Near-Perfect Haddix Dies at 68

Harvey Haddix, remembered for pitching 12 perfect innings in a game that he eventually lost, died Saturday at 68.

Haddix, who had a record of 136-113 while pitching for the Cardinals, Phillies, Reds, Pirates and Orioles from 1952-65, died of emphysema in Springfield, Ohio.

While pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 26, 1959, he retired the first 36 Milwaukee Braves he faced.

In the bottom of the 13th, the Braves’ Felix Mantilla reached base on an error and moved to second on a sacrifice by Eddie Mathews. After Henry Aaron was walked intentionally, Joe Adcock homered.

The score was officially listed as 1-0 because Adcock inadvertently passed Aaron on the base path, advancing to second before heading across the diamond to the dugout.

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Bo Jackson, Fernando Valenzuela, Bob Ojeda and Dave Henderson said goodby to their old clubs as Saturday’s midnight deadline to re-sign contracts passed.

The four were offered salary arbitration by their old teams on Dec. 7, but rejected the offers on Dec. 19. Players who go past the Jan. 8 deadline can’t re-sign with their former clubs until May 1.

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The Dodgers announced that they have reached agreement on a one-year contract with newly acquired second baseman Delino DeShields, who was eligible for arbitration.

Winter Sports

Eric Flaim and Andy Gabel clinched spots on the men’s team and Cathy Turner and Amy Peterson earned women’s team berths in the U.S. Olympic short-track speedskating trials at Lake Placid, N.Y.

Flaim, of Boston, set an American record of 1:30.91 in winning the men’s 1,000-meter race. Gabel, of Pewaukee, Wis., won the men’s 500 in 44.31 and Turner, of Rochester, N.Y., set an American record in the 500 of 46.53 seconds, breaking her record of 46.86.

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Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, attempting an Olympic comeback after 10 years on the professional circuit, won the British Ice Dance Championships at Sheffield, England.

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Heidi Zurbriggen earned her first victory in a super giant slalom that was abandoned after a series of crashes at the World Cup event at Altenmark, Austria.

Zurbriggen, the younger sister of retired Swiss star Pirmin Zurbriggen, was leading when the jury stopped the race for safety reasons after a series of spills on the rapidly freezing course.

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Fredrik Nyberg of Sweden scored his first World Cup victory in nearly four years in a giant slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. . . . Rintje Ritsma of the Netherlands broke the world 1,500-meter record with a time of 1 minute, 51.60 seconds at the European all-around Speedskating Championships at Hamar, Norway.

Tennis

Lindsay Davenport of Palos Verdes rallied from a second-set slump to beat 11th-seeded Florencia Labat of Argentina, 6-1, 2-6, 6-3, today in the final of the $150,000 Australian Women’s Hardcourt tennis tournament at Brisbane.

Davenport, 17, had not lost a set throughout the tournament until she ran into the left-handed Labat, the world’s No. 1 junior in 1989. Davenport has risen from 171st to 20th in the rankings in 10 months.

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Unseeded Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands upset Goran Ivanisevic, 6-2, 6-4, at the Qatar Open at Doha. Stefan Edberg defeated Gilbert Schaller of Austria, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7) 6-4, in the other semifinal.

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Alexander Volkov and Yevgeny Kafelnikov will meet in an all-Russian final at Australian Men’s Hardcourt Championships today at Adelaide.

Kafelnikov beat Australian Pat Rafter, 6-1, 7-5, in one semifinal and Volkov beat Nicklas Kulti of Sweden, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, in the other.

Miscellany

A winter storm in the Northeast caused the postponement of two college basketball games and the cancellation of a road race and several racing cards.

Navy’s game at Army was tentatively rescheduled for Feb. 28. St. Joseph’s game at Rhode Island was postponed until today.

The New York Road Runners Club season-opening five-mile race in Central Park was called off.

Aqueduct called off its card for the third time in five days because of snow and ice in New York, and Suffolk Downs in Boston was closed after a storm left 18 inches of snow in Massachusetts.

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Former Alabama football player Gene Jelks, who has accused a former assistant coach of paying him to play, maintained he had ties to an Auburn booster linked to that school’s pay-for-play scandal, according to Georgia court documents.

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Junior Jones retained his World Boxing Assn. bantamweight crown by scoring a 12-round unanimous decision over Elvis Alvarez of Colombia in Catskill, N.Y.

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Calvin Jones, the second-leading career rusher for Nebraska with 3,153 yards, will forgo his senior season of eligibility to enter the NFL draft. . . . Indiana flanker Thomas Lewis, who caught 55 passes for 1,058 yards and seven touchdowns last season, also will pass up his final year of eligibility. . . . All-American linebacker Derrick Brooks said he would remain at Florida State for his senior season.

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Center Mike Modano, the Dallas Stars’ lone representative to the NHL All-Star game, will undergo surgery Monday to repair torn cartilage in his left knee and will miss the Jan. 22 event. . . . Walter Van Winkle, a founding member of the National Basketball Hall of Fame who also served as athletic director at Kentucky Wesleyan College, died in Milwaukee at 93.