-3, to a team that included some major leaguers. The plane was the latest attempt by exiles to encourage defection of Cuban athletes and officials in Puerto Rico for regional athletic championships.

Names in the News

Charles Gwynn, father of major league baseball players Tony and Chris Gwynn, died in Tempe, Ariz., at 63 of a heart condition, his family said. . . . Hal Mitchell, starting lineman at UCLA, who played two seasons with the New York Giants and was head football coach at Brigham Young in the early ‘60s, died at 63 after a long battle with cancer. . . . Grady Benton, who set an NCAA record for freshman passing accuracy last season but was beaten out as a starter this year, will leave Arizona State to transfer to a lower-level program. . . . Anthony Freeman of Inglewood won the national championship last weekend in the American Bicycle Assn.’s BMX cruiser class for riders 20 and over at Oklahoma City.